PART 3: The Secret Sample
Morning sunlight pierced through the thick, tinted windows of the seventh floor, casting long, pale stripes across the sterile white linoleum. The hospital was waking up for its morning shift change, bringing an influx of murmuring nurses, clattering food carts, and the hurried footsteps of medical interns.
Priya stood inside Owen's NICU suite, adjusting the flow rate on the IV pump while keeping her back turned to the security camera mounted high in the corner of the room. She wore her standard blue scrubs, but underneath her pocket, her fingers clutched a small, sterile specimen vial she had smuggled from the lab.
Dr. Voss walked in briskly, flanked by two junior residents holding clipboards. His expression was a carefully masked blend of professional sympathy and bureaucratic exhaustion.
"Good morning, Nurse Osei. Mr. Kade," Voss nodded politely toward Weston, who stood rigidly in the corner of the room, arms crossed over his chest like a sentinel carved from stone. "How is our little fighter holding up this morning?"
"His weight has stabilized at four pounds five ounces, Doctor," Priya answered evenly, not looking up from the monitor. "Though he hasn't gained any ground."
Voss sighed, shaking his head with a practiced air of solemnity. "As I anticipated. The metabolic crash is inevitable at this stage. Mr. Kade, I strongly advise you to reconsider the palliative transition we discussed last night. Pushing his tiny system with aggressive intravenous fluids is only prolonging his discomfort."
Weston didn't move. He stared at Voss with a gaze so intensely vacant of emotion that the doctor visibly swallowed, taking a half-step back.
"My son is not dying today, Doctor," Weston said, his voice smooth and lethally quiet. "And if I hear the word palliative come out of your mouth again, you won't have to worry about hospital administration anymore. You'll be worrying about dental surgery."
Voss flushed red, adjusting his glasses indignantly. "I am merely trying to offer realistic medical guidance—"
"Save your guidance for someone who believes it," Weston interrupted, stepping forward until Voss was forced to look up at him. "Get out."
Without another word, Voss turned on his heel and stormed out of the room, his residents scurrying after him like ducklings.
As soon as the glass door slid shut, Priya let out a soft breath she didn't realize she'd been holding. She quickly stepped over to the current intravenous bag hanging above Owen's incubator, unclipped the safety valve, and extracted a three-milliliter sample of the lipid fluid directly into her hidden vial.
"Got it?" Weston asked softly, stepping closer.
"Got it," Priya whispered, sliding the vial deep into her scrub pocket. "Now comes the hard part. St. Jude’s internal lab runs routine diagnostics, but if administration is involved in this tampering, the lab techs report directly to Chief Voss. We can't trust the hospital's internal testing."
"Then we don't use the hospital," Weston said instantly, pulling out his encrypted satellite phone. "I have private medical researchers off-site. Independent toxicologists who owe me everything. Give me the sample, and I'll have a full molecular breakdown within four hours."
Priya hesitated, looking down at Owen, who whimpered softly in his sleep. "Weston, if this sample gets intercepted outside these walls—"
"It won't," Weston promised, his voice dropping an octave, carrying the absolute weight of a king giving a decree. "My head of security, Marcus, will personally transport it in a secure biochemical carrier. No one touches it, no one sees it."
Priya nodded, pulling the vial from her pocket and handing it across the gap of the incubator. Weston took it with extreme care, as if it were a fragile piece of priceless glass, and tucked it securely inside the inner pocket of his vest.
"While Marcus runs the sample," Weston said, his eyes locking onto hers, "I need you to do something else for me, Priya. Something dangerous."
May you like
"Name it."
"Find out who has physical access to the pharmacy storage room on the third floor between midnight and four in the morning. Someone has to be physically swapping these bags out or injecting a saline solution into the seals. I want a name."
