Chapter 3 - The Race to Milwaukee
The drive from my parents’ house to the St. Jude Women’s Clinic in Milwaukee normally took two hours. In the middle of a torrential summer thunderstorm, with three police cruisers running ahead of us with their sirens clearing the highway lanes, it took eighty minutes.
Alex and I sat in the back of Detective Harris’s unmarked vehicle, our hands locked together so tightly my fingers had gone numb. The windshield wipers slapped against the glass in a frantic rhythm that matched the pounding of my heart.
"The Milwaukee local tactical unit is already on site," Harris said over his shoulder, his eyes locked on the road ahead as he coordinated with his dispatch over his headset. "They’ve secured the front entrance and the main lobby, but the facility is huge—four different wings, subterranean parking, and an attached outpatient surgical center. If she’s already inside using those stolen credentials, she could be anywhere."
"What about Maya?" I asked, leaning forward against the security grate. "Did they get to her room?"
"Her room is empty," Harris said, his jaw tightening. "Her C-section was moved up by an hour due to a sudden drop in fetal heart rate. She’s currently in Operating Room 3 on the third floor. She’s under anesthesia right now, Chloe. She has no idea what’s happening around her."
When we tore into the hospital’s circular ambulance bay, the scene was chaotic. Blue and red strobe lights illuminated the heavy rain, casting long, distorted reflections across the wet concrete. Officers in tactical vests stood at the automatic sliding doors, rifles held at the low ready, checking the IDs of every medical staff member trying to leave the building.
Alex and I followed Harris through the triage entrance, our hospital-issued visitor badges pinned to our shirts. The air inside smelled of sterile alcohol, floor wax, and panic. The hospital staff had been instructed to remain in their stations, and the corridors were eerily quiet save for the distant, muffled sound of a security announcement repeating a low-level alert over the PA system.
We took the service elevator straight to the third floor—the maternal-fetal ward.
The doors opened to reveal a wide, brightly lit hallway lined with large windows looking into the central nursery. Inside, rows of clear plastic bassinets sat empty, the infants having been moved to a secure, reinforced back room the moment the code pink alert was initiated.
"Detective Harris!" a sergeant from the Milwaukee PD called out, stepping out of the nurse's station. He was holding a printed security log sheet. "We’ve checked the main floor, but we have an anomaly. A woman matching Emily Miller’s description signed into the surgical locker room forty minutes ago using the Jenkins ID badge. She changed into standard surgical scrubs, a mask, and a hair net. We lost her on the internal cameras when she entered the scrub corridor between OR 2 and OR 3."
"Is she in the operating room?" I gasped, my hand going to my mouth.
"We don't know," the sergeant said, his face grim. "OR 3 is a sterile environment. The doors are heavy, double-paned steel with electronic mag-locks. If she’s inside, she’s right next to the surgical team while they are performing the delivery."
Suddenly, a sharp, piercing alarm began to echo through the ceiling tiles. It wasn't the slow, rhythmic pulse of a fire alarm. It was a rapid, high-pitched electronic shriek—the sound of the infant security grid failing.
On the main console behind the nurse's station, a giant red box flashed onto the screen:
CRITICAL SECURITY ALERT: ZONE 4 PATIO WING
System: Hugs Protection Grid
Status: SIGNAL INTERFERENCE / OFFLINE
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Location: Recovery Suite 302
"She did it," Alex yelled, pointing at the screen. "She activated the jammer! She’s not in the operating room—she’s already in the recovery suite waiting for the baby to come out!"
