Chapter 1 - The Broken Door
The heavy wooden door splintered with a deafening crack as the police officer drove his shoulder into the frame.
Alicia rushed into the living room with her hospital scrubs still perfectly white against the dim light of the house.
Margaret lay on the couch with her chest rising in shallow and agonizingly slow breaths.
The scattered shards of the broken water glass crunched beneath the heavy boots of the paramedics as they swarmed the room.
They quickly lifted her fragile body onto a stretcher and secured an oxygen mask over her pale face.
Margaret blinked through the hazy fog of pain and grabbed Alicia by the sleeve of her uniform.
She weakly asked why there were forty eight missed calls on her cellular phone.
Alicia looked down with tears forming in her compassionate eyes and explained the terrifying truth.
The hospital pharmacy had realized a horrific mistake and accidentally dispensed a lethal dose of blood thinners instead of heart medication.
They had frantically called Daniel dozens of times because he was listed as her primary emergency caretaker.
The police officer leaned over the stretcher and delivered a revelation that made Margaret's newly repaired heart shatter.
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He explained that Daniel had actually answered the very first phone call from the hospital.
When the doctor warned him that his mother might die without immediate medical intervention, Daniel had explicitly told them to let nature take its course.
