Chapter 6 - THE VANISHING DOCTOR
By 7:00 AM on Friday, a torrential downpour slammed against the glass facade of Saint Leopold Memorial Hospital.
Detective Raymond Miller stood in the doorway of Trauma Bay 2, nursing a lukewarm cup of black coffee. Beside him stood Officer James Diaz, looking bleary-eyed after an overnight shift guarding Room 408.
"Did you find Dr. Reed?" Miller asked, his voice low and gravelly.
Diaz shook his head, pulling a small police pad from his uniform jacket. "Her apartment in Lincoln Park was completely cleared out, Sarge. Her phone is disconnected. Her neighbor said she saw a black SUV pick Reed up at 3:00 AM with three large suitcases."
Miller’s jaw tightened. "A chief attending physician doesn't abandon her career and flee the state in the middle of the night over a simple medical misdiagnosis."
He walked over to the bay’s central terminal, pointing his gloved finger at the digital time display on the wall.
"Eleven minutes, James," Miller said softly. "From 11:35 PM to 11:47 PM on Tuesday night, Nathan Cross was scrubbed from the hospital grid. The security cameras outside Trauma Bay 2 were looped on a thirty-second freeze-frame. The automated drug dispensation log shows a fifty-milligram dose of an experimental paralytic—Xenophed-9—was withdrawn under Dr. Reed’s authorization code at 11:37 PM."
Diaz frowned. "Xenophed-9? What's that?"
"It’s an unreleased synthetic neuromuscular blocker," Miller replied, his eyes narrowing. "It suppresses respiratory function to near-zero levels while mimicking cardiac flatlines on standard ECG monitors. It’s designed to induce a temporary state of suspended animation for neuro-trauma patients during high-risk transport."
May you like
Diaz gasped softly. "They didn't try to save him. They tried to put him under... and fake his death."
"The real question," Miller said, looking up toward the ceiling, "is why a thirty-four-year-old architectural engineer was worth going to all this trouble for."
