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The file is thin. Too thin for a life.
I'm standing in the records basement of City General, and the folder in my hands has my sister's name on the tab. Sara Quinn. Date of death, three years ago. Cause of death, blunt force trauma. Signed by a doctor I've never heard of and a coroner who doesn't exist anymore.
And at the bottom, in the box marked "next of kin notified," there are two signatures. Mine. And one that isn't mine.
The handwriting is close. Real close. But I didn't sign this. I was in county lookup the night Sara died. I couldn't have signed anything.
I flip the page. There's a second certificate underneath. Same date. Same cause. Different name.
Sara Voss.
My hands start shaking. I don't stop them.
Voss. Like Elias.
I pull out my phone and take a picture of both certificates. The flash makes the paper look older than it is, like evidence from a crime scene. Which maybe it is. I don't know anymore. The mark on my wrist is cold, the kind of cold that doesn't go away when you rub it. It burned out an address two hours ago, right after Elias went quiet and I said Sara's name out loud. City General Hospital. Fourth floor, records.
Now I'm here. And I'm holding two pieces of paper that say my sister died twice.
I hear footsteps on the stairs behind me. I know it's Nina before she says anything. She walks like she's got a bag of gear on her back even when she doesn't.
"Mara." Her voice is low. Careful. She's been careful with me since I came back from the hotel. "You good?"
I don't answer. I hand her the folder.
She takes it. Flips through it. Her jaw tightens. Nina doesn't react to much. She pulls people out of car wrecks and talks them through overdoses and she doesn't flinch. But she flinches now.
"Where did you get this?"
"Records room. They keep the old stuff down here. Pre-digital." I wipe my palms on my jeans. They're sweating. "I broke the lock."
"Of course you did." She reads the second certificate again. "Sara Voss. Who the hell is that?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know, or you don't want to tell me?"
I look at her. Nina's good people. She let me crash on her couch when I got out. She didn't ask about the debt or the jobs I take or why I come home smelling like rust and old carpet. But she's got a line. I can see it in her face right now. She's standing on one side of it and I'm about to step over.
"There's a guy," I say. "Elias. He's chained up behind a door that doesn't open. He knew Sara's name. He knew things he shouldn't know."
Nina stares at me. "A guy. Chained up."
"Yeah."
"And you didn't call the cops because—"
"Because I don't think the cops would see him." I take the folder back. "And because he said the Wardens would come if I did."
That gets her attention. Nina grew up in the same neighborhood I did. You hear stories. You don't ask about the people in gray suits who show up after the weird calls. You don't ask why some buildings get condemned in a day and some bodies don't get autopsies.
"The Wardens," she says slowly. "Mara, what the fuck did you open?"
"A door."
"What kind of door?"
"The kind that knows my name."
She's quiet for a long time. Then she hands the folder back and crosses her arms. "I'm not following you into this blind."
"I'm not asking you to follow me."
"Bullshit. You're about to do something stupid and you want backup." She nods at the folder. "That's why you brought me here. You think I'm gonna see that and just go along with whatever—"
"I think my sister didn't die the way they said she did." My voice comes out harder than I mean it to. "I think someone erased her. Changed her name. Signed my name on a piece of paper I never saw. And I think the guy who knows why is chained to a door I opened because I needed the money."
Nina doesn't blink. "So what do you want me to do?"
"I want you to stay out of it."
I shove the folder into her hands and walk past her, toward the stairs. My phone buzzes in my pocket. I pull it out. There's a message from a number I don't recognize.
*Fourth floor. Surgery wing. Surveillance archive.*
I stop walking.
Another message.
*She's on the tape. You need to see it.*
I don't know who sent it. But I know where I'm going.
Nina's voice follows me up the stairs. "Mara, wait—"
I don't wait.
The surgery wing is locked. I pull out my picks and I'm through the door in thirty seconds. The hall is dark. It smells like disinfectant and something older, something under the clean. The surveillance room is at the end, behind a door with a card reader and a manual override. I don't have a card. I have a pick and a tension wrench and I've done this a hundred times.
The lock clicks. I push the door open.
The room is small. Monitors on the walls, old tape decks stacked on a metal shelf, a desk with a computer that looks like it hasn't been updated since I was in high school. There's a tape sitting on the desk. It's labeled in marker: *OR-3, June 14.*
Three years ago. The night Sara died.
I pick it up. My hands aren't shaking anymore. They're cold. Steady.
I find the player. Slide the tape in. Hit play.
The screen flickers. Black and white footage. An operating room. A table in the center. Someone's on it. I can't see the face. There are people around her, but they're not moving right. They're standing too still. Watching.
The camera angle shifts. Now I can see her face.
It's Sara.
She's awake.
Her eyes are open. Her mouth is moving. She's saying something. I can't hear it. There's no audio. But I can read her lips.
She says one word. Over and over.
Elias.
The screen goes black.
I'm still standing there when Nina comes through the door behind me. She's holding the folder. She looks at the screen. Then at me.
"Mara," she says quietly. "What the hell is that?"
I don't answer. I rewind the tape. I play it again.
Sara's awake. She's saying his name.
And behind her, in the corner of the frame, there's a door.
It's black. It doesn't belong there.
And it's open.