When I Couldn't Get Licensed, I Became a Kidnapper

I had ten minutes to get Celia Vale out of the rehab center before the night nurse made her next round, and I had already lost four of them arguing with a locked transport van. "Try the key again," I whispered. The driver's door opened. My partner, Owen, leaned across the seat and twisted the key. The engine coughed, sputtered, and died. "She's a rich woman in a wheelchair," he said. "We can push." "She's on oxygen." "So am I, after that climb." I looked through the open side doors at Celia. She was strapped into a padded transport chair, a clear tube under her nose. Her eyes were half closed. One hand lay limp against the blanket over her legs. The chart clipped to the chair called her condition anoxic brain injury with a persistent vegetative state. My instructions had been simple: get her out, keep her alive, wait for a call. No ransom demands until the client gave the word. No questions. The person who hired us had promised thirty thousand dollars. Half now, half on delivery. I'd spent the first half on a lawyer's retainer and the rest on the overdue rent for my mother's apartment. If I had a license, I could have taken a hospital job. If I had a hospital job, I wouldn't be standing in a service alley with a stolen van and an heiress who couldn't move. "Forget the van," I said. "Get the chair." Owen grabbed the handles. I checked Celia's oxygen connection, then lifted the portable tank from the floor. The hallway door opened behind us. A nurse called, "Mr. Pike?" Owen froze. I wheeled Celia toward the open van. The nurse stepped into the alley, a paper cup in one hand. I recognized her from the nurses' station. "Who are you?" she asked. "Transport," I said. "Your badge?" I had one. It belonged to a medical transport company that had laid me off six months earlier. I showed it without stopping. She looked at the tank. "Her discharge wasn't scheduled until morning." "Changed." "By whom?" The nurse's eyes moved from me to Celia, then to the empty cot inside the van. I didn't wait for her to finish the thought. Owen and I lifted the chair into the van. The nurse took one hurried step forward. I shut the doors between us. The engine started on the second try. We drove through the service exit and took the coastal road west. For the first mile, nobody spoke. Then Owen glanced at the rearview mirror. "Is she breathing?" "Yes." "You checked?" "I checked twice." "You always were good at that." The compliment landed in the space between us like another accusation. Owen had been my classmate once, back when we both believed a medical license was a matter of passing exams and doing good work. He'd failed out before the clinical year. I'd finished medical school, then reported falsified records at the Vale Foundation's trial clinic. The board had called my report unsubstantiated and my conduct "unprofessional." My license application had been denied. I had appealed. I'd been appealing for a year. Celia made a sound. I twisted around. Her mouth hadn't moved. Her eyes were fixed on me. "Can you hear me?" I asked. Nothing. I leaned closer. "Celia?" Her eyelids fluttered once. Owen swore under his breath. "That's not a response." "Could be." "She's been vegetative for two years." "According to the chart." "She can't talk." "I know." Her eyes shifted toward the laminated communication board clipped to her chair. It had letters, numbers, and yes-or-no symbols. The center had used it, according to a note in the chart, to "stimulate visual attention." I set it on her lap. "Look at yes." Her eyes moved to the green square. Owen turned in his seat. "What the hell?" "Look at no." Her eyes moved to the red square. I felt the hair rise along my arms. "Do you understand what I'm saying?" Yes. I reached for the board, forcing myself to keep my hand steady. "Are you in pain?" Yes. "Can you move anything?" Her gaze drifted toward the corner of her right eye. "Blink once for yes," I said. "Twice for no." One blink. "Can you control your eyes?" One blink. "Have you been able to communicate with the staff?" Two blinks. "Why not?" Her eyes moved slowly across the letter grid. The letters were small, and her gaze slipped more than once before she reached the end. I wrote them down. Then I read what she'd spelled. NOT WORTH RANSOM. A laugh escaped me, sharp and joyless. "You're right." Her eyes returned to mine. I leaned over the chair. "I don't know what my employer wants. I know I have no right to have you here. But if somebody has been keeping you unable to speak, I need you to tell me." She blinked once. Owen's knuckles whitened on the steering wheel. "We should take her to a hospital." "And tell them what? That I stole her from a private facility?" "Tell them she's awake." "That center wrote the chart." He looked at me in the mirror. "Then what?" My phone rang. The number was blocked. "Deliver the asset to the cottage," a man said when I answered. "Do not speak to her. Do not remove her from the chair. The second payment arrives when she's secure." "Who is this?" "Someone who knows what you need." The call ended. Celia's eyes moved to the board. I set it back on her lap. She spelled out four letters. Then two more. DON'T. I swallowed. "Don't what?" The next word took almost a minute. TRUST. I looked at the dark road ahead, at the van we had stolen, at the woman I had been hired to take. "Okay," I said. "Then we'll find out who I should trust."