Chapter 5 - The Clinic at Midnight
Twenty minutes later, we pulled up to the emergency bay of the private pediatric medical pavilion at Northwestern Memorial.
Dr. Robert Hayes, the chief of pediatric pulmonology and a longtime friend of my family, was already waiting in a private treatment suite with a specialized nebulizer unit.
"Acute reactive airway constriction triggered by cold exposure," Dr. Hayes diagnosed, gently placing the soft aerosol mask over Toby’s nose and mouth while Jenny held his little hand. "We are administering a concentrated albuterol and budesonide mixture. His oxygen saturation is at eighty-eight percent, but with the nebulizer, he will stabilize within twenty minutes."
Within ten minutes, the harsh, terrifying wheezing in Toby’s chest began to soften. His breathing slowed into a steady, rhythmic pattern, his pale cheeks regaining a healthy, rosy color. Exhausted from hours of fighting for air, the little boy curled up against the hospital pillows, his eyes fluttering closed as he fell into a deep, peaceful sleep.
Jenny sat in the armchair beside the bed, her face buried in her hands, weeping with a depth of emotion that tore at my heart.
I walked over, setting a cup of warm chamomile tea on the bedside table, and handed her the cracked iPhone.
"The pawn ticket is cleared, Jenny," I said quietly. "Your phone is back."
Jenny looked up, her dark eyes glistening with tears. "Mr. Vitelli... why did you pay for his medicine? Why did you stop the eviction? I have no way to pay you back. I have four dollars in my purse."
"I don't want your money, Jenny," I replied, pulling a chair beside her. "I want to know how a mother with a sick child ended up targeted by an illegal eviction notice from my own firm."
Jenny took a trembling sip of tea, pulling a faded envelope from her pocket.
"Three months ago, my late husband’s former business partner, Arthur Vance, told me that David's estate had defaulted on a three-hundred-thousand-dollar commercial debt," Jenny explained, her voice cracking. "Arthur said that unless I signed over my father-in-law's architectural patent rights, he would use his shell companies to blackball me from employment, cancel Toby’s health insurance, and have us thrown out onto the street."
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A cold, methodical clarity snapped into place in my mind.
Arthur Vance hadn't just used my firm’s corporate umbrella to intimidate tenants; he was using extortion and forgery to steal intellectual property from a widow.
