Chapter 1 - The Ride to Mercy General
The siren of Ambulance 42 wailed against the driving rain of the Chicago evening, a relentless, piercing sound that vibrated right through the steel floorboards and into the soles of Arthur’s Italian leather shoes. Inside the cramped, fluorescent-lit rear of the rig, the air smelled sharply of antiseptic wipes, damp wool, and the metallic tang of dried blood. Arthur sat on the narrow bench seat, his tailored suit jacket soaked through from the sprint across the pavement, his arm wrapped securely around his eight-year-old daughter.
Lily was tucked into his side like a small, shivering bird. She had buried her face against his ribs, her hands clutching the expensive fabric of his shirt so fiercely her knuckles were translucent. Across from them, a paramedic with a military buzzcut and tired, professional eyes worked over Clara with practiced efficiency. He adjusted the clear plastic oxygen mask over her face while checking the intravenous line taped to her bruised forearm.
Clara hadn’t regained consciousness. Her head was immobilized by a stiff cervical collar, and a thick gauze dressing covered the jagged laceration above her left eyebrow where she had struck the tempered glass of the coffee table. Looking at her now under the harsh medical lights, Arthur felt a cold wave of realization crash over him. She looked older than thirty-two. Deep, bruised shadows stained the skin beneath her eyes, and her wrists, exposed by the pushed-up sleeves of her threadbare cardigan, looked impossibly fragile.
“What’s her baseline blood pressure?” the paramedic asked, not looking up from his portable monitor as the ambulance swerved hard around a slow-moving city bus on Sheridan Road.
Arthur froze, his throat suddenly tight. “I… I don’t know.”
The paramedic glanced up, a flicker of judgment crossing his weary face before he suppressed it. “Any history of cardiac issues? Is she taking any daily medications for hypertension or arrhythmia?”
“We’ve been divorced for three years,” Arthur admitted, the words tasting like ash in his mouth. “I don’t know what she takes.”
Lily peeked out from beneath Arthur’s arm, her voice small and trembling over the rumble of the engine. “Mommy takes little orange pills every morning with her coffee. She buys them at the store with the green sign. But she told Grandma on the phone last week that she cut them in half because the insurance lady said no.”
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Arthur’s stomach dropped into a bottomless abyss. He earned seven figures a year structuring mergers for billionaires who spent more on weekend yacht charters than Clara earned in an entire year of clinical nursing. He had sent his mandatory child support check on the first of every month like clockwork, congratulating himself on being a responsible provider, never once stopping to ask why his ex-wife was rationing basic blood pressure medication to survive.
He tightened his grip on his daughter, leaning his head back against the cold metal wall of the ambulance as the red lights spun across the glass.
