Chapter 3 - Voices in the Dark
The pediatric intensive care unit was quiet save for the rhythmic monitor beeps and the soft patter of rain against the windowpane. Lily lay in the center of a large hospital bed, looking small against the white linens. Her right leg was propped up on a blue foam pillow, wrapped in clean, white medical bandages.
A police officer stood guard outside her door, but inside, I sat in a vinyl armchair beside her bed. The hospital administration had granted me special clearance to stay as her medical advocate—Lily had refused to speak to anyone else without me in the room.
Her small hand reached out from under the blanket, her fingers lightly touching my sleeve.
“Marcus?” she whispered.
“I’m right here, Lily,” I said, leaning closer so she didn't have to strain her voice.
“Is the bad man gone?”
“He’s locked in a place where he can never, ever hurt you again,” I said firmly. “There are police officers outside the door, and nobody is coming in here who isn't here to help you.”
She took a slow, trembling breath, her eyes tracking the IV line connected to her arm. “He told me if I showed anyone the note, he’d throw my mom in the river.”
My heart pulverized into dust, but I kept my face warm and reassuring. “You were so brave, Lily. That note is going to help the police find your mom. But we need your help to understand the map you drew.”
Lily looked down at her hands. “I drew it with the crayon I stole from the doctor’s office six weeks ago. When he was sleeping, I wrote it on paper I tore from a book in his truck.”
“Can you tell me about the barn with the red star?” I asked gently.
Lily nodded slowly, her voice dropping into a conspiratorial whisper, as if she was afraid Raymond Vance might hear her from his jail cell.
“It’s cold there,” she said. “It smells like wet dirt and old iron. There’s a big wooden door with a rusty chain, and the red star is painted right on the front peak. Mom is inside the room under the floor.”
“Under the floor?”
“There’s a metal trapdoor under the hay,” Lily explained, her chin quivering. “He put mom down there because she tried to run away when we were at the gas station. He left her there with water and bread, and then he drove me here to get the pink boot off.”
I squeezed her small hand gently. “Do you remember how long you drove to get to the clinic today?”
“We drove for three songs on the radio,” she said. “Over the big green bridge with the loud tires.”
I quickly made a mental note: The Blackwood River Bridge. It was an old steel truss bridge twelve miles south of the clinic, crossing into the heavily forested timberland of Blackwood County.
The door opened softly, and Detective Lawson stepped inside, her face pale under the fluorescent lights. She gestured for me to step into the hallway for a moment.
I patted Lily’s hand. “I’ll be right back, okay?”
In the hallway, Lawson pulled up a satellite map on her tablet screen.
“We ran Vance’s cell phone tower data from the last three hours,” Lawson said, showing me a highlighted cluster of red dots on the map. “His phone pinged off a tower right near Route 9, just six miles past the Blackwood River Bridge.”
She zoomed in on a dense patch of forest surrounding an abandoned industrial sawmill.
There, nestled in the clearing, was a massive wooden barn. On the peak of the tin roof, visible even from the high-resolution satellite imagery, was a faded, painted red star.
“We found it,” Lawson said, her jaw clenching. “State Police SWAT is staging two miles out right now.”
“I’m coming with you,” I said instantly.
Lawson stared at me. “Marcus, you’re an orthopedic tech, not a tactical operator. It’s an active crime scene.”
“I know the medical specifics of what Vance did to Lily’s mother,” I argued, stepping closer. “If she’s been trapped in a subterranean bunker for weeks, she could be in severe hypothermic shock, with crush injuries or severe dehydration. You need a medical tech on scene who knows what they’re looking at the second that trapdoor opens.”
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Lawson looked at me for three long seconds, measuring the resolve in my eyes.
“Put on a heavy jacket,” she said finally. “We roll in five minutes.”
