Chapter 6 - The Southern Wing
The South Wing was different. It had no walnut paneling, no sage velvet chairs, and no gold-plated plaques honoring real estate dynasties. It smelled of steam heat, iodine, and the sharp, clean vinegar of industrial laundry detergent—the smells of an actual hospital where people were born and died without the benefit of a public relations firm.
Dr. Chen was forty-five, with short black hair and hands that were broad, warm, and utterly steady. She didn't ask me how I fell. She looked at the X-rays Marcus brought her, ran a real-time ultrasound probe across my belly for three minutes, and then looked me dead in the eyes.
"The placenta is intact," Dr. Chen said, wiping the clear acoustic gel from my skin with a warm cotton towel. "Your daughter is stubborn, Clara. She’s got her feet jammed up under your liver, and her heart is beating like a little diesel engine. But that arm needs reduction immediately. The bone ends are threatening the radial artery."
"Do it," I said.
"It’s going to hurt, Clara," Marcus said, standing at the head of the gurney, his hand holding mine—the left hand, the uninjured one, his fingers locked through mine like we were eight years old again, jumping off the high bank into the river. "We can only give you local blocks because of the baby."
"Marcus," I said, looking up at the water-stained acoustic tiles of the procedure room. "I’ve had a fractured tibia in the middle of a sandstorm in Helmand while my sergeant was bleeding through his tourniquet. My husband is in handcuffs, my daughter is kicking, and you’re standing right here. You can break it again if you have to."
Dr. Chen smiled—a small, fierce flash of white teeth.
"Good girl," she said. "Lidocaine block at the brachial plexus. Marcus, hold that shoulder. Nurse, get the plaster rolls ready. We’re going to set this right."
The needle was long, but when the cold numbness flooded from my armpit down to my fingertips, it felt like an act of mercy.
Then came the pressure.
Dr. Chen took my broken wrist in both hands, her forearms corded with muscle, and pulled.
I didn't scream. I bit into the rolled towel Marcus put between my teeth, my eyes watering until the fluorescent tubes blurred into long, white ribbons of fire. I heard the bone move—a dull, wet grick as the spiral fracture aligned, the two ragged edges of the ulna grinding together before settling into the cradle Dr. Chen made with her palms.
"Plaster," Dr. Chen commanded.
The warm, wet gauze wrapped around my arm, layer after layer, heavy and protective, setting like limestone around the ruin Julian had made.
"That will hold until the orthopedic team can place a plate next week," Dr. Chen said, stripping off her gloves with a snap. "Now. Let’s talk about this baby. You’re thirty-two weeks and four days. We want another two weeks if we can get it, Clara. Every day inside is three fewer days in the NICU. Can you rest?"
"I don't have anywhere to go," I said. The realization hit me then, cold and hollow beneath the fading adrenaline. "The penthouse... everything I own is in that building. My clothes. My papers. My mother’s Bible."
"You aren't going to the penthouse," Marcus said.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out an old brass key attached to a faded plastic tag shaped like a trout.
"Dad’s place," I whispered.
"The roof leaked last winter," Marcus said, looking down at the floor, "and the kitchen linoleum is curling near the stove. But I put a new wood stove in the den in November, and the well pump is new. There are three cords of seasoned oak behind the shed. And there isn't a camera within five miles."
"The federal marshals have the penthouse sealed anyway," the Assistant U.S. Attorney said, leaning against the doorframe. Her name was Miller—no relation to the nurse, thank God—Sarah Miller, with the hard, cynical eyes of a former public defender who had crossed over to prosecute the people who bought judges. "We served the seizure warrant thirty minutes ago. Vance’s accounts are frozen under the RICO statutes. His brother Arthur has already been suspended by the state bar association pending an emergency ethics hearing at noon."
She walked over to the bed and set a brown expanding file on my lap.
"What is this?" I asked.
"Protection," Miller said. "It’s a temporary restraining order issued by the federal district court. It covers you, your brother, and the unborn child. If Julian Vance, Arthur Vance, Ingrid Haas, or any of their agents comes within one thousand feet of you, they don't get a citation. They get five years in federal prison for contempt of a protective order."
She looked at my cast, then at the bruised skin around my eyes.
"We also pulled the security footage from the garage of your building," she added quietly. "Two weeks ago. When you were trying to visit your father’s grave on his birthday."
May you like
I looked away.
"We have Julian’s chauffeur blocking your car," Miller said. "We have the audio of Julian telling you that if you left the property without his written permission, he’d have the police pick you up as an escaped psychiatric patient. That’s kidnapping, Mrs. Vance. In this state, aggravated kidnapping carries a life sentence. He isn't getting out on bail. Not today. Not next month. Not ever."
