Chapter 5 - Descent to the Third Floor
The elevator ride down to the third floor felt agonizingly slow. Jonathan carried baby Lucy cradled securely against his chest—an absurdly domestic image for a man whose face regularly graced the covers of Forbes and The Wall Street Journal. Norah walked beside him, clutching his oversized suit jacket around her small frame, her eyes darting nervously toward him every few seconds.
When the doors slid open, Jonathan strode briskly down the linoleum corridor toward the breakroom. Pushing the door open, he found Clare Bennett slumped sideways against a row of metal lockers, her cleaning cart tilted to one side, a bottle of ammonia spilled across the floor, and her face deathly pale.
"Mom!" Norah cried out, rushing forward and dropping to her knees beside the unconscious woman. "Mom, wake up! I finished the office! I cleaned it all!"
Jonathan was beside them in a fraction of a second. He pressed two fingers against Clare’s wrist, feeling a dangerously weak, racing pulse. He immediately pulled out his personal smartphone and dialed emergency services, barking out his address and precise location with crisp, unyielding command.
"Clare? Can you hear me?" Jonathan murmured, placing a supportive hand on Norah’s small shoulder as the little girl buried her face in her mother’s worn uniform jacket, sobbing quietly.
Within minutes, the wail of sirens pierced the cold Columbus night outside, echoing up through the glass facade. Paramedics flooded the third-floor breakroom, their bright flashlights cutting through the dim fluorescent haze as they strapped Clare to a gurney, murmuring about severe exhaustion, dehydration, and acute blood pressure drops from working three consecutive double shifts.
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As the medics wheeled Clare toward the elevator, Jonathan looked down at Norah, who stood frozen in the middle of the room, clutching the star-printed blanket like a lifeline.
"You're coming with me," Jonathan said firmly, extending a hand down to her. "We're going to the hospital to take care of your mom."
