Chapter 1 - The Fallen Key
My daughter slammed the heavy oak door behind her brother-in-law and locked the deadbolt.
She leaned against the solid wood and let out a ragged, shaking breath.
The living room was completely destroyed.
I wiped a thick drop of blood from my split lip and looked down at the ruined floor.
Crayons, juice boxes, and shattered ice cubes were scattered everywhere.
But my eyes locked onto the small, black hotel key sleeve.
It had fallen from Pam’s tote bag and stopped right beside my granddaughter’s medicine pouch.
I gently peeled Mia off my chest and handed her to Sarah.
I reached down and picked up the cardboard sleeve.
The gold foil lettering proudly displayed The Monarch Hotel.
Handwritten in black ink across the top was Room 412.
I knew for a fact that Greg and Pam were drowning in credit card debt.
They could never afford a luxury suite in the most expensive hotel in the city.
Something deeply sinister was happening right under our noses.
I turned my attention back to my terrified granddaughter.
Mia was clinging to her mother’s neck, crying softly into her shoulder.
Sarah carefully lifted Mia’s arm to examine the heavily bandaged wrist.
The white gauze was stained with a few drops of fresh crimson blood.
"Hold her steady," I whispered.
I reached out and carefully unwrapped the sticky medical tape.
I expected to see a deep laceration or a nasty burn.
Instead, my heart completely stopped in my chest.
A sophisticated, plastic surgical port was embedded directly into her tiny blue vein.
It was the kind of medical device used for frequent intravenous access.
Sarah let out a horrified gasp and covered her mouth with her trembling hand.
"Why on earth would Greg put an IV port in my baby?" she cried out.
I immediately grabbed the canvas medicine pouch from the floor.
I pulled out the glass vial that was supposed to contain her daily asthma medication.
The pharmacy label had been completely violently scraped off.
I popped the cap and smelled the thick, cloudy liquid inside.
It smelled exactly like the heavy chemical anesthesia used in hospital operating rooms.
The terrifying truth hit me like a freight train.
They were not icing her legs to treat a random playground injury.
They were freezing her lower body to severely drop her core temperature.
They were prepping her for a black-market biological extraction.
Before I could explain any of this to Sarah, Mia let out a strange sigh.
Her eyes rolled entirely back into her head.
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Her tiny body went completely limp in Sarah's desperate arms.
Her chest stopped moving.
