Chapter 7 - The Man in the Parking GarageSarge knew they were being followed before the second turn.
It was a silver sedan with tinted windows and a cracked left headlight. He had seen it once near the church, once near the hospital entrance, and now again in the parking garage mirror as he drove Kendra to the county courthouse for an afternoon interview.
Kendra sat rigid in the passenger seat.
“You see it too,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Don’t go to the courthouse.”
“That’s where Patricia told us to meet the county attorney.”
“Dale has people there.”
Sarge turned down one level of the garage.
“Dale has people who are used to scaring women and hospital clerks.”
“He has cops too.”
Sarge glanced at her.
“Names?”
Kendra shook her head.
“I never knew. He’d just say things before they happened. Like when shelters called him. When my caseworker changed. When my benefits got delayed.”
Sarge’s grip tightened on the wheel.
Predators loved systems.
Not because systems were evil.
Because systems were slow.
And fear moved fast.
The silver sedan followed them down the ramp.
Sarge passed the visitor exit.
Kendra looked at him.
“What are you doing?”
“Not leading them to the courthouse.”
He drove to the lowest garage level, where half the lights were out and old rainwater gathered in dark patches near the drains.
“Sarge…”
“Stay in the truck.”
“No.”
“Kendra.”
“I spent years staying where men told me to stay.”
That landed.
Sarge nodded once.
“Then stay behind me because you choose to.”
The sedan rolled into the level behind them.
Its headlights washed across the concrete.
Sarge parked beneath a broken light and stepped out.
He did not slam the door.
He did not shout.
He stood beside the truck with both hands visible.
The sedan stopped twenty feet away.
A man got out.
Not Dale.
Younger. Thick-necked. Baseball cap low. One hand in his jacket pocket.
“Kendra,” he called. “Dale just wants to talk.”
Sarge looked at the man’s pocket.
“No, he doesn’t.”
The man smirked.
“You her new daddy?”
Sarge said nothing.
The man took three steps closer.
“You know, old man, I looked you up. War hero. Burn victim. Lives alone. No wife. No kids. Volunteers at hospitals because he can’t sleep.”
Sarge’s face remained still.
Kendra opened her door.
“Sarge…”
The man smiled wider.
“There she is. Dale says you’re making this real hard, Kenny.”
Sarge moved slightly, blocking the line between them.
“Her name is Kendra.”
The man’s eyes hardened.
“Move.”
“No.”
The man pulled his hand from his pocket.
Not a gun.
A phone.
He turned it toward Kendra.
On the screen was a photo of Lila’s incubator.
Taken inside the NICU.
Kendra made a strangled sound.
Mara had been right.
Someone had leaked access.
The man’s voice softened with cruelty.
“Dale wants you to remember something. Hospitals have doors. Courts have files. Babies get moved all the time.”
Sarge took one step forward.
The man flinched before he could stop himself.
Good, Sarge thought.
He was not brave.
He was sent.
“Who took the photo?” Sarge asked.
The man laughed.
“Everybody needs money.”
Kendra’s face crumpled.
“Sarge, we have to go back.”
The man shook his head.
“No. You have to sign. Dale gets temporary custody, you get help, everybody wins.”
“Except Lila,” Kendra whispered.
The man shrugged.
“Baby won’t know the difference.”
Something in Sarge went very quiet.
Not angry.
Quiet.
That was worse.
He stepped close enough that the man had to tilt his head back.
“I have carried men with missing legs through smoke,” Sarge said. “I have listened to boys call for their mothers while holding their insides in my hands. I have buried friends who were better than both of us.”
The man stopped smiling.
“So when I tell you I am not impressed by errand boys in parking garages, believe me.”
The man swallowed.
Sarge held out his hand.
“Give me the phone.”
“No.”
Sarge did not move.
“Give me the phone, and walk away with the story that I asked nicely.”
The man looked toward Kendra, then back at Sarge.
For a second, stupidity almost won.
Then survival did.
He placed the phone in Sarge’s hand.
“Dale won’t stop.”
Sarge looked at the photo.
Lila sleeping.
A timestamp from less than an hour earlier.
He felt cold.
“Neither will I.”
The man backed away, got into the sedan, and drove up the ramp too fast.
Kendra leaned against the truck, shaking.
“He got inside,” she whispered. “Someone got inside her room.”
Sarge looked at the phone again.
Then he noticed something reflected in the incubator glass.
A sleeve.
Pink floral print.
A badge clip.
His blood went cold.
He had seen that sleeve in the NICU.
Not on a nurse.
On a volunteer coordinator.
The woman who had called him about Baby Girl Vale.
Her name was Linda Park.
And she had known the baby’s last name before anyone else told him.
Sarge called Mara.
She answered on the second ring.
“Is Lila okay?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Lock down bed seven.”
Mara’s voice changed.
“What happened?”
“There’s a leak inside the hospital.”
Silence.
Then Mara said, “How do you know?”
Sarge looked at Kendra.
“Because Dale just sent us a picture of Lila inside her incubator.”
Mara did not gasp.
She did not swear.
She became charge nurse.
“I’m moving her.”
“No one knows where.”
“No one.”
Sarge started the truck.
Kendra buckled in with shaking hands.
“Sarge?”
“Yeah?”
“What if he wins?”
He looked at her then.
A young mother, wounded and terrified, but still here.
Still fighting.
“He won’t win today,” he said.
“And tomorrow?”
May you like
Sarge started the engine.
“Then tomorrow we fight again.”
