Chapter 3 - CLAIRE’S SONG
The phrase Toby remembered led us to his bedroom.
Police searched the Sherman mansion while he remained under intensive observation.
I did not go.
Detective Ortiz transmitted the search through a secure tablet.
Toby’s room looked almost unchanged from the last time I had tucked him into bed.
Blue walls.
Wooden train set.
Glow in the dark stars.
The framed photograph of Claire remained beside the window.
Cassandra had removed every photograph containing me.
Behind the toy cabinet, investigators found a narrow door painted the same color as the wall.
Elijah had never seen it.
The room beyond had no windows.
Shelves held medicine bottles, disposable droppers, gloves, and printed behavior charts.
The dates began four days after I left the mansion.
Each entry described Toby’s reaction to NX Seventeen.
Crying reduced.
Questions repeated after dosing.
Memory incomplete next morning.
Attachment to Naomi persists.
Increase amount.
Elijah read that line twice.
“They drugged him because he asked for you.”
My anger arrived cold and exact.
“They drugged him because remembering me interfered with their control.”
A camera had been mounted above a chair inside the hidden room.
The storage card contained videos of Cassandra giving Toby medicine.
Sometimes Julian watched through a laptop screen.
In one recording, Toby cried and asked to call me.
Cassandra told him I had chosen money over him.
When he said she was lying, she forced the bottle against his lips.
Elijah left the hospital consultation room and returned ten minutes later.
His eyes were red.
“I did not know.”
“No.”
“I should have.”
“Yes.”
He did not ask me to soften the answer.
The search team found a wooden music box inside the hidden room.
Claire’s photograph had been carved into the lid.
The melody was the same lullaby Toby mentioned.
Elijah remembered Claire playing it during her pregnancy.
A hidden compartment beneath the mechanism contained a small data drive.
The files were encrypted.
The audio frequencies inside Claire’s song provided the password.
Her face appeared on the screen.
She looked exhausted.
The recording date was three days before her fatal car crash.
“Elijah, if you find this, Northstar has continued Project Lullaby.”
She held up a medical report.
“The compound is not trauma treatment. It disrupts short term memory and makes frightened children easier to direct.”
Claire named Dr. Martin Sloane as the trial’s medical supervisor.
Julian Voss managed the finances.
The participants came from foster homes, private custody programs, and residential schools.
Parents were told the children received ordinary anxiety treatment.
Several children developed respiratory complications.
One died.
Northstar falsified the report.
Claire discovered the study after Sherman Biomedical considered purchasing the company years earlier. She refused the acquisition and copied the internal files.
“Elijah believes the purchase ended,” she said. “Julian moved the program into charitable accounts.”
She looked away from the camera.
“I told Cassandra because I trusted her.”
Cassandra had been Claire’s college roommate.
Claire asked her to take Toby somewhere safe if anything happened.
Instead, Cassandra gave the files to Julian.
Perhaps for money.
Perhaps because Julian promised that becoming Toby’s guardian would give her the family and status she had always envied.
Claire’s recording continued.
“A pediatric fellow named Naomi Wheeler reported the first death independently. Sloane buried her complaint and copied her signature.”
I could barely breathe.
Claire had known my name before I met Elijah.
She had tried to protect me from professional retaliation.
“I sent Naomi the antidote formula through Lakeview’s secure research system,” Claire said. “If she never received it, Martin intercepted it.”
I looked toward Sloane.
He was no longer inside the hospital conference room.
Detective Ortiz called security.
Sloane had entered Toby’s floor five minutes earlier carrying a transfer authorization.
I ran into the corridor.
Two nurses stood beside Toby’s bed preparing to disconnect his monitors.
Sloane held a document bearing Elijah’s electronic signature.
“Mr. Sherman authorized transfer to Northstar Pediatric Research Center.”
Elijah entered behind me.
“I authorized nothing.”
The nurses stopped.
Sloane remained calm.
“Toby requires specialized toxicology care.”
“He is receiving it here,” I said.
“You are personally compromised.”
“You forged my trial approval.”
“That is an accusation.”
“The original metadata is being examined.”
Sloane looked toward the elevator.
Hospital security blocked it.
Detective Ortiz appeared with two officers.
Sloane handed her the transfer order.
“You are delaying emergency treatment.”
Ortiz examined the signature.
“Elijah Sherman was inside a recorded police interview when this document was issued.”
The order had been prepared before Toby arrived.
Cassandra, Julian, and Sloane expected the poisoning.
Sloane’s phone vibrated.
A message appeared before he could lock the screen.
MOVE THE BOY BEFORE THE REBOUND STARTS.
I grabbed the latest blood report.
NX Seventeen was beginning to leave Toby’s bloodstream.
That should have been good news.
Instead, a second marker was rising sharply.
Claire had documented it in the hidden trial notes.
Delayed rebound respiratory failure.
Toby had not survived the danger.
May you like
He had entered its most lethal stage.
Continue to the next part: Toby begins crashing as Naomi races to find the antidote Sloane erased from the hospital research archive.
