“Pediatric crash cart to the morgue. Now. Two patients breathing.”
Kristina opened emergency blankets and wrapped the girls one by one. The first child’s lips parted. The sound that came out was not laughter this time, but a fragile breath dragging itself back into the world.
When the nurses arrived, they did not ask questions. Training took over. Oxygen masks came down. Monitors were attached. One nurse began calling out pulse readings while another checked the medication history on the transfer packet.
That was when Vincent noticed the second label.
It had been stapled behind the hospital intake form, partly hidden beneath the county release stamp. It listed a sedating medication that did not match the pediatric chart and did not match the vial from the bedroom.
The timestamp read 5:58 a.m.
That was twenty-four minutes before the twins had been pronounced dead.
The nurse holding the clipboard went pale. “I signed the transfer packet,” she whispered. “But I never saw this label.”
Vincent looked at the label, then at the children, then at the nurse. The danger in the room was no longer only medical. It was procedural. Someone had altered a record after the fact.
The girls were moved out of the morgue alive. The hallway seemed to hold its breath as the crash cart rolled toward the elevator. Kristina walked beside the second table, one hand keeping the blanket tucked under a tiny shoulder.
