THE STARVING WARD

“What do you mean, they’re going to kill you?” I demanded, pressing the phone harder against my ear.

My mother gripped my sleeve, her eyes wide with terror as she listened to my half of the conversation.

David’s breathing was ragged on the other end of the line. “The money isn’t going to me, Daniel. It’s passing through my LLC to a cartel in Mexico. Brenda owes them millions from a failed offshore casino investment. She used my medical license to set up the pharmacy shell company. She told me if I didn’t authorize the psychiatric transfers for the residents who caught on, she’d hand the paper trail to the feds—and my name is on every document.”

I felt the room spin. Brenda wasn’t just a greedy nursing home administrator. She was laundering drug money through the lives of the elderly.

“David, you signed the papers to lock Mom in the Memory Ward!” I shouted.

“I didn’t sign anything for Mom!” David cried out. “Brenda forged my signature. Daniel, listen to me. I’m in the parking lot. I’m coming inside. We have to get Mom out, and we have to get Arthur’s ledger to the FBI before Brenda finds out you have it.”

“I already have it,” I said.

“Good. Stay in the room. Lock the door. I’m coming up.”

The line went dead.

I shoved the phone in my pocket and rushed to the heavy wooden door of Room 308. I twisted the deadbolt, locking us inside.

“Daniel,” my mother whimpered, clutching my arm. “Is David in trouble?”

“We’re all in trouble, Mom,” I said softly, guiding her back to the bed. “But I’m not letting anything happen to you. We’re leaving as soon as David gets up here.”

But as I stood by the door, waiting for my brother’s familiar knock, I looked down at the handle.

The lock was loose. Someone had tampered with it.

Suddenly, the intercom speaker in the ceiling crackled to life.

“Daniel,” Brenda’s voice echoed through the small room, utterly devoid of emotion. “I know you have the ledger. And I know you’re on the phone with your brother. You see, the Memory Ward has full audio surveillance.”

My blood ran cold. I looked up at the small, black dome camera mounted in the corner of the ceiling. A tiny red light blinked back at me.

“If you want to leave this building with your mother,” Brenda continued over the intercom, “you will bring the ledger to my office. Right now. If you don’t, I will push a button, and the gas we use to sedate the violent patients will flood Room 308.”

I looked at the air vent above the bed.

“She’s bluffing,” I muttered, though I didn’t believe it for a second.

Then, a faint hissing sound began to emanate from the vent. A sweet, chemical smell filled the air.

My mother started coughing instantly.

“Okay! Okay!” I yelled at the camera. “Turn it off! I’m coming down!”

The hissing stopped.

“Five minutes, Daniel,” Brenda’s voice purred.

I looked at my mother. She was pale, holding her chest. “You can’t give it to her, Daniel. It’s the only proof.”

“I have to,” I said, pulling the heavy ledger from my waistband. But as I held it, a desperate idea formed.

I opened the ledger and tore out the last three pages—the pages with the routing numbers and David’s LLC information. I folded them tightly and shoved them into my shoe.

I handed the rest of the thick book to my mother. “Hide this under the mattress. When David gets here, give it to him.”

“What are you going to give Brenda?” my mother asked, terrified.

I looked around the room. On the bedside table was a Gideon Bible, roughly the same size and weight as the ledger. I grabbed it, tucking it into the back of my jeans, pulling my shirt over it.

“I’m going to buy us some time,” I said.

I unlocked the door, stepped out into the hallway, and ran.

I bypassed the elevator, taking the stairs down to the first floor. I burst through the doors and sprinted toward the administrative wing.

Brenda’s office was at the end of a long, carpeted corridor. The door was cracked open.

I walked in.

Brenda was standing behind her massive mahogany desk, holding a suppressed handgun.

My heart hammered against my ribs.