Chapter 6 - THE FLIGHT TO BALTIMORE
The twin-engine medical transport jet pierced through the storm clouds at twenty-six thousand feet, the steady hum of the Pratt & Whitney turbines vibrating through the pressurized cabin. Outside the oval windows, lightning flashed in distant, purple veins across the Atlantic coastline, but inside, the world had narrowed to the high-pitched, rhythmic bleep of an electrocardiogram monitor.
Poppy lay on the stretcher, an oxygen mask strapped over her small nose and mouth. Two flight nurses moved around her with practiced, urgent efficiency, checking IV lines, administering sublingual nitrates, and monitoring the jagged lines tracing across the screen.
Liora held Poppy’s left hand, kissing the tiny knuckles over and over, her tears soaking into the hospital blanket. “Stay with me, Poppy-seed. Stay with Mama. You’re going to see the big doctors in Baltimore. Evan’s here. Your daddy’s here.”
Your daddy’s here.
The words hit me with the force of a sledgehammer. I sat on the narrow bench opposite the stretcher, holding Poppy’s other hand between both of mine. My knuckles were bruised, my shirt torn and stained with soot and rain, but I felt none of it. All that existed was the fragile beat of her pulse against my palm.
“Her heart rate is stabilizing at one-forty,” the senior nurse said, adjusting the infusion pump. “The pulmonary edema is clearing, but the pressure differential between the atria is dangerously high. Dr. Christopher’s surgical team is already scrubbed in at Johns Hopkins. The helipad is cleared.”
“Will she make it through the flight?” I asked, my voice cracking, refusing to release her hand.
“She’s a fighter, Mr. Cross,” the nurse said softly, glancing at the photograph Poppy had insisted on clutching until she lost consciousness—the waterlogged picture of Liora and me in Charleston. “She’s held on this long with a defect that should have incapacitated her two years ago.”
I looked across at Liora. Her face was hollowed by exhaustion, dark purple shadows under her eyes, her clothes damp from the flooded cellars of Crosswood. “Liora... when this is over, when she’s safe... I’m going to make this right. Every second of those eight years. Every sleepless night you spent wondering how you were going to buy groceries. I will spend the rest of my life making amends.”
Liora looked up, her brown eyes carrying an ocean of sorrow, but the bitterness had begun to recede. “You didn't know, Evan. Seeing you tonight... seeing you throw yourself between Harrison’s gun and our daughter... I knew the man I loved in Charleston hadn’t died. He was just buried under eight years of other people’s greed.”
“I loved you, Liora,” I whispered, leaning forward so only she could hear over the hum of the jet engines. “I never stopped. Every time I looked at the ocean in California, in Florida, in Maine... I looked for you. When Cambria came into my life, it was an arrangement of convenience—two prominent names on corporate filings. My heart stayed on that pier in Charleston.”
Liora reached across the stretcher, her thumb gently wiping a trace of blood and grime from my temple. “We both lost eight years, Evan. But look at her. She survived. She brought us back together.”
The intercom crackled: “Ten minutes to touchdown at Johns Hopkins Medical Center. Flight crew, secure the cabin for descent.”
The jet tilted sharply, dropping through the thick cloud deck until the sprawling amber and white lights of Baltimore spread out beneath us. The medical transport touched down on the tarmac with a muffled thud, taxiing directly to a waiting ambulance bay where a specialized pediatric cardiac transport team was already waiting with an incubator gurney.
The cabin doors flew open, letting in the cool, crisp Maryland air. Paramedics swarmed inside, disconnecting monitors, transferring Poppy with synchronized precision.
“Evander Cross?” A tall, silver-haired man in blue surgical scrubs approached me as we exited onto the tarmac.
“I’m Evander Cross. This is Liora Bennett, Poppy’s mother.”
“I’m Dr. Christopher, Chief of Pediatric Cardiology,” the surgeon said, shaking my hand with a grip that radiated immense confidence. “Agent Marcus contacted our board of directors two hours ago under executive federal clearance. We have Poppy’s full echocardiogram scans transmitted from the aircraft. The defect is severe, but it is repairable. We’re performing an immediate percutaneous transcatheter closure using an Amplatzer septal occluder. We will repair the tissue and close the shunt.”
“Doctor,” Liora sobbed, grabbing his sleeve. “Please save my baby.”
Dr. Christopher gave a gentle, reassuring smile. “Ms. Bennett, I have performed this exact procedure twelve hundred times. Your daughter has the best team in North America waiting on the fourth floor. Go to the surgical waiting room. I will come out when her heart is whole.”
They wheeled the gurney down the brightly lit corridor, the double doors swinging shut behind them.
Liora and I stood in the cavernous, quiet lobby of the hospital. Outside, dawn was finally beginning to break over the Baltimore harbor, painting the sky in pale streaks of rose and gold.
Suddenly, my satellite phone buzzed in my pocket. It was a secure line that only my executive board had access to.
I answered. “This is Cross.”
“Mr. Cross, this is Kenneth Vance from the Securities and Exchange Commission,” a crisp voice stated. “I’m calling to inform you that Harrison Wren was pronounced dead at the scene at Crosswood Manor thirty minutes ago. Bramwell Kessler is in critical condition under armed guard at Richmond Memorial Hospital, but he has just signed a comprehensive confession implicating Wren Holdings in eighty-five counts of securities fraud, grand larceny, and corporate extortion.”
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I took a deep breath. “And the merger?”
“The merger is dead, sir. But there’s something else. Bramwell revealed that Harrison Wren wasn't acting alone in New York. There is a secondary investor who has initiated an emergency margin call on forty percent of Crosswell’s common stock. If you don't present the original Scottish trust documents in Manhattan by noon today... your entire hotel empire will be liquidated to the highest bidder.”
