Chapter 74: The Island
The helicopter left before sunrise, carrying Chloe, Leo, and Ethan away from London beneath a sky still bruised with night.
Cloud swallowed the city first. Then coastline replaced concrete, and a long stretch of water turned black beneath the aircraft.
Chloe sat with the verified photograph open on her tablet.
No one spoke unless the pilot required an answer. There was nothing left to discuss at altitude. Only a destination.
The island appeared after forty minutes, a narrow piece of rock and pine surrounded by pale surf and cut off from the nearest mainland by more than distance.
From above, the medical facility looked less like a hospital than a private estate designed by people who distrusted roads, visitors, and questions.
One main building. Two smaller wings. A landing pad carved into the eastern ridge.
Security vehicles were already waiting when the helicopter touched down.
The first man approached before the rotors stopped.
He wore a dark coat, a calm expression, and the confidence of someone accustomed to deciding which names existed on paper.
“This is a restricted clinical property,” he said. “You were not authorised to land.”
Chloe stepped onto the wet tarmac. “My father may be inside your building.”
The manager’s face did not move. “We cannot discuss patients, present or former.”
Ethan came down behind her, carrying the old photograph in both hands.
“Look at him,” he said. “Please.”
The manager glanced at the picture for less than a second. Recognition crossed his eyes and vanished.
Leo saw it too.
He moved beside Chloe and spoke quietly.
“The facility is owned by Northline Medical Holdings. Their controlling fund is already in financial trouble. I can reach the administrator and force a control sale before they understand why it matters.”
Chloe looked towards the glass-fronted entrance.
Behind it, a receptionist had stopped pretending not to watch.
“How quickly?”
“Give me twenty minutes.”
The manager folded his arms. “No transaction changes patient confidentiality.”
Chloe met his gaze. “No. But ownership changes who receives your internal compliance report before lunch, and who answers for every missing record after it.”
Leo stepped away and started making calls.
The next eighteen minutes felt longer than the flight.
Chloe remained on the tarmac while rain gathered on her coat and the facility staff watched through polished windows.
Ethan paced once, then stopped.
“What if he is not here?”
“Then we leave knowing we came,” Chloe said. “And we keep looking until the last door opens.”
Her phone rang at nineteen minutes.
Leo did not smile when he returned.
He simply handed her the signed electronic agreement.
Through an emergency control purchase, Alden Group had acquired the distressed parent company’s voting interest and appointed Chloe interim chair pending formal completion.
The manager read the first page, then the second.
His confidence did not disappear dramatically. It folded inwards.
“Madam Chair,” he said at last.
Chloe walked past him without slowing. “Take us to the archive.”
The records room sat below the main ward behind two coded doors and a corridor that smelled of antiseptic, damp stone, and salt carried in from the sea.
A compliance officer unlocked a terminal with hands that shook only slightly.
Chloe searched Edward Alden. No result.
She searched the flight date. Four admissions appeared.
Three had ordinary medical histories.
The fourth had no next of kin, no public insurer, and no discharge record.
Registered name: Thomas Grey.
Chloe opened the profile.
The photograph loaded slowly, each second stretching longer than the flight.
The man was older, thinner, and exhausted by years she had never been allowed to witness, his face sharpened by medication and time.
But the eyes were hers.
Ethan gripped the edge of the desk as Chloe read the final active line.
Current location: West Wing, Room 12.