Chapter 5 - The Antidote
The next three hours were the longest of my entire life. I sat in the hard plastic chairs of the waiting room, holding my sleeping twins against my chest. Sarah paced the hallway, her eyes never leaving the glass window of Tommy’s room.
Finally, Dr. Aris emerged, pulling off his surgical mask. He looked exhausted, but there was a faint, miraculous smile on his face.
"You were right," the doctor breathed heavily, looking at me. "It was a massive, concentrated dose of thallium. If you had arrived even twenty minutes later, his organs would have completely shut down. The antidote is binding to the toxins. His vitals are stabilizing. He is going to live, Sarah."
Sarah let out a cry that was half-sob, half-laugh, and dropped to her knees in the hallway. I knelt beside her, resting a hand on her shoulder.
"Can I see him?" she begged.
"He's unconscious, but yes," Dr. Aris nodded. "You can go in."
I watched through the glass as Sarah sat beside her son’s bed, resting her head gently against his small hand, mindful of the IV lines. For the first time all evening, the suffocating weight in my chest began to lift. Tommy was safe. My twins were safe.
But the battle was far from over. My phone buzzed in my pocket. It was Detective Vance from the local precinct.
"Mr. Sterling," the detective's gruff voice came through the speaker. "We’re holding your wife in lockup, but her family just dispatched a fleet of high-powered defense attorneys. They are already filing an emergency injunction to get her out on bail, and they are demanding immediate custody of the twins, claiming you are mentally unstable and having an affair with the nanny."
My grip on the phone tightened until my knuckles turned white. "Let them try. Have you secured the house?"
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"It's a crime scene now," the detective confirmed.
"Good. Check the master suite. Behind the velvet painting in the walk-in closet, there is a hidden wall safe. The combination is her birthday. If she bought poison, the receipts or the remaining vials are in there. She never throws anything away."
