Chapter 5 - The Last Route
Adrien escaped the warehouse through a service tunnel.
By noon, Graham Vale and Commissioner Shaw were in custody.
But Adrien disappeared.
So did several Meridian servers.
Elena sat in an interview room while investigators reviewed the logger.
An agent entered.
“We found the unauthorized stop.”
“Where?”
“Warehouse 18.”
Elena frowned.
“That’s impossible.”
“Why?”
“Warehouse 18 was demolished eighteen months ago.”
The agent turned the laptop around.
The GPS coordinates matched.
Nico, standing near the door, immediately understood.
“Not demolished.”
Elena nodded.
“Renamed.”
They searched corporate records.
Warehouse 18 had become Meridian Cold Storage Annex B.
And according to current dispatch logs, one truck had departed there twenty minutes earlier.
Destination:
St. Agnes Hospital.
Elena stared at the screen.
“Adrien.”
Nico looked at her.
“You think he’s on it?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“He knows the investigation is happening. He knows the original fraud is exposed.”
Her face went pale.
“He’s destroying the thing that can prove patient harm.”
“What thing?”
“The temperature archives.”
Nico grabbed his coat.
They reached St. Agnes seventeen minutes later.
Smoke was already rising from the records building.
Firefighters moved through the loading area.
Elena saw a familiar black sedan leaving the rear entrance.
“Adrien!”
Nico’s driver accelerated.
The sedan entered downtown traffic.
Elena watched its movements.
“Don’t follow directly.”
Nico looked at her.
“What?”
“He expects that.”
“You have another idea?”
Elena pulled up the Blue Line traffic interface.
“I designed disaster routing around city bottlenecks.”
“This isn’t a refrigerated truck.”
“A road is a road.”
She tapped the screen.
“He’s heading east. If we close Jefferson with one vehicle, he’ll take Mason.”
Nico called his men.
“Close Jefferson.”
Thirty seconds later, the black sedan changed direction.
“Mason,” Elena said.
Nico stared at her.
“You’re routing him.”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
Elena zoomed out.
“Somewhere he can’t disappear.”
The sedan turned twice more.
Every escape route quietly closed.
Finally Adrien entered an abandoned freight terminal.
He stopped.
Twelve black vehicles appeared around him.
Again.
This time there was nowhere to go.
Adrien stepped from his sedan.
Elena approached.
Nico remained several yards behind her.
Adrien laughed bitterly.
“Look at you.”
“What?”
“You spent years complaining that people didn’t respect your work. Now you’re standing behind a mafia family.”
Elena stopped.
“No.”
She pointed toward the streets around them.
“You’re standing inside my work.”
Adrien looked around.
“I routed every car that trapped you here.”
His smile disappeared.
Sirens approached.
Adrien looked toward Nico.
“You think she’s different from us?”
Nico said nothing.
“She used you.”
Nico finally smiled.
“She asked for help.”
“Same thing.”
“No,” Nico said. “You just never learned the difference.”
Adrien looked at Elena.
“We were supposed to get married.”
“You were supposed to tell the truth.”
“I gave you everything.”
“You gave me a ring.”
Elena removed it from her pocket.
She had taken it from the apartment that morning.
She placed it on the hood of Adrien’s car.
“And took everything else.”
Police vehicles entered the terminal.
Adrien looked at the ring.
May you like
Then at Elena.
For the first time, he had nothing to say.
