Chapter 4 - The Poison in the Blood
The main waiting room of the pediatric ICU was a fishbowl of glass and chrome. Lauren sat on the edge of a vinyl sofa, her hands wringing a damp tissue into shreds. When she saw Daniel, Ethan, and Detective Vance walk through the double doors, she immediately stood up, her face twisting into a mask of maternal anguish.
"Daniel!" she cried, rushing toward him. "Have they locked him up? Tell me he’s not allowed near my baby anymore!"
But Daniel didn't open his arms to sheathe her. He stood perfectly still, his hands at his sides, his gaze heavy and unfamiliar.
"They found a syringe, Lauren," Daniel said, his voice dangerously quiet. "In the trash can in the family lounge. And a vial of phenobarbital."
Lauren’s steps faltered. The frantic, weeping mother persona seemed to slip for a fraction of a second, revealing a cold, calculating emptiness underneath. But she recovered quickly, her eyes widening in mock confusion.
"A syringe? I... I don't know what you're talking about," she stammered, her voice rising an octave. "Ethan must have put it there! He’s trying to frame me! He’s always hated me, Daniel, you know that! He’s trying to destroy our family!"
"The syringe was at the bottom of the bin, Lauren," Detective Vance stepped forward, his badge visible on his belt. "Underneath paper towels that had your fingerprint patterns on them. We’ve already called the pharmacy listed on the torn label. The prescription was filled last week under your maiden name, Lauren Vance. Or should I say, Lauren Miller?"
Lauren took a step back, her back hitting the glass wall of the waiting room. Her chest heaved, her eyes darting toward the exit. "This is ridiculous. I wanted my baby to sleep! She wouldn't stop crying! Do you know what it’s like? To have her scream for hours and hours, and nothing works? I was losing my mind!"
"So you drugged her?" Daniel’s voice cracked, a raw, bleeding sound of a man watching his entire life crumble. "You poisoned our daughter because she was crying?"
"It wasn't poison!" Lauren shrieked, her face turning a blotchy, ugly red. "It was just a little bit! Just enough to help her rest! The doctor said it was safe for older kids—I just adjusted the dose! I was doing it for us, Daniel! So we could have some peace!"
The double doors of the NICU swung open with a soft, pneumatic hiss.
Dr. Angela Sterling, the chief pediatric resident, walked out. She was still wearing her sterile scrubs, her face grim, holding a digital tablet in her hands. The entire room fell into an absolute, breathless silence.
"We have the preliminary toxicology and lab results back for Grace," Dr. Sterling said, her eyes sweeping over the group before landing squarely on Lauren.
"How is she?" Daniel choked out.
"She is stable, but she is very lucky," Dr. Sterling said, her tone professional but laced with an icy severity. "We found high levels of phenobarbital in her blood. It is a powerful central nervous system depressant. It was not prescribed by this hospital, and in a newborn of her age and weight, the dosage found in her system was near-lethal. It caused her respiratory drive to fail. If Ethan hadn't found her when he did... she would have passed away in her sleep within the hour."
Daniel slowly turned his head to look at his son.
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For the first time that night, the fear, the anger, and the guilt in his eyes were no longer directed at Ethan. They were directed at himself. He looked at the boy he had dismissed, the son whose grief he had ignored, and realized that Ethan had been the only thing standing between his daughter and a quiet, terrible grave.
"Ethan..." Daniel whispered, his hand reaching out, trembling. "My god, Ethan... I'm so sorry."
