Chapter 4 - The Pediatrician’s File
By sunrise, Ella’s condition had stabilized from critical to guarded, though she remained deep in a medically induced slumber to control the intracranial pressure caused by the brain bleed. Lena hadn't slept; she sat at her computer terminal in the PICU charting vitals when a messenger dropped a thick manila folder onto her desk.
“What’s this?” Lena asked, rubbing her tired eyes.
“Brought over by the records clerk from the Morgans’ private pediatrician office,” the nurse said. “Detective Vance requested a full developmental history on Ella.”
Lena opened the folder. Pediatric records were often tedious—weight charts, vaccination dates, growth curves. But as she flipped past the six-week checkup, her eyes caught a discrepancy that made her stomach drop.
At the two-month mark, Ella had gained weight steadily.
At the four-month mark, her weight had actually dropped by four ounces.
Further down in the clinical notes, written by a pediatrician named Dr. Arthur Vance (no relation to the detective), was an observation: Infant presents with lethargy and poor feeding. Mother reports baby sleeps for fourteen consecutive hours at night. Advised waking infant for feedings.
Lena kept reading.
Beneath the pediatrician’s notes were attached copies of prescription records requested through the state pharmacy database.
On three separate occasions over the past two months, prescriptions for liquid promethazine and diphenhydramine—both pediatric sedatives—had been filled under Mark Morgan’s insurance plan.
Not Sarah’s.
Mark’s.
Lena’s heart hammered against her ribs. She picked up her desk phone and dialed Detective Vance’s direct mobile line.
“Vance,” the detective answered on the second ring, his voice raspy with caffeine deprivation.
“Marcus, I need you to pull the pharmacy records for Mark Morgan right now,” Lena said without preamble. “Don't look at Sarah’s prescriptions. Look at his.”
“I’m already looking at them, Lena,” Vance replied, his tone grim. “Forensics just got back from the house. They found a half-empty bottle of generic children’s allergy medication shoved behind the water heater in the basement utility closet. Guess whose fingerprints are all over the cap?”
“Mark’s?”
“Mark’s,” Vance confirmed. “And guess what else? The house security system wasn't shut down by a power outage. Someone logged into the master control panel in the study at 11:45 PM using Mark’s biometric thumbprint and manually disabled the cameras covering the nursery hallway for exactly two hours.”
The pieces of the puzzle began to slam together in Lena’s mind with terrifying clarity.
“He set her up,” Lena whispered. “Mark and his mother set Sarah up from the beginning.”
“It gets worse,” Vance said. “We ran a background check on Mark’s financial standing. His consulting firm went under six months ago. He’s drowning in over three hundred thousand dollars of high-interest debt. But three weeks before Ella was born, he took out a private term life insurance policy on the infant worth one point five million dollars.”
Lena stared across the unit toward the waiting room where Mark and his mother were sitting.
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“He didn't just want to drug her,” Lena said, a cold anger rising in her chest. “He wanted to kill her, or at least leave her severely compromised, and pin it entirely on Sarah’s postpartum psychosis so he could collect the payout and walk away clean.”
“We have enough for an immediate warrant,” Vance said. “I’m heading back to the hospital right now. Do not let Mark leave that floor.”
