Chapter 5 - The Phone in the Blankets
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Dr. Sterling rushed into the room, taking one look at the situation and immediately opening his bag.
“Clear the room!” the doctor ordered, injecting an emergency cardiac stimulant directly into Norah’s IV line. “Her heart is failing! I need space!”
Ruth helped the doctor, using her medical background to assist with the oxygen mask and monitoring the pulse ox meter while Wesley dragged Celeste out into the hallway by her wrist, throwing her onto the hardwood floor.
Two heavy security guards, having arrived shortly after Wesley, stood at the top of the stairs, their weapons drawn.
“Keep her here,” Wesley ordered the guards. “If she moves a muscle, break her leg.”
Inside the room, the cardiac monitor beeped frantically before slowly, agonizingly settling into a steady, rhythmic cadence. Color began returning to Norah’s cheeks. Her chest rose and fell in deeper, cleaner breaths.
Dr. Sterling let out a massive sigh of relief, wiping sweat from his brow. “She’s stable. God above, Wesley, ten more seconds and her heart would have stopped completely. What was in those pills?”
Ruth stepped toward the bed. As Norah opened her eyes, tears spilling down her pale cheeks, the young girl reached beneath her mattress with a frail hand.
She pulled out her old, cracked mobile phone.
Her fingers, still shaking from oxygen deprivation, tapped rapidly against the screen. She finished her message and held the glowing screen up toward her brother.
Wesley walked over, taking the phone with trembling hands.
May you like
The note on the screen read:
She has been changing my pills for three weeks. She told me if I tried to tell you, she would kill you while you slept. She works for the Valenti family. She has your harbor safe codes in her purse.
