Chapter 6 - The Inside Wire
At dawn, David and I returned to St. Jude’s Hospital.
Neither of us had slept. The air outside was thick with morning fog, and inside the maternity ward, the tension was palpable. Every nurse wore an extra security clearance lanyard, and private security guards checked IDs at the elevator banks.
We found Becca’s room. The door was cracked open, and inside, a young nurse was adjusting her IV monitor. Becca was pale, drenched in sweat, breathing through a painful contraction, her knuckles white as she gripped the metal bed rails.
"Breathe, Becca. Short breaths, blow out the candle," the nurse instructed gently.
When the contraction passed, Becca slumped back against the pillows, gasping for air. She looked up and saw me standing in the doorway.
"Claire?" she whispered, her voice frail.
"I’m here, Becca," I said, stepping inside with David. "How are you holding up?"
"It hurts," she whimpered, tears cutting clean lines through the dried sweat on her cheeks. "The nurse said the medicine didn't work. The baby is coming today. I'm scared. I don't have anyone to stay with me."
I looked at David. He nodded softly, his eyes filled with quiet understanding.
I pulled a chair right up to the edge of the mattress and took Becca's cold hand. "I’m staying. If you want me here, I won't leave this room until that baby is safely in your arms."
Becca’s lower lip trembled, and she squeezed my fingers with surprising strength. "Please don't leave."
Just then, Detective Miller appeared in the doorway, motioning for David to step outside into the corridor. I watched through the small observation window as the detective handed David a file. David's face hardened, his jaw tightening into a razor edge.
A moment later, David stepped back inside, his voice pitched low so Becca wouldn't hear over the humming machines.
"Claire, Sarah didn't work alone," David whispered in my ear.
My blood ran cold. "What?"
"The detectives pulled Sarah’s phone records from the last six months," David murmured, his eyes blazing with fury. "She had an accomplice inside this hospital. An orderly named Marcus Vance. He works the night shift in the maternity records room."
"Why would an orderly help her?"
"Debts," David replied grimly. "Marcus owes forty grand to illegal sports books. Sarah promised him fifteen thousand dollars in cash—the money she scammed from Mom and Dad—to alter the infant security tag frequencies and create an unauthorized exit path through the basement maintenance tunnel."
"Where is he now?"
"The police picked him up twenty minutes ago at his apartment," David said. "He rolled immediately. He gave up everything. He had already disabled the rear stairwell security camera on this floor last night before his shift ended."
A wave of pure nausea washed over me. Sarah hadn't just concocted a delusional fantasy; she had built an organized criminal operation. If David hadn't punched her memory-foam stomach at that baby shower, if the family had continued blindly believing her lies, Marcus would have escorted Sarah out of this hospital with a newborn wrapped in a laundry hamper before Becca even woke up from her anesthesia.
"Claire?" Becca cried out from the bed, her face contorting in sudden agony. "Something's happening! It hurts—it hurts so bad!"
The bedside monitor began blaring a high-pitched alert. The nurse rushed in, pulled back the sheet, and hit the emergency call button on the wall.
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"Doctor Evans, Room 412! She’s fully dilated, but the fetal heart rate is plummeting! We have cord compression! Prep for an emergency delivery right now!"
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