“My name is Helen Morris.”
“I worked in the maternity ward at St. Matthew’s Hospital.”
“I’ve carried this secret for nearly thirty years.”
Rosie gripped Ben’s hand.
The recording continued.
“When the fire alarm sounded…”
“Every nurse grabbed as many babies as she could.”
“The lights went out.”
“Smoke filled the hallway.”
“Nobody could see.”
I felt chills run down my arms.
Helen’s breathing became shaky.
“When the power returned…”
“Three babies had been placed into the wrong bassinets.”
Ben looked at me.
Three.
Not one.
Not two.
Three.
The recording crackled again.
Then Helen whispered something that made every hair on my neck stand up.
“We realized the mistake before sunrise.”
Rosie gasped.
“They knew?”
Helen answered as though she had heard Rosie herself.
“Yes.”
“We knew.”
No one moved.
The old woman continued.
“The hospital director locked us inside his office.”
“He said correcting the mistake would destroy three families.”
“He ordered us to stay silent.”
My heart pounded.
“He covered it up,” Ben whispered.
Eleanor nodded through tears.
“For decades.”
The recording wasn’t finished.
Helen’s voice broke.
“Most of us obeyed.”
“One doctor didn’t.”
Ben frowned.
“What doctor?”
The tape hissed loudly.
Helen coughed.
Then came the answer.
“Dr. Samuel Carter.”
Eleanor closed her eyes.
“He disappeared two weeks later.”
“What?”
“The hospital said he resigned.”
“But nobody ever saw him again.”
The cassette clicked.
For a moment we thought it had ended.
Then…
One final sentence played.
So quietly we almost missed it.
“If anyone ever finds my locker…”
“…the truth is hidden behind it.”
The tape stopped.
Silence.
Absolute silence.
Ben looked at Rosie.
“Does St. Matthew’s Hospital still exist?”
Eleanor nodded.
“It closed twelve years ago.”
“But the building was never demolished.”
I felt my pulse quicken.
“You think the locker is still there?”
Eleanor slowly reached into the folder one last time.
She unfolded an old map of the hospital basement.
A red circle surrounded one room.
EMPLOYEE LOCKER ROOM
And beside it…
Someone had written a locker number in bright red ink.
LOCKER 317
Before any of us could speak…
Ben’s phone rang.
The screen displayed an unknown number.
He answered.
“Hello?”
The color drained from his face.
“What?”
Rosie stood.
“What is it?”
Ben lowered the phone with trembling hands.
His voice was barely a whisper.
“The city…”
“…starts demolishing St. Matthew’s Hospital at eight o’clock tomorrow morning.”
We all looked at the clock.
8:46 p.m.
If Nurse Helen had been telling the truth…
They had less than twelve hours to find Locker 317.
PART 6 — LOCKER 317
None of us slept that night.
By five-thirty the next morning, we were already driving toward the abandoned St. Matthew’s Hospital.
