Chapter 3 - THE LOBBY SHOWDOWN
Ross stormed through the entrance like an entitled princeling whose royal procession had been delayed by commoners. He had hastily thrown on a $2,000 Italian wool coat over wrinkled slacks and a rumpled dress shirt that still smelled of high-end tequila and smoke. Behind him, trailing with frantic, unsteady steps, was my sixty-two-year-old mother, Evelyn.
Ross caught sight of me sitting on the plastic bench outside Trauma Bay One. His face contorted not into shame, not into remorse, but into an ugly, theatrical rage.
“Lauren! What the hell is your problem?” he shouted, striding down the sterile hallway without paying the slightest attention to the sick patients or the medical monitors blinking around him. “Have you lost your damn mind? My platinum card just got declined at the gas station! My car app says the lease on the BMW was revoked by the primary owner! What kind of sick, dramatic game are you playing?”
I didn’t stand up. I sat still, watching him advance. My face was a blank stone wall.
“Ross, lower your voice,” Evelyn hissed, catching up to him, clutching her faux-fur collar around her throat. She looked disheveled, her dyed-blonde hair flat on one side from her Ambien-induced slumber. She turned to me, her lips pinched in that familiar, condescending frown she had used on me since childhood. “Lauren, honestly. Did you really need to bring the police into this? You know Ross had Julianna’s family over last night. Arthur Sterling was there! The man controls half the commercial real estate in the county! Ross was on the verge of securing a seed round for his firm!”
“Where are they?” Ross interrupted, leaning over me, his breath hot and rancid with alcohol. “Where are the kids? Are you hiding them in here to make me look like an abusive uncle? They were fine! They were just on the patio for a little fresh air! Calvin is twelve, for God’s sake, he plays hockey! You’re making an absolute mockery of this family!”
I looked past him toward the trauma bay doors.
Marcus stepped out. He was six-foot-three, broad-shouldered, and had been an Army surgeon in Kandahar before he took over our ER. He was still wearing his surgical scrub cap, his lead apron, and gloves splattered with saline and Molly’s IV prep.
“Who the hell are you?” Marcus asked, his deep voice slicing through the corridor with lethal quietness.
“I’m Ross Vance,” my brother sneered, puffing out his chest. “I’m Lauren’s brother. And this is a private family matter. Lauren, you call your bank right now and fix my cards, and you tell whatever rent-a-cop you called that this was a misunderstanding. Do you have any idea how bad it looks that you left the house looking like a crime scene while Julianna’s parents were sending a driver to pick up the engagement contracts?”
Marcus didn’t blink. He looked at Ross, then at Evelyn, and then slowly glanced down at the clipboard in his hands.
“Molly Vance,” Marcus read aloud, his voice dropping into a chilling, clinical register. “Age nine. Admitted at zero-seven-forty hours. Core body temperature on arrival: eighty-four point two degrees. Ventricular fibrillation arrest at zero-seven-fifty-five. Revived after one round of defibrillation and active internal core rewarming. Currently in critical condition in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit on continuous cardiac monitoring.”
Ross’s eyes flickered, just for a fraction of a second. “She... she had an arrest? Come on, that’s just doctor talk. She probably just passed out from holding her breath! Kids do that when they throw tantrums!”
“Shut up, Ross,” Evelyn muttered nervously, looking around the hallway as two hospital security guards began to flank the corridor. “Lauren, darling, please. We didn’t know it was that cold outside! The thermostat inside said seventy degrees! We were busy hosting! You know how important this night was for your brother’s future! If he marries Julianna, our whole family is set for life!”
I finally stood up.
I was four inches shorter than Ross, but when I took a step forward, he instinctively took half a step back.
“My house,” I said. The words came out low, distinct, and sharp as surgical scalpels. “My home that I bought with the bonuses I earned while pulling dead teenagers out of windshields while you flunked out of your third business program. You took my home. You threw a party for people you wanted to impress. You took my children’s coats, locked them on a concrete slab in five-degree weather, and went back to drink champagne.”
“They were being brats!” Ross snarled, his mask slipping. “Calvin was running around bothering Arthur Sterling! Molly spilled punch on Julianna’s mother’s dress! I told them to sit outside until they learned some manners! I forgot to unlock the door because we were celebrating! It was a mistake!”
“A mistake?” I asked. I turned my head slowly toward Evelyn. “And what was the Ambien, Mother? Was that a mistake too?”
Evelyn’s face drained of color. The rouge on her wrinkled cheeks suddenly looked like chalk.
“Lauren... I didn't...”
“Calvin told me everything,” I said, my voice cutting through her excuses before she could form them. “He begged you. He banged on the glass until his hands bled. He told you his sister was dying. And you told Ross to leave them there so they wouldn't ruin his chances with the Sterlings.”
“He’s lying!” Evelyn shrieked, clutching her designer handbag against her stomach. “The boy is dramatic, just like your father was! He’s exaggerating to get Ross into trouble because he’s jealous of his uncle!”
“We pulled the exterior security footage twenty minutes ago,” a new voice echoed down the hall.
Everyone turned.
Walking toward us was Detective Robert Miller from the Special Victims and Child Abuse Unit. Behind him were two uniformed police officers. Miller was holding a manila folder and a USB flash drive.
“Dr. Vance,” Miller said with a respectful nod toward me. “Your home security system was linked to your cloud storage. We have four hours of four-K high-definition video with full audio recording from the balcony camera.”
Ross stopped breathing. Evelyn took a step backward, bumping into the wall.
“The camera?” Ross whispered, his voice cracking. “There’s no camera out there.”
“I installed it two months ago when you claimed someone stole your golf clubs from my garage,” I said coldly. “It points directly at the balcony door.”
Detective Miller turned to Ross and Evelyn. His eyes were hard as flint.
“Ross Vance. Evelyn Vance. You are both under arrest for felony child endangerment, aggravated assault, and two counts of attempted depraved-heart manslaughter.”
“What?!” Ross screamed, his voice reaching a shrill, hysterical pitch. “Manslaughter?! Nobody died! She’s alive! Lauren, tell them! Tell them to stop! You can’t do this to me! I’m getting engaged next week!”
The two uniformed officers stepped in, grabbing Ross’s wrists and twisting them behind his back. The sharp *click* of steel handcuffs echoed loudly off the linoleum tiles.
“Turn around, ma’am,” the second officer said to Evelyn, pulling out another pair of cuffs.
“Don't you dare touch me!” Evelyn shrieked, pulling her arms away. “Lauren! Tell this pig to get his hands off me! I am your mother! I gave birth to you! You owe me everything! Ross is your blood! If he goes to jail, his life is over! Arthur Sterling will ruin him!”
I didn’t look away. I watched the cuffs click around my mother’s brittle wrists.
“My blood was freezing to death on a balcony four hours ago while you took a sleeping pill,” I said.
I took one step closer to her, leaning in until she could smell the cold antiseptic on my skin.
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“You don't have a daughter anymore, Evelyn. And you don't have a home. By noon today, your locks will be changed, your accounts will be empty, and every dime I ever put into your name will be reclaimed by my lawyers. You chose Ross’s wedding over my daughter’s life. Now you can share a cell with him.”
***
