Chapter 2 - The Web of Silver Birch
The afternoon Simone had spoken about her mysterious “wellness retreat” at Silver Birch Women’s Center felt like a lifetime ago. Back then, Leah had been naive enough to believe that wealth and privilege insulated people from cruelty, rather than giving them the tools to conceal it.
Sitting in the four-bed room at Briar Glen after her admission, Leah had watched Simone apply a layer of expensive lip balm while waiting for her discharge papers.
“You look at me like I’m speaking a foreign language,” Simone had noted dryly, tossing her phone onto the mattress.
“I just don't understand how you can be so calm,” Leah had replied, adjusting her hospital gown. “You’re eight months pregnant, you’re checked into a high-security maternity wing, and all you talk about is a wellness retreat.”
Simone had let out a bitter, humorless laugh. “Some women come here to have babies, Leah. Others come here because their husbands want them safely tucked away while their legal teams rewrite prenups. My ‘wellness facility’ is a private psychiatric clinic in Vermont. My husband paid Dr. Rusk ten thousand dollars to diagnose me with ‘perinatal anxiety’ so he can gain full custody the second I pop. I’m just waiting for the signature to clear.”
Leah’s blood had run cold even then. She hadn’t believed the full extent of Simone’s paranoia until two days later, when Simone’s bed was suddenly empty, her skin-care bottles swept into a trash bin, and the nurses behaved as though no one named Simone had ever existed in that room.
Now, locked in the supply room, Leah remembered Simone’s warning: Dr. Rusk is Doreen’s creature. Silver Birch and Briar Glen are run by the same foundation.
The footsteps outside the door began to fade. Nathan and Doreen were moving toward the executive elevators to finalize the paperwork at the front desk.
Leah knew she had maybe fifteen minutes before security was deployed to sweep the wing.
She scanned the cramped room in the dim amber light of the emergency bulb. Shelves of gauze, IV bags, syringes, and plastic washbasins lined the walls. There was no window, no secondary exit—only the heavy door locked from the outside.
“Okay, buddy,” Leah whispered to her son, kissing the top of his soft, dark hair. “It’s just you and me.”
She reached up to the top shelf, where a heavy plastic storage bin full of heavy-duty metal surgical trays sat precariously. With careful, silent movements, she dragged a rolling supply cart over, climbed onto the bottom tier despite the sharp, tearing pain in her abdomen, and reached for the bin.
Clatter.
A single metal kidney dish slipped from the stack and hit the linoleum floor with a sharp, ringing sound that felt like a gunshot in the silent room.
Outside the door, a pause in the hallway chatter followed.
“Did you hear that?” a male voice—a security guard—asked.
“Check the supply closet,” Doreen’s voice snapped from further down the hall. “That wing is supposed to be restricted.”
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Leah’s heart slammed against her ribs. She hopped down from the cart, her bare feet hitting the cold floor, and positioned herself directly beside the heavy door, her fingers curled around the metal handle of a heavy IV pole she had unhooked from the rack.
The key rattled in the lock.
