Chapter 1 - The Boy in His Arms
The pediatric emergency doors burst open at 11:47 p.m.
Elijah Sherman stumbled inside carrying his four-year-old son.
Toby’s head hung against his shoulder.
His lips were pale.
His small gray shirt was soaked from the rain.
“Please,” Elijah shouted. “Save him!”
Dr. Naomi Wheeler turned from the nurses’ station.
For one second, she stopped breathing.
Elijah.
The man who had once promised to marry her.
The man who disappeared three weeks before their wedding and later married Cassandra Kelley.
Cassandra rushed through the doors behind him in an elegant beige outfit, her hair wet and her eyes wild.
Naomi looked at Elijah only long enough to recognize him.
Then she looked at Toby.
“Trauma room. Now.”
A team rushed forward.
They placed Toby on the bed, cut away his damp shirt, attached monitors, and fitted an oxygen mask over his face.
His heart rate was unstable.
His breathing was dangerously slow.
Elijah stood frozen near the wall.
Naomi pressed her stethoscope against Toby’s chest.
“He’s my patient first,” she said.
The words were for Elijah.
And for herself.
Toby’s eyelids fluttered.
Naomi leaned closer.
“What happened, sweetheart?”
His lips barely moved.
“It wasn’t the shrimp.”
Cassandra’s face changed.
Toby’s weak fingers curled around Naomi’s sleeve.
“Mommy’s medicine.”
Naomi slowly lifted her eyes toward Cassandra.
Cassandra reached for her phone.
Her thumb moved rapidly across the screen.
Naomi saw her deleting messages.
“Put the phone down,” Naomi said.
“You can’t blame me!” Cassandra snapped.
A nurse handed Naomi a small unlabeled medicine bottle found in Toby’s jacket.
Minutes later, the preliminary toxicology result appeared.
Naomi read the chemical name.
Then she looked at Elijah.
“This compound came from your company.”
Elijah stared at the report.
His desperation became horror.
The drug was experimental.
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It had never been approved for children.
And only three people at Sherman Biotech had access to it.
