Chapter 4 - THE CHILD SLOANE WANTED TRANSFERRED
Toby’s oxygen level fell within minutes.
His heartbeat became irregular.
I ordered respiratory support increased while Fiona prepared emergency medication.
Sloane watched officers secure his hands.
“You cannot treat the rebound without Northstar’s protocol.”
“You intercepted Claire’s antidote formula.”
“The formula was theoretical.”
“Where is it?”
He looked toward Elijah.
“Your company owns it.”
Elijah stepped closer.
“Where?”
“The Lakeshore archive.”
Northstar maintained an abandoned research facility north of Chicago. Sherman Biomedical purchased the property with the company but never opened it.
Julian controlled access.
Detective Ortiz sent officers immediately.
A storm had flooded the main road.
The team would need at least forty minutes.
Toby might not have forty minutes.
I accessed the old Lakeview research server.
My fellowship account had been deleted years earlier, but the ethics complaint remained inside a backup log.
Claire had attached a file.
ANTIDOTE N17 R.
The file showed only a corrupted preview.
One ingredient remained visible.
A modified enzyme stored in frozen sample form.
Without the sample, we could support Toby’s breathing but not stop the neurological rebound.
Sloane requested an attorney.
I knelt beside him.
“I am not asking you to confess. I am asking where the sample is while a child dies.”
“You think moral urgency changes intellectual property law?”
“He is four.”
“He is also evidence.”
The answer revealed more than he intended.
Sloane did not see Toby only as a patient.
He saw him as proof of a trial that could destroy powerful people.
If Toby died, his medical records could be blamed on accidental poisoning.
If he survived and remembered, he could identify the hidden room, Cassandra, and Julian.
Sloane had attempted to transfer him somewhere the records and memories could be controlled.
Fiona called from the trauma room.
Toby’s heart rate was falling.
I returned immediately.
Elijah stood beside the bed holding his son’s foot.
“Tell me what you need.”
“The frozen enzyme.”
“What if it cannot be reached?”
“Then we keep him breathing and hope the rebound passes before his heart fails.”
“Hope?”
“I will not lie to you.”
His face broke.
Six months earlier, he had accused me of creating uncertainty around his company and marriage.
Now he needed the truth more than comfort.
Toby’s heart stopped.
The monitor became one continuous tone.
We began resuscitation.
Elijah was moved outside the room.
I saw him through the glass, one hand pressed against his mouth.
Cassandra sat under police supervision farther down the corridor.
She heard the alarm.
For the first time that night, her fear looked real.
“Save him,” she whispered.
Elijah turned toward her.
“You did this.”
“Julian said the dose would only make him sleep.”
“You gave it repeatedly.”
“He threatened me.”
“With what?”
“He knew Claire asked me to take the evidence to police.”
“You gave it to him instead.”
“He promised me a place in Toby’s life.”
“You had one. Claire trusted you.”
Cassandra began crying.
“She always had everything.”
The confession came from envy before fear could stop it.
Claire had the career.
The husband.
The child.
The trust shares.
Cassandra believed becoming alternate guardian placed her one tragedy away from inheriting Claire’s life.
Julian understood exactly which resentment to feed.
Inside the trauma room, Toby’s heartbeat returned.
Weak.
Unstable.
Fiona announced that officers had reached the Lakeshore archive.
The main freezer had been emptied.
Someone entered two hours earlier.
Security footage showed Cassandra.
Elijah stared at her.
“You took the sample.”
She shook her head.
“Julian made me.”
“Where is it?”
“I gave him the case.”
“Where?”
“Northstar’s satellite clinic.”
“What clinic?”
Cassandra looked at Sloane.
He closed his eyes.
The company operated an unregistered pediatric facility beneath a rehabilitation center in Evanston.
Toby had been taken there twice while Elijah traveled.
Cassandra told him they were attending play therapy.
Detective Ortiz contacted federal health investigators.
A warrant team entered the clinic before dawn.
They found eleven children.
Some slept beneath sedation.
Others sat inside pale blue rooms without windows.
One twelve year old girl named Mia Flores recognized Toby’s photograph.
“He was here last week,” she said.
“What happened?” an investigator asked.
“The blonde lady made him drink something.”
“Did anyone else enter?”
Mia nodded.
“The man with the glasses.”
Julian.
“What did they ask Toby?”
“Where his mother hid the song.”
A freezer near the rear of the clinic stood open.
The antidote case was gone.
Inside the empty compartment, Julian had left a phone.
It rang when the agents entered.
Elijah answered through a secure connection.
Julian’s voice sounded calm.
“You can save Toby.”
“What do you want?”
“Transfer Sherman Biomedical to the emergency board before sunrise.”
“You poisoned my son for a company?”
“I poisoned him for control of what your wife discovered.”
“Elijah’s wife is dead,” Cassandra whispered.
Julian heard her.
May you like
“No,” he said. “Claire was the first person we removed. Naomi was simply the second.”
Continue to the next part: Julian reveals that Claire’s crash, Naomi’s divorce, and Toby’s poisoning were stages of the same plan to seize Sherman Biomedical.
