Page 103 of In the Dark of the Past

“No visible sinkholes?”

“Super comforting.”

Atlas snorted.

We kept moving to Wing C. Outpatient. Then toward the older sectors. The air changed, the temperature dropping so fast my breath chilled.

“This is the flood zone,” Finn said quietly.

He didn’t have to explain. Everyone in Maple Ridge remembered the storm. Most of the town had evacuated. Stonybrooke hadn’t.

My pulse kicked. “Is F-wing down there?” I pointed.

“Yeah.”

The stairwell groaned under our weight. At the bottom, the cold hit like a living thing.

The hallway felt wrong. Colder, narrower. With the fluorescents dead and the walls eaten down to gray bone, it was like a horror movie.

Atlas sniffed. “Bleach,” he whispered. “Someone’s still using this space.”

We passed a few stripped rooms, just concrete, metal drains, and hooks on the walls that made my stomach lurch.

Then Finn stopped. His flashlight beam lit a heavy steel door. Reinforced. Modern-looking. Totally out of place in this dead building, especially with its multiple deadbolts, a keypad, and a biometric scanner.

Scratches were gouged into the surface of the metal near the frame. Five clawing fingers.

My skin crawled. “Someone was fighting to get out.”

Finn tested the handle. It was locked, as expected.

Atlas knelt to study the keypad. “Still powered. If I cut the line⁠—”

“No,” Finn said. “Someone might be inside.”

I stepped forward, and both men reacted instantly.

“River—” Finn warned.

“I think I know Grant’s psychological patterns,” I whispered. “He uses dates. Milestones. Stuff the town would recognize.”

Atlas blinked. “You can crack a conspiracy lock with a public records memory?”

“I think so, yes,” I said. “Watch.”

I entered 2010, the year the Benevolence Fund was quietly reinstated as a private trust.

A green light came on, and there was a soft click.

Finn stared at me like I’d opened an ossuary with a hairpin.

Atlas muttered, “I retract every insult I ever made about psych degrees.”

“No, you don’t.”

“No, I don’t.” He laughed.

Finn pressed his hand to the door. “Ready?” he asked.