Chapter 2 - THE WRONG HOSPITAL
Harrison climbed into the ambulance before anyone could stop him.
“Jefferson Medical,” he ordered.
The lead paramedic glanced up. “Protocol sends trauma cases to St. Matthew’s. It’s closer.”
“Change the route.”
“Sir, we don’t take legal instructions from family members.”
Harrison held up his phone. “Then take medical instructions from the anonymous person who just warned me that someone at St. Matthew’s has been paid.”
The paramedic’s expression changed.
Khloe’s monitor screamed.
“Pressure is dropping!”
The ambulance turned hard toward Jefferson.
Harrison gripped the rail beside his sister’s stretcher. Blood soaked through the gauze around her temple. Her face looked smaller than he remembered, almost like the little girl who used to wait outside his bedroom after nightmares.
“Stay with me, Chloe-bug,” he whispered, using the childhood name he had not spoken in twenty years.
At Jefferson, a trauma team rushed her into surgery. A nurse blocked Harrison at the double doors.
“Placental abruption is likely. We may have to deliver immediately.”
“Do whatever saves them.”
Richard arrived eleven minutes later with Vanessa nowhere in sight.
He approached with practiced worry. “How is she?”
Harrison stepped into his path.
“Where is Vanessa?”
“I don’t know.”
“You were standing beside her.”
“I was in shock.”
“You watched your wife fall thirty steps.”
Richard’s jaw tightened. “Don’t turn this into a courtroom.”
“You brought it to a courthouse.”
Before Richard could respond, two detectives entered the waiting room. Harrison recognized Detective Lena Morales, a homicide investigator with a reputation for ignoring powerful last names.
She held up a sealed evidence bag.
Inside was a shattered phone.
“We found this under the fifth step,” she said. “It belongs to your sister.”
Richard’s eyes shifted toward it.
Too fast.
Morales noticed.
“So did I,” Harrison said.
The detective lowered her voice. “There’s more. Courthouse cameras lost power forty seconds before the fall.”
“Convenient,” Harrison said.
“Not entirely. A law clerk was livestreaming from the balcony.”
Richard went pale.
Morales watched him carefully. “The video shows Vanessa putting both hands on your wife.”
Richard recovered quickly. “Then arrest her.”
“We would,” Morales replied, “but she left through a judge’s private exit three minutes before lockdown.”
Harrison turned toward Richard.
Only courthouse insiders knew that exit existed.
Then the surgeon walked into the waiting room, still wearing blood-stained gloves.
“We delivered the baby,” she said.
Harrison stopped breathing.
May you like
The surgeon’s eyes dropped.
“But your sister is still bleeding, and we found something inside her IV line that should not have been there.”
