Chapter 5 - Whispering in the Nursery
By noon, Mason had returned to St. Catherine’s Medical Center. He had secured an entire private floor above the ICU, transforming it into a temporary fortress. Four armed guards guarded the nursery where his three newborn children—two boys and a girl—lay in glass incubators.
They were so small. Their skin was translucent, their tiny chests rising and falling in rhythmic perfection. Mason stood behind the glass, staring at them. He hadn't even held them yet. The fear of bringing the poison or the violence that surrounded him into their presence had kept him at a distance.
A quiet step behind him announced the arrival of Sister Mary, the senior neonatal nurse who had been personally assigned by Dr. Bennett to oversee the triplets.
"You can go inside, Mr. Sloane," she said softly. "They need to hear your voice."
Mason touched the cold glass. "I don't want them to know this world yet, Sister. I wanted their first day to be peaceful."
"The world is what it is, sir," the old nurse replied, standing beside him. "Your wife fought very hard to bring them here. When I was in the room during the delivery, right before... before she collapsed, she held my hand and whispered something."
Mason turned to her instantly. "What did she say?"
"She said, 'Tell Mason to look at the blue pocketbook.' I didn't understand what she meant at the time because she was slipping into unconsciousness, but she was very insistent. She repeated it twice."
"The blue pocketbook," Mason repeated.
Claire had brought a small, light-blue leather handbag with her to the hospital—the one she always carried when she went to prenatal checkups. It was currently sitting inside the locked safe in the VIP suite downstairs.
Mason walked briskly down the stairwell, accompanied by two security operators. Inside the room, which was still taped off by police markers, he opened the electronic safe, retrieved the leather bag, and unzipped the main compartment.
Inside were the usual items: lip balm, prenatal vitamins, a silver pen, and a small leather-bound notebook Claire used to track her daily thoughts and baby names. But tucked behind the inner zipper pocket was a small, high-capacity USB flash drive painted in gold metallic enamel.
Mason plugged the drive into his encrypted smartphone using an adapter.
The drive contained three audio files recorded over the past four weeks. Mason pressed play on the most recent recording, dated four days before she went into labor.
Claire’s soft, familiar voice filled the silent room, sending a painful jolt through Mason’s chest.
"Mason, if you’re listening to this without me, it means something happened. Two weeks ago, while I was sitting in the private garden at the healthcare pavilion, I overheard Richard Sterling talking to a woman near the fountain. They didn't see me behind the hedge. Sterling was talking about 'removing the bottleneck' before the harbor deal closed. He mentioned my name, Mason. He said you were too strong as long as I was standing behind you. I was scared to tell you because your stress was already so high with the company, but I placed a voice recorder in the corporate conference room during the last charity board meeting. I copied the files here. Please, Mason... protect our babies."
Mason listened as the recording ended, replaced by the background noise of a corporate conference room. The distinct, dry voice of Richard Sterling boomed through the speaker:
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"...Sloane won't sell. He’s idealist. He thinks he’s building a legacy for his family. If we break the family, we break the man. Once the wife is out of the picture, he’ll collapse within a month, and we take the shares at fifty cents on the dollar..."
Mason sat on the edge of the bed, holding the phone in his trembling hand. Claire hadn't been an innocent victim caught in the crossfire. She had recognized the danger, fought to protect him, and left him the weapon he needed to finish it.
