Chapter 6 - The Private Physician and the Hidden Medical Files
Within twenty minutes of my call, Dr. Marcus Vance, the chief medical consultant for Vale Enterprises, arrived at the dilapidated pier carrying a heavy aluminum trauma case and looking entirely out of place among the rusted shipping crates.
"Sir, when your chief of staff called me in the middle of the night talking about an emergency shelter on the South Side, I assumed it was a PR disaster," Dr. Vance said, stepping into the cramped shack and wrinkling his nose at the smell of kerosene.
"Forget the PR, Marcus, just look at my wife and my daughter," I commanded, stepping aside to give him full access to the cot.
Marcus knelt beside Ariana, pulling a professional stethoscope from his coat and pressing it against her heaving chest while Thomas stood guard near the door like an ominous sentinel.
"She has severe bronchial pneumonia brought on by extreme physical exhaustion, malnutrition, and exposure to sub-zero temperatures over the last seventy-two hours," Marcus diagnosed quickly, snapping open his kit to prepare an intravenous saline line.
"Is she going to make it?" I asked, my heart pounding in my throat.
"If we get her into a controlled hospital environment within the hour, yes, but leaving her in this drafty shack for another night would have been fatal," Marcus said, working with practiced efficiency to insert the needle into Ariana’s bruised arm.
"And the baby?" I asked, looking over at the small bundle still resting on the wooden crate.
Marcus gently unwrapped the frayed wool blanket, lifting the tiny infant into his practiced hands and checking her pulse with a small penlight.
"She's underweight, born about three weeks premature based on her developmental markers, but she's a fighter... she has a strong heartbeat and clear lungs," Marcus reported with a faint note of relief.
I let out a long, shuddering breath I felt like I had been holding since I first opened that locked drawer three days ago.
"Can we transport them both back to Vale House safely?" I asked.
"Not Vale House, sir... her immune system is completely compromised, and she needs sterile, round-the-clock intensive care that your home medical wing cannot provide without specialized equipment," Marcus said firmly.
"Then take them to my private executive suite at Lake Michigan Memorial Hospital, reserve the entire top floor, and put twenty-four-hour security outside the doors," I ordered without hesitation.
"Understood, sir, I'll call the transport unit right now," Marcus said, pulling out his encrypted satellite phone.
As the medical team moved in with a portable stretcher to carry Ariana out toward the waiting ambulance, Thomas Miller grabbed my forearm with a grip like a steel vise.
"Don't think this hospital transfer buys you a clean slate with me or with her, Vale," Thomas warned, his eyes dark with warning.
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"I don't expect a clean slate, Thomas, I expect to spend the rest of my life paying for what I did," I replied honestly, pulling my arm free and following the stretcher out into the freezing dawn.
The ambulance doors slammed shut, sealing Ariana and my newborn daughter away from the biting wind, and I climbed into my sedan behind them, watching the red taillights cut through the fog like a beacon of hope in a very dark world.
