Chapter 2 - The Silent Accusation
Megan Blake knelt down in front of Ethan, her eyes level with his.
"Ethan," she said gently, but with a firm, clinical edge. "You know the rules of this unit. You are never, under any circumstances, to touch the medical equipment. If you saw something you didn't like, why didn't you come to the desk?"
"I called you," Ethan said, his lower lip trembling for the first time.
"I didn't hear you, sweetie."
"You were in the other room. The other baby’s alarm was going. The screen was flashing blue."
"Then you should have waited for me," Megan said. "You can't just unplug things."
"The box was hot," Ethan said.
"What box, Ethan?" I asked, stepping closer. "There is no box."
He pointed beneath the low steel frame of the incubator, near where the heavy power cables bundled together. "The little black box the man put on the cord. It was buzzing. And it smelled bad."
We all looked beneath the incubator.
There was nothing there. Just the clean, grey linoleum floor, the heavy steel caster wheels of the bed, and the white double outlet on the wall.
"He took it," Ethan whispered, his voice cracking.
"Who took it?" I asked.
"The man. He put it in his pocket before he walked out."
Officer Miller sighed, sliding his notebook back into his shirt pocket. He looked at me with a sympathetic, yet clear-eyed expression. "Mr. Collins, why don't I take Ethan to the family consultation room? We can sit down, get him some water, and let the medical staff do their work here."
"I'll come with you," I said, my chest feeling like it was being compressed by a hydraulic press.
I turned to follow them, but Ethan stopped at the threshold of the glass doors. He turned back, looking through the partition at Sophie’s warm, glowing glass box.
"You said the red plug was important," Ethan told Megan, his voice carrying over the low hum of the air filters.
Megan stopped, her hand resting on the touch screen of the incubator. "What do you mean, Ethan?"
"The man with the glasses who was here yesterday," Ethan said. "The one who fixed the screen. He told you that the red outlets have the special generator power. He said if the lights go out, the red ones keep the babies warm. He said the white ones are just regular."
Megan’s hand fell from the screen. Her expression went entirely still.
"The biomedical engineer," she murmured, looking at me. "David was up here yesterday afternoon. He was adjusting the calibration on the temperature sensors. He... he did say that. He was explaining it to me because we had a minor power dip during the storm."
She looked at Ethan, her eyes narrowing as she re-evaluated the boy’s words.
"Ethan," she asked, her voice dropping into a very quiet, careful register. "Where did the man in the gray shirt put the black box?"
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"Between the plug and the wall," Ethan said. "He plugged the box into the white outlet, and then he plugged Sophie’s cord into the box. It started buzzing. A little yellow light came on. And then the wire started to melt."
"Daniel," Miller said, taking my arm. "Let’s go watch the footage."
