Chapter 5 - The Empty Research Center
Police surrounded St. Gabriel before sunrise.
The building stood at the edge of an industrial district.
Dark windows.
Rusting gates.
No visible staff.
I was ordered to remain in the command vehicle.
Elijah stayed beside me.
Neither of us spoke.
Officers entered through the west wing.
The security system was active despite the center’s closure.
Someone had been paying for power, surveillance, and medical refrigeration.
Inside, they found three recently used rooms.
One contained a child-sized bed.
Another held laboratory equipment.
The third was empty except for a wall camera and restraints.
No Noah.
No captor.
But a blood sample remained in the centrifuge.
It was labeled N. BLACKWOOD.
Noah had never used Elijah’s last name legally.
Someone expected to make that identity permanent.
Morales brought me a folder recovered from the lab.
Inside were genetic tests.
Noah and Toby had been compared as possible donors.
Donors for what?
The answer appeared on the final page.
Bone marrow compatibility.
Toby had a rare blood disorder.
Elijah had never mentioned it.
He looked at the report.
“I didn’t know.”
“You’re his father.”
“Cassandra controlled his medical care.”
I stared at him.
“You surrendered your own child’s health to a woman you barely questioned.”
He said nothing.
The tests showed Noah was a partial match.
Not ideal.
But potentially useful.
Cassandra had not insured Noah because she planned to kill him immediately.
She needed him alive until a procedure.
Friday.
The deadline Toby mentioned.
A surgeon’s initials appeared on the schedule.
Dr. A. Vale.
I knew the name.
Adrian Vale.
Cassandra’s older brother.
A transplant surgeon whose license was suspended after two unexplained pediatric deaths.
He had disappeared before investigators could charge him.
Now he was operating from an abandoned research center.
Morales found one more clue.
A gas-station receipt from two hours earlier.
The station sat near a private airfield.
We drove there.
The black medical van was parked behind a hangar.
Its rear doors were open.
Inside were Noah’s shoes.
His blue jacket.
And a hospital bracelet bearing the word DONOR.
I pressed the jacket to my chest.
Elijah turned away.
The hangar manager said a charter plane had departed forty minutes earlier.
Destination: Montreal.
Passenger manifest: Dr. Adrian Vale, one adult female, one child.
The female name was fake.
The child’s name was listed as Toby Blackwood.
They were moving Noah across the border under Toby’s identity.
The plane had not yet landed.
Federal authorities contacted Canadian officials.
Then the airfield radio received an emergency message.
The charter had turned around.
Medical crisis onboard.
The pilot requested an immediate landing.
I looked through the rain toward the runway lights.
A plane appeared in the distance.
Its landing gear lowered.
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Then smoke began pouring from one engine.
👉 Noah was finally within reach, but the damaged plane carrying him was falling toward the runway before rescuers could reach the child inside.
