Chapter 22 - The Midnight Transfer Protocol
Marcus ripped the cassette from the deck, jammed it into his coat pocket, and took the attic stairs three at a time. The mansion was dead silent, save for the ticking of the grandfather clock in the foyer and the driving rain lashing against the floor-to-ceiling French windows.
He didn't wait for his driver. Marcus sprinted out into the storm, slammed his SUV into gear, and roared out of the iron gates, tires screaming against the slick asphalt of Commonwealth Avenue. His phone buzzed against the center console. It was Sarah, the head night nurse from the pediatric intensive care unit.
"Marcus, where are you?" Sarah’s breath came in ragged gasps, her background noise echoing with the chaotic clamor of rolling gurneys and code alarms. "There's an unmarked medical transport team here on Floor Four. They have a signed state conservatorship transfer form bearing the seal of the Suffolk County Probate Court. They're trying to move Chloe into a private palliative wing in New Hampshire!"
"Do not let them touch her!" Marcus roared, swerving aggressively through a red light at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue, the SUV’s all-wheel drive barely gripping the rain-drowned street. "Eleanor bought that court order! The DA is issuing an arrest warrant right now!"
"Marcus, you don't understand," Sarah cried out, her voice suddenly muffled, as if she were hiding inside a linen closet. "The lead physician on the transfer transport... it's Dr. Sterling, the chief of neurosurgery. He just suspended Dr. Harrison's hospital privileges and had BMC security escort him off the property! They're disconnecting Chloe from the central telemetry monitors right now. If they put her in that private ambulance, she won't make it to the state line alive!"
"Barricade the pediatric door, Sarah!" Marcus slammed his hand against the steering wheel. "I’m two minutes out! Tell security if they lay a hand on my daughter, I will burn that entire medical foundation to the ground!"
Marcus accelerated down Albany Street, the towering glass facade of Boston Medical Center looming like a monolithic fortress in the stormy dark. Red and blue emergency lights refracted violently across the wet concrete. But as Marcus skidded into the emergency ambulance bay, his headlights illuminated something that made his stomach drop into an icy pit.
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Parked directly in front of the pediatric bay doors was a sleek, matte-black Mercedes Maybach. The rear tinted window lowered slowly by three inches, revealing the immaculate diamond earrings and cold, unforgiving eyes of Eleanor Vance.
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