Chapter 2 - The Hospital Protocol
The white glare of St. Jude Hospital’s ICU hall was blinding. The smell of antiseptic replaced the sour odor of the poisoned stew, but Patrick couldn't wash the memory from his senses. He paced the narrow hallway, his knuckles raw and red from washing his hands five times in the restroom sink.
"Mr. Hale?"
Dr. Marcus, the chief of emergency medicine, walked out of Eleanor's room, pulling off a pair of rubber gloves. His face was grim.
"Doctor, how is she?" Patrick rushed forward, his voice hoarse.
"She’s stable, but barely," Dr. Marcus said, leading Patrick to a quiet corner of the waiting room. "We performed a gastric lavage to pump her stomach. The substance in her system wasn't just spoiled food, Mr. Hale. We found high concentrations of digitalis—a powerful heart medication—mixed with liquid drain cleaner and old poultry broth."
Patrick’s blood ran cold. Drain cleaner. Heart medication. Clara hadn't just thrown a tantrum; she had executed a cold-blooded murder attempt.
"If you hadn't cleared her throat when you did, the corrosive material would have ruptured her esophagus," Dr. Marcus continued, looking directly into Patrick's eyes. "Whoever gave her that knew exactly what they were doing. This wasn't an accident. I’ve already authorized the police to collect our toxicology reports."
"Thank you, Doctor," Patrick managed to say, his jaw clenching so hard his teeth ached. "Can I see her?"
"She’s heavily sedated right now, but yes. Keep it brief. Her body has taken a massive trauma."
Patrick walked into the room softly. Eleanor looked so small in the hospital bed, surrounded by beeping monitors and intravenous lines. Her pale skin was translucent, showing the faint blue veins beneath.
He pulled a plastic chair up to the bedside and took her frail hand. "I'm here, Mom. You're safe now."
Eleanor’s eyelids fluttered. She stirred slightly, her lips moving without sound.
"Don't try to speak," Patrick whispered gently.
"The... house..." Eleanor breathed out, her voice barely audible over the hum of the heart monitor. "Under... the floorboards... in my old sewing room... The envelope... Patrick..."
"Mom, don't worry about that right now."
"No!" Eleanor’s fingers tightened on his hand with surprising force. Her eyes opened halfway, clouded with pain and urgency. "You... must know. Before Clara... destroys it. The church... Ohio... 1994..."
Before she could say another word, the heart monitor began to beep erratically, and a nurse rushed into the room.
"Sir, you need to step out. Her blood pressure is spiking," the nurse said, gently nudging Patrick toward the door.
Patrick stood outside the glass door, watching the medical team work on his mother. His mind raced back to Clara’s harsh words in the dining room: Ask her who left you in that church parking lot in Ohio.
He turned on his heel and walked out of the hospital into the freezing night air. He needed answers, and he knew exactly where to find them: back at the house, before Clara got out of police custody.
He got into his SUV, hit the ignition, and dialed his personal IT consultant, David.
"David, I need you to do something for me right now," Patrick said as soon as the line connected.
"Patrick? It's midnight on Christmas Eve, man. What's going on?" David sounded half-asleep.
"Access the local server for the home network. Cut off all cloud uploads from the dining room feed and mirror the storage drives to a private cloud account immediately. Don't let anyone delete a single frame."
David’s tone instantly shifted from sleepy to sharp. "Did something happen?"
"Clara tried to kill my mother," Patrick said flatly. "And she thinks she got away with it."
There was a long pause on the line. "I'm on it. Give me five minutes. I'll secure every angle, including the audio tracks."
"Good. Send the raw footage to my encrypted phone drive."
Patrick pulled up to the gated entry of his estate ten minutes later. The police cruisers were gone; Clara was still at the station providing her false statement. The house sat dark and quiet under the winter snow, looking like a postcard of luxury—a luxury built on deceit.
He unlocked the front door and walked inside. The smell of the bitter stew still lingered faintly in the grand foyer. Ignoring the mess on the dining room floor, Patrick headed straight for the west wing of the house, where Eleanor’s private suite and old sewing room were located.
He opened the door to the sewing room. It was a modest room, kept just as it had been when they moved into the estate three years ago. Antique fabrics, old wooden spools, and a vintage Singer sewing machine sat covered in thin dust.
Patrick dropped to his knees in the center of the room, running his fingers across the dark oak floorboards. Near the corner closet, he felt a subtle ridge. He pulled out his pocket knife and pried up the loose board.
Beneath it lay a faded metal box, secured with a small brass padlock.
Patrick used a small pry bar from his toolkit to snap the rusted lock open. Inside lay three items: an old, yellowed newspaper clipping from the Columbus Dispatch dated December 26, 1994; a heavy gold signet ring engraved with an ornate crest featuring a black hawk; and a thick leather-bound journal written in his mother's precise, elegant handwriting.
Patrick picked up the newspaper clipping first. The headline stared up at him in bold, black ink:
"HEIR TO HAWTHORNE ENTERPRISES ABANDONED AT ST. JUDE CHURCH; MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR DYNASTY SEARCHES FOR MISSING BABY."
Patrick’s breath hitched in his throat. His eyes darted down the page to a small black-and-white photograph of a baby blanket bearing the exact same crest as the gold signet ring in his hand.
"Hawthorne..." Patrick whispered to himself.
Hawthorne Enterprises was one of the largest real estate conglomerates on the East Coast—a trillion-dollar empire whose founder, Arthur Hawthorne, had died ten years ago in a mysterious helicopter accident, leaving behind a bitter war among his surviving relatives over his vast estate.
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Suddenly, the front door clicked downstairs. Heavy, sharp steps echoed across the marble floor of the foyer.
"Patrick?" Clara’s voice called out, smooth, calculating, and entirely void of the frantic tears she had shed for the police. "I know you're in here, darling. Let's talk like adults."
