Chapter 5 - The Toxic Clinic
Mom was rapidly slipping into a deadly coma right in front of my terrified eyes.
I searched her coat pockets and found her daily pill organizer crushed deep in the bottom lining.
The pills inside were definitely not her usual, prescribed heart medication.
They were high-dose sedatives, completely unlabeled and incredibly dangerous for a frail elderly woman.
"Wade must have switched them this morning when I wasn't looking," Lucy cried, pacing the motel room in a sheer panic.
"We have to get her to a hospital emergency room immediately," I yelled, lifting Mom's legs onto the bed.
David shook his head firmly, looking cautiously out the dirty window at the empty, dark highway.
"If we take her to a local hospital, Watkins will intercept us before she even gets a medical bed," he warned bleakly.
"We have to risk it, David, she is literally going to die!" I argued back with venom in my voice.
Lucy suddenly grabbed the small silver flash drive she had given me back at the nightmare house.
"There is a private doctor on my dad's payroll who lives exactly ten miles from here," she suggested rapidly.
"He owes my dad a lot of money, but he hates him, and he has a fully stocked clinic in his basement."
It was our only viable option to save her life without walking directly into a corrupt police trap.
We loaded Mom's unconscious body back into the truck, wrapping her tightly in the heavy blue coat.
Lucy drove like a madwoman through the dark back roads, successfully avoiding all the main highway intersections.
We pulled up to a massive, isolated farmhouse completely surrounded by tall, imposing iron gates.
David forced the electronic gate open with a heavy crowbar, and we carried Mom into the dark basement clinic.
Dr. Evans, a nervous man with visibly shaking hands, immediately hooked her up to an intravenous drip.
He quickly administered a powerful counteracting agent to flush the deadly sedatives from her frail system.
"She is stabilizing nicely, but she desperately needs undisturbed rest," Dr. Evans whispered an hour later.
I collapsed heavily into a plastic waiting chair, letting out a massive breath of pure relief.
David sat beside me, gently taking my trembling hand in his for the first time in five years.
"We are going to make him pay for every single second of this, Claire," David promised softly.
I nodded in agreement, finally feeling a tiny glimmer of genuine, lasting hope.
Suddenly, the clinic's heavy steel door slammed entirely shut, locking loudly from the outside hallway.
Thick, toxic white smoke began pouring rapidly through the metal air vents right above our heads.
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Dr. Evans backed away from us into a corner, wearing a specialized gas mask he had hidden in his desk.
"I am so very sorry, but Wade pays much better than you ever could," the doctor said, watching us choke.
