Chapter 3 - FORTY-ONE MINUTES
Detective Lena Ortiz arrived before midnight.
She was small, sharp-eyed, and unimpressed by expensive people.
Julian learned that quickly.
“You’re saying my wife is accusing me of forging legal documents while she’s under heavy medication,” he told her.
Ortiz looked at the red mark on Genevieve’s cheek. “I’m saying I can see a handprint.”
Eleanor stepped between them. “My son is a respected executive.”
“Congratulations.”
“And I am on the hospital foundation board.”
Ortiz closed her notebook. “Then you know where the elevators are.”
Security escorted Eleanor and Julian out.
The room became quiet except for Nora’s tiny breathing.
Genevieve felt as though a storm had left the building but somehow remained inside her chest.
Sarah sat beside the bed.
“You need to tell me everything you remember before the paralysis.”
Genevieve stared at the ceiling.
Three days earlier, she had been thirty-nine weeks pregnant, swollen, exhausted, and angry because Julian had again missed a prenatal appointment.
She remembered drinking tea in their kitchen.
She remembered dizziness.
Then the floor.
She woke during an emergency delivery and heard someone say her blood pressure was crashing.
When she woke again, Nora had been born and Genevieve could not move her legs.
Later, weakness spread into her arms.
Doctors called it a rare neurological complication and said recovery was possible but uncertain.
“What was in the tea?” Ortiz asked.
“Chamomile. Honey.”
“Who made it?”
Genevieve hesitated.
“Julian.”
Sarah and Ortiz exchanged a look.
At 1:13 a.m., a nurse named Tessa Greene entered carrying a printed medication record.
Her face was pale.
“I checked the orders because Mrs. Vale kept saying something felt wrong.”
Genevieve looked at her. “What did you find?”
Tessa pointed to a line highlighted in yellow.
“You were given a sedative yesterday afternoon.”
Sarah frowned. “By whom?”
“That’s the problem. It isn’t in the physician orders.”
Ortiz stood.
May you like
Tessa swallowed.
“And the dose was entered during the same forty-one minutes the hallway camera went dark.”
