Chapter 5 - The Empty Operating Room
Emily ran to the surgical desk.
“Stop the procedure!”
The nurse looked startled.
“Maya has already been taken back.”
“Someone threatened her.”
Detective Ortiz grabbed Emily’s phone and signaled hospital security.
Dr. Lawson rushed through the secured doors.
Two minutes later, he returned pale.
“Maya isn’t in Operating Room Three.”
Emily stopped breathing.
“What do you mean?”
“The transport record says she arrived, but the room is empty.”
Security locked down the entire surgical floor.
Cameras showed Maya’s bed entering a service hallway pushed by a man in blue scrubs and a surgical mask.
The real transport nurse had been found unconscious in a supply closet.
Emily stared at the video.
The man pushing Maya walked with a slight limp.
Robert had injured his right knee skiing six years earlier.
“That’s my husband.”
Detective Ortiz enlarged the image.
The man glanced toward the camera.
Even with the mask, Emily recognized his eyes.
Robert had taken their daughter.
The hospital launched an emergency search.
Emily ran alongside officers through stairwells, storage rooms, and loading docks.
They found the empty bed near the laundry exit.
Maya’s IV tubing lay cut on the floor.
A drop of blood marked the concrete.
Emily nearly collapsed.
Then she saw something tucked beneath the mattress.
Maya’s hospital bracelet.
On the back, written shakily in blue ink, were three numbers.
214.
The same number as the key.
“She left this for me,” Emily said.
Ortiz looked toward the underground parking garage.
Security footage showed Robert’s SUV leaving seven minutes earlier.
He had disabled Maya’s phone, but Emily remembered the family vehicle app.
Robert had forgotten she still had access.
The SUV’s location flashed on the map.
It was moving north toward an abandoned industrial district.
Detective Ortiz called for units.
Emily grabbed her coat.
“You’re staying here,” Ortiz said.
“That man has my daughter.”
“He may be armed.”
Emily met her eyes.
“He has controlled our family for years because everyone thought he was respectable. I’m done letting him decide where I stand.”
Ortiz hesitated, then nodded.
As they entered the elevator, the vehicle icon stopped moving.
May you like
Its final location was a warehouse owned by Robert’s company.
👉 Robert had taken Maya back to the place where the nightmare began—but this time Emily was following with the police close behind.
