Chapter 15 - The House Call from Hell: The Pediatrician with Victoria’s Signet Ring
The diesel trucks at the base of the driveway didn't attack. They simply sat there, their high beams pinning the front of the cottage like spotlights on a theater stage, pinning David and Leah in place while the ocean waves churned sixty feet below the back cliff.
At midnight, a solitary figure walked up the driveway through the blinding halogen glare.
David watched through the sight of his rifle from the second-story dormer. It was a middle-aged woman wearing a bright yellow rain slicker, carrying a professional black leather medical bag. She held both hands high above her head, walking slowly, deliberately toward the front porch.
"Don't shoot!" her voice echoed over the howling wind. "David! Leah! It’s Dr. Carolyn Vance! Please! I have medicine for the infant!"
Leah gasped, recognizing the name. "Dr. Vance? She’s the head of pediatrics at Portland Memorial! She was the one who consulted on Noah’s respiratory tract last week!"
"It’s a setup," David hissed, his finger tightening on the trigger. "She walked through Victoria's blockade."
"David, wait! Don't shoot an unarmed doctor!" Leah pleaded, grabbing his arm. "Noah is burning up! Feel his chest! He’s running a fever!"
David reached into the laundry basket. Noah was whimpering softly, his skin radiating unnatural heat, his breathing shallow and rapid. While they had been barricaded in the bedroom, the baby’s condition had deteriorated rapidly.
"Keep the rifle on her," David said through clenched teeth. "I'm going down. If she moves her hands toward her coat, blow her head off."
David descended the stairs, unlocked the deadbolt, and cracked the heavy oak door open three inches, keeping his .40 caliber pistol hidden behind the jamb.
"Step onto the porch. Slowly," David ordered.
Dr. Carolyn Vance stepped out of the rain. Water dripped from her graying bangs. Her hands were shaking violently as she set the medical bag on the porch bench. "David, thank God. Your mother contacted me—"
David raised the pistol, leveling it directly between her eyes. "You work for her."
"No! No, David, listen to me!" Dr. Vance cried, tears streaming down her rain-soaked cheeks. "She has my daughter! Victoria’s people took my seventeen-year-old daughter from her dorm room in Boston six hours ago! She told me if I didn't deliver the pediatric stabilization kit to your son by midnight, my daughter would be thrown off a trawler in the harbor!"
Dr. Vance pulled open her raincoat, exposing her bare chest and waist to prove she wore no wire, no explosives. "Noah was exposed to an aerosolized compound Victoria’s team sprayed into your HVAC intake vents yesterday afternoon. It’s an organic histamine variant—it mimics severe infant asthma. Without the subcutaneous counter-agent in this bag, his lungs will collapse within four hours! She planned this! She orchestrated every single second!"
Leah, who had crept down the stairs carrying Noah against her shoulder, looked at the trembling doctor. The baby let out a tiny, choked gasp, his lips turning a terrifying shade of dusky blue.
"Give me the counter-agent," Leah screamed, lunging forward.
"Leah, don't touch that bag!" David yelled.
"Our son is dying, David!" Leah shoved past him, grabbing Dr. Vance by the collar of her slicker. "Give it to me! Now!"
Dr. Vance frantically unzipped the medical kit, pulling out a pre-loaded pediatric auto-injector filled with a clear, golden fluid. But as the doctor extended her trembling hand toward Noah's thigh, the light from the hallway caught the middle finger of her left hand.
Resting on her knuckle was an antique platinum signet ring, engraved with an open-winged raven.
Victoria Miller’s personal seal.
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David didn't hesitate. He lunged forward, grabbed Dr. Vance’s wrist, and twisted it violently downward. The auto-injector clattered against the pine floor.
"That’s not an antidote," David snarled, his eyes burning with primal rage. "That’s potassium chloride. The same thing she used to stop Julian’s heart."
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