Chapter 15 - THE WARRANT
The ambulance carried Emma back to St. Catherine’s Hospital.
Dr. Patel waited outside the delivery unit.
When Detective Ruiz showed him the warrant, his expression remained calm.
“I treated thousands of inmates,” he said.
“You signed Owen Lawson’s death certificate,” Ruiz replied.
“That was twenty years ago.”
“You also accepted payments from the Hawthorne Foundation.”
“Charitable donations.”
“To an account in the Cayman Islands?”
Patel looked toward Emma.
“You should focus on your patient.”
Ruiz placed him under arrest.
A second physician took over Emma’s care.
The contractions came faster.
Ethan stood beside the bed.
Emma crushed his hand as another wave of pain moved through her body.
“It’s too early,” she whispered.
“The doctors are ready.”
“What if she cannot breathe?”
“She will.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No.”
Ethan leaned close.
“But she is your daughter.”
Emma looked at him.
“Ours.”
Hope crossed his face.
It was not forgiveness.
It was only the truth.
Their daughter belonged to both of them.
Hours later, doctors performed an emergency cesarean section.
Emma heard a faint cry.
Then nurses carried the baby toward the neonatal team.
“Why isn’t she crying louder?” Emma asked.
No one answered immediately.
Ethan remained beside her.
The room blurred.
A nurse finally approached.
“Your daughter is breathing with assistance.”
“Can I see her?”
“Soon.”
Emma woke inside a recovery room.
Ethan sat beside the bed.
His eyes were red.
“She weighs three pounds and eleven ounces,” he said.
“Is she alive?”
“Yes.”
“Is she safe?”
“She is fighting.”
Emma began to cry.
Ethan placed his hand beside hers without touching it.
She turned her palm upward.
He took it carefully.
Detective Ruiz entered an hour later.
“We arrested Dr. Patel,” she said.
“He admitted that Charles Mercer paid him to cancel your father’s hospital transfer.”
“Did Patel give him the medication?”
“No.”
“Who did?”
Ruiz looked toward Ethan.
“The prison visitor logs show that Eleanor entered the medical wing under another name.”
Emma closed her eyes.
Eleanor had not merely ordered her father’s death.
She had personally gone to make certain it happened.
Ruiz placed another document on the table.
“There is one more thing.”
It was a custody petition.
May you like
Eleanor had filed it three days before the gala.
She intended to take Emma’s baby if Emma died.
