Chapter 2 - THE ER CRASH ROOMThe sound of an emergency room trauma bay is something that stays in your marrow forever. It isn't like on television. There is no heroic music, no dramatic pauses. It is a chaotic symphony of screaming alarms, rhythmic ventilator hiss, and the sharp, clinical smell of antiseptic overriding the sweet scent of vanilla frosting still clinging to my hair.
"Pressure is dropping! 70 over 40!" the trauma nurse shouted, slamming a bag of IV fluids into a pressure infuser. "She’s going into severe bradycardia! Heart rate is down to 42!"
"Get the atropine!" Dr. Vance, the chief pediatric trauma physician, commanded. He was a tall man with tired eyes, but his hands were steady as steel. "We need a full tox screen right now! Mom, dad—get back behind the yellow line!"
Nolan held me by the waist, pulling me into the corner of the room. He was still in his paramedic uniform, but right now he wasn't a first responder. He was a father whose world was collapsing. His broad shoulders were trembling violently, his hands soaked in his own cold sweat.
"She’s going to make it, Camille," he whispered against my forehead, though his voice lacked conviction. "She has to. She has to."
"She poisoned her for shares, Nolan," I choked out, my voice raspy, raw, and trembling with a lethal mixture of grief and fury. "The family estate. The voting control of the logistics firm. Three months ago, Sabrina tried to prove I was mentally unfit. When the board rejected her motion, she needed a public disaster. She needed me to break."
I looked down at my phone. My fingers were covered in dried pink lemonade.
My corporate training kicked in—the cold, unfeeling defense mechanism I hadn't used in four years. When you are drowning in trauma, you cling to facts. Fact one: Harper was fighting for her life. Fact two: Sabrina did not act alone.
A liquid concentrated prescription drug of that strength couldn't just be bought at a pharmacy without a high-level medical license or an illegal contact. Sabrina was an accountant. She didn't have access to clinical-grade sedatives.
Suddenly, the flatline alarm roared through the trauma room.
BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP.
"She’s in Asystole!" Dr. Vance yelled. "Start CPR! Charge to 50 Joules! Clear!"
I let out a sound that didn't belong to a human being. It was the primal scream of a mother watching her child’s chest bounce under the violent force of a defibrillator paddle.
"Clear!" THUMP.
Harper’s body jumped against the metal table.
"No pulse! Resume compressions! One, two, three, four..."
I gripped Nolan’s uniform so tightly the fabric tore. "Don't you dare leave me, Harper!" I screamed toward the bed, tears blinding my vision. "Don't you dare leave your mom!"
Outside the glass doors of the trauma bay, the heavy double doors clicked open. Detective Marcus Miller stepped into the hallway. He was a veteran homicide and heavy-crimes investigator with graying temples and a dark trench coat. He took one look at the CPR in progress through the glass, then looked down at me.
He held up a clear plastic evidence bag. Inside it was Sabrina’s purse, her cell phone, and the amber glass dropper bottle.
"Mrs. Vance?" Detective Miller asked softly. "We have your sister in custody down at the 4th Precinct. But we found something else in her vehicle that you need to see immediately."
"Is my daughter going to die?" I demanded, grabbing his coat sleeve with bloody, sticky fingers. "Is she?!"
Before the detective could answer, a loud, steady rhythm broke through the chaotic alarms of the trauma room.
Beep... Beep... Beep...
"We have a rhythm!" Dr. Vance called out, wiping sweat from his forehead. "Sinus rhythm restored. Heart rate coming back up to 88. Get her up to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit immediately!"
I collapsed against the wall, dropping to my knees as tears finally washed the remaining mascara down my face. She was breathing. My baby was breathing.
Detective Miller knelt down beside me, opening a black folder.
"Mrs. Vance, we pulled the text records from your sister's phone over the last 48 hours," Miller said, dropping his voice to a whisper. "She didn't buy that chemical on the street. It was prescribed to someone in your immediate family. Someone who picked up the prescription this morning."
He pulled out a paper printout of a pharmacy receipt.
May you like
The name on the prescription wasn't Sabrina’s.
It was my mother’s.
