Chapter 1 - The Freezing Cure
Emily reached into the silver champagne bucket resting on the mahogany dresser.
She pulled out a massive handful of crushed ice and freezing water.
Before the lead paramedic could push her away, she slammed the ice directly onto Noah’s bare chest.
The freezing water soaked into the twisted blankets and splashed across the cardiac monitor.
"Are you insane?" the lead medic roared.
He lunged forward to grab her shoulders.
Frank Miller drew his hidden pistol in a fraction of a second and aimed it at the medic's head.
"Nobody touches her," Frank growled.
The room descended into absolute, terrifying silence.
I stared at the maid who had just assaulted my dying son with freezing water.
I wanted to scream, to order my guards to drag her out of the room, but my voice failed me.
Then, a miraculous sound pierced the heavy air of the nursery.
It was a sharp, rattling gasp.
Noah’s tiny chest arched upward.
His blue lips parted, and a sudden, furious cry erupted from his mouth.
The flatline on the cardiac monitor instantly spiked back into a jagged, beautiful rhythm of life.
The paramedics stumbled backward in absolute shock.
"He is breathing," Margaret, the night nanny, sobbed hysterically.
I dropped to my knees beside the changing table, wrapping my trembling hands around my crying son.
His skin was freezing cold, but his heart was beating with a strong, steady rhythm.
I looked up at Emily, who was wiping ice water from her simple gray uniform.
"How did you know to do that?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper.
Emily did not look at me with the fearful reverence of a maid.
She looked at me with the cold, calculating eyes of a hardened professional.
"Because he did not have a sudden respiratory failure, Mister Carter," Emily said.
She walked over to the counter and picked up the half-empty bottle of baby formula.
"He was reacting to a synthetic thermal-toxin that expands rapidly in warm environments," she explained.
The lead medic stared at her in utter disbelief.
"Are you saying someone poisoned this baby?" the medic asked.
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Emily turned the bottle upside down, revealing a strange, faint blue residue settling at the bottom of the glass.
"I am saying the person who poisoned your son is standing inside this room right now."
