Chapter 5 - The Medical Board’s Cover-Up
We arrived back at Briarwood just as a red-and-white ambulance pulled away from the emergency entrance, its siren wailing into the dusk.
I bolted through the front glass doors, ignoring the security guard who tried to block my path. I ran down the familiar corridor to Room 307.
The door was wide open. Inside, Dr. Feldman and two emergency paramedics were frantically dismantling equipment. The portable ultrasound machine had been pushed aside, its screen dark.
“Dr. Feldman! What happened?” I screamed, bursting into the room.
Dr. Feldman looked up, her face pale, her scrubs stained with antiseptic gel. She held up her hand to calm me, stepping out into the hallway to speak privately.
“Natalie had a sudden spike in uterine contractions,” Dr. Feldman said quickly, her words tumbling over one another. “Followed by a dangerous deceleration in the fetus’s heart rate. We had to stabilize her immediately.”
“Is the baby alive?”
“Yes. We administered tocolytics to halt the labor process, and we’ve transferred her via ICU ambulance to St. Jude’s Memorial Hospital—a level-four high-risk maternal facility.”
“Why St. Jude’s?”
“Because Briarwood is no longer safe,” Dr. Feldman said, her voice dropping to a harsh whisper. “Ten minutes before Natalie went into distress, someone tried to tamper with her IV line.”
The world seemed to spin on its axis. “Tamper with it? How?”
“A nurse found a syringe cap on the floor near the bed. Someone hooked up an unapproved intravenous infusion bag containing high doses of oxytocin—a synthetic hormone used specifically to induce labor.”
My knees buckled. If Teresa hadn’t grabbed my arm, I would have hit the floor.
“Someone tried to force her to give birth,” I whispered, horror washing over me in cold, suffocating waves. “They tried to bring the baby out early—before twenty-eight weeks—knowing that a premature delivery at this stage carries catastrophic risks.”
“Risks that could result in the death of the infant,” Dr. Feldman finished grimly. “And if the baby dies, the legal leverage Blake and his co-conspirators are fighting for vanishes overnight. But so does the primary witness to whatever happened in this room five months ago.”
“Where is Teresa?” I asked, suddenly realizing my sister’s loyal nurse was nowhere to be seen.
Dr. Feldman’s face tightened. “She went to secure the nurses' station footage. But when she didn't come back, I sent security to check the staff locker room.”
May you like
“And?”
“She isn't there, Lauren. Her phone is on the floor, and her locker is wide open.”
