Chapter 3 - Blood on the Elevator Floor
The voice of Nurse Simmons echoed in the quiet office, tense and clipped.
"He is bypassing the administration desk, Doctor."
"He is demanding to see his wife immediately."
A voice crackled through her earpiece, too low for me to make out Vance’s exact reply, but Simmons nodded frantically.
"Understood," she said.
"I’ll divert him toward the private family consultation lounge in Wing C."
"I’ll tell him Clara is in the post-op stabilization unit and cannot have visitors due to infectious sterilization protocols."
Her rubber-soled clogs turned toward the desk.
I pressed myself deeper into the dark mahogany recess beneath the knee-hole, my knuckles digging into my palms so hard the skin broke.
Her hand reached over the desktop, snatched the leather folio containing the forged documents, and scooped up a set of plastic patient ID bands from the tray.
She did not look down.
She turned on her heel and rushed out of the room, letting the heavy door slam shut behind her.
The click of the lock reverberated like a gunshot in my chest.
I scrambled out from under the desk, my knees scraping against the wood.
Marcus was in the building.
Marcus, the man who had held me every night, who had read classic literature out loud to my belly so our daughter would recognize the cadence of his voice.
If Marcus was here, I could tell him.
I could run down the hall, throw my arms around his neck, and show him the photographs on my phone.
I pushed open the office door and stepped back into the corridor.
The hallway was quiet, but fifty feet away, near the bank of central elevators, the heavy double doors were pushed open.
Marcus stepped into the corridor.
He was wearing his tailored navy suit, but his tie was pulled loose, his collar unbuttoned, his dark hair disheveled from running up four flights of stairs.
His face was pale with a terror I had never seen in him before.
"Clara?" he yelled, his voice cracking down the hallway.
"Marcus!" I tried to scream, but the sedative had left my vocal cords parched and raspy; the sound came out as a desperate, strangled whisper.
Before I could take two steps toward him, Eleanor Sterling emerged from the adjacent conference room like a ghost draped in pale cashmere.
She caught Marcus by the arm with a grip that was surprisingly firm.
"Marcus, stop!" she said, her voice filled with a rehearsed, theatrical sorrow that sounded so genuine it made my skin crawl.
"Mother, where is she?" Marcus demanded, his eyes bloodshot, his chest heaving as he tried to pull away from her.
"They called me from the road."
"They said there were complications."
"Where is my wife? Where is the baby?"
Eleanor wrapped both arms around her son, burying her face into his shoulder, producing real, trembling tears on cue.
"Oh, my darling boy... you're too late," she sobbed, her voice loud enough to carry down the corridor.
"Dr.
Vance did everything he could."
"The placenta tore completely away from the wall."
"The baby was gone before Clara even reached the hospital."
"No," Marcus choked out, a sound of pure agony tearing from his throat.
He staggered back against the wall, his knees giving way, his hands clutching his head.
"No, no, that’s impossible. She was fine this morning. She was laughing when I left for the airport!"
"Clara is sedated, Marcus," Eleanor said smoothly, her voice dropping into a soothing, hypnotic register as she stroked the back of his neck.
"The psychological shock was so profound that she broke down."
"She became completely incoherent."
"She tried to attack the medical staff when they told her the truth."
"Dr.
Vance had to place her under chemical restraint for her own safety."
"I need to see her," Marcus wept, trying to shove past his mother.
"I don't care if she's sedated, I need to hold her hand!"
"You cannot see her like this, Marcus!" Eleanor snapped, her voice tightening with razor-sharp authority.
"If she wakes up and sees you, the emotional spike could trigger a massive secondary hemorrhage."
"Do you want to lose your wife too?"
"Dr.
Vance is preparing the post-operative care papers right now."
"All you need to do is sign the authorization for the foundation to handle the remains."
"Let me take care of the details, Marcus."
"You are in no condition to deal with this."
I stood frozen thirty yards away, hidden behind the wide decorative pillar of the alcove.
My heart shattered into a million pieces.
Eleanor was already framing me as a violent, unstable lunatic to my own husband.
If I walked out there right now in my hospital gown, disheveled, bleeding from my IV site, shouting about black-market adoption rings and Swiss foundations, Eleanor would simply nod to the orderlies.
They would tackle me.
They would inject me with five milligrams of haloperidol.
Marcus would look at me through tears, believe his mother’s story that grief had driven me insane, and watch them wheel me into an isolation cell.
I couldn't just tell him.
I had to show him undeniable, indisputable physical proof.
And the only proof that mattered was inside my belly, alive and breathing.
If they took my daughter, the proof was gone forever.
I turned away from Marcus.
Tears streamed down my cheeks, burning like acid, but I swallowed the sob choking my throat.
I turned toward the back corridor that led to the service elevators and the freight bays.
I had to get down to Loading Dock 3.
I had to find the European transport team before Vance brought me down as an unconscious surgical parcel.
I reached the double doors of the freight elevator at the end of the north hallway.
The sign on the wall read: Authorized Personnel Only — Biohazard and Morgue Transport.
The down button was illuminated in amber.
The heavy stainless-steel doors parted with a mechanical groan.
I stepped inside the massive industrial elevator.
The walls were lined with diamond-plate steel, cold and utilitarian.
As the doors began to slide shut, a hand clad in a blue nitrile glove reached between them.
The rubber safety sensor tripped, and the heavy metal doors banged open again.
Dr.
Julian Vance stepped inside.
He had a syringe loaded with a clear liquid in his right hand.
Behind him stood two private security guards wearing unbadged black tactical uniforms.
Dr.
Vance looked down at me, his eyes widening in brief surprise before his expression hardened into absolute, murderous contempt.
"Well," Vance whispered, blocking the doorway with his broad frame.
"Look who managed to climb off the table."
"You really are remarkably resilient, Clara."
May you like
"A true foster kid."
"Always fighting for things you have no right to keep."
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