Chapter 2 - THE AMBULANCE THAT TOOK THE WRONG ROAD
The ambulance left Vale House at 11:18 in the morning.
Theodore sat beside Rosalie.
A paramedic held an oxygen mask over her face.
Her blood pressure remained dangerously low.
Sebastian followed in his car with estate security behind him.
Eleanor stayed at the mansion.
She claimed someone needed to manage the guests.
Theodore knew she was managing something else.
Ten minutes into the drive, the ambulance turned away from Greenwich Hospital.
Theodore looked through the rear window.
“That’s not the hospital route.”
The paramedic checked the navigation screen.
“It says the highway is blocked.”
“There was no closure when we came in.”
The driver accelerated.
Rosalie’s eyes opened.
She made a weak sound beneath the mask.
Theodore moved closer.
“What is it?”
She lifted one trembling finger toward the front of the ambulance.
The paramedic leaned over the driver’s radio.
“Dispatch, confirm route change.”
Only static answered.
Theodore looked through the rear window again.
Sebastian’s car was gone.
So was the security vehicle.
The ambulance had entered an industrial road lined with empty warehouses.
The paramedic’s expression changed.
“Pull over.”
The driver locked the doors.
Theodore grabbed the metal oxygen tank mounted beside the stretcher.
The partition opened.
A man in a medical jacket reached through with a syringe.
Theodore swung the tank.
It struck the man’s forearm.
The syringe dropped.
The paramedic threw herself against the rear doors and activated the emergency release.
The driver braked hard.
Theodore hit the floor.
Rosalie’s stretcher slammed against its restraint.
The rear doors opened onto wet pavement.
A black SUV waited behind them.
Before anyone could reach the ambulance, Sebastian’s car struck the SUV from the side.
Metal screamed.
The SUV spun into a loading dock.
Sebastian emerged with blood running from a cut above his eye.
He pulled the ambulance driver from the front seat.
The man wore no emergency-service identification beneath his jacket.
Theodore climbed down.
“You lost us.”
“The security car was forced into traffic.”
“I followed the ambulance’s emergency tracker.”
Sebastian looked inside at Rosalie.
“I should have checked the medical crew before they left.”
“You should have believed me before I broke the coffin.”
Sebastian accepted the blow without defending himself.
Police arrived within minutes.
The real ambulance service confirmed the original driver had been found unconscious inside a restroom near the estate.
Someone had replaced him during the confusion.
The syringe contained the same clear drug found in Mercer’s broken vial.
At Greenwich Hospital, toxicology identified it as V-17.
The compound had been developed by Vale Biotech seven years earlier.
It lowered body temperature.
Slowed respiration.
Reduced the pulse until common equipment could barely detect it.
The company abandoned the project after laboratory animals woke during postmortem examinations.
Theodore stared at the physician.
“You are saying it can make someone look dead?”
“Yes.”
“Without actually killing them?”
“At a carefully controlled dose.”
“What happens at a larger dose?”
“It stops the heart permanently.”
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Rosalie had not survived because the plan failed completely.
She had survived because someone miscalculated.
