Chapter 22

By the time Erik and Garret had made their way to the hospital, Marie was sitting in the waiting room. The glass walled room was filled with curved grey and brown couches and white linoleum floors. She was sitting with her hands clasped as if in prayer, looking as if she had aged 20 years in the last half hour. If she was surprised to see Erik there in his mask, she didn't say anything. Mindy Koring sat silently by her side, her brow furrowed with worry.

"Where is Christine?" Erik asked

"They took her back right away." She ran a hand through her hair. "Things got worse in the ambulance. She has a fever of one hundred and five. She still hasn't regained consciousness."

"Do they have any idea what's wrong with her?" he asked, feeling just as helpless as he did over the zoom call.

As they spoke, Dr. Yoon came running up his sleeves rolled up. His tie was gone.

"Erik, this is Dr. Yoon. Dr. Yoon this is Erik Gardner."

If Dr. Yoon was not expecting a man with a mask, he was polite enough to keep him mouth shut. Only a brief flicker of his eyes to Erik's face betrayed any reaction.

"They have her on an IV Drip with antibiotics while they try to bring her temperature down. Marie, did she seem sick this morning? Did she have any symptoms? A sore throat? Chills?"

"No, she seemed absolutely fine. A little nervous but that's normal."

"Did she eat anything?"

"I don't know about breakfast, but she didn't eat lunch. She drank the water though." Marie commented.

"She drank the entire bottle." Erik said. He had watched her throughout the meeting, frankly desperate for the sight of her.

"Anything else? Is she on any medications?"

"Birth control." Erik said quietly. "But I don't know about anything else."

"Who is her emergency contact?" Dr. Yoon asked. "Does she have any close family?"

"Christine is an orphan - I don't know who…" Marie started.

"What about her foster mother? Her name is Valerie. Is Christine on social media? Perhaps they are connected. If we can find out her name, I can have Reza find her number and address."

"Let me speak with Meg - she would know." Marie got out her phone and dialed her daughter. She walked off while Erik turned back to the doctor.

"Can we go see her?" Erik asked Dr. Yoon.

"We need to wait until they admit her. That could be a few hours."

"Meg says that Christine follows a woman named Valerie Shorgrove who lives in Bayside, Queens."

"Garret - can you start heading there?"

"On my way."

"I'll call Reza - he has some contacts who might help us find her phone number. Can Meg message her? Perhaps she has an eye on her phone."

"Already done and Meg is on her way."

Time was moving entirely too slow for Erik. Garret was on his way to Queens with an address gathered from a particularly lucky Google search. Both men hoped the information was up to date. Valerie had yet to respond to Meg's DM. Dr. Yoon returned every half hour with updates. They had managed to stave off further seizures with Valium and had successfully brought her heart rate down, but her temperature wasn't going down and they were concerned she would need a breathing tube.

As Erik looked at Marie sitting near tears in the waiting room, his eyes were caught on Mindy Koring who sat with her hand on Marie's shoulder. Something niggled at his mind. When Christine stood at the board meeting, she had turned and looked at someone with an accusing glare, she had said something, but it was at a low volume, and he could not make it out. Was it Mindy? Christine had never mentioned Mindy to him directly, but he always sensed that she was not particularly fond of the woman.

His phone rang – Garret was calling. "Erik, I have Christine's foster mother here. She's coming with me back to the hospital. Do you want to speak with her?"

"Yes, put her on." Erik held up the phone on speaker phone so that he and Dr. Yoon could hear her speak.

"Mr. Gardner, thank you for reaching out to me. Your associate says you need to know about Christine's medical history." Erik could hear the worry in the older woman's voice.

"Yes, thank you, Miss Shorgrove. Can you tell us if Christine has a history of seizures or diabetes?"

"No, nothing like that. She was always healthy as a horse. Most she ever got was a stomach virus."

"Do you know if she takes any medications?" Dr. Yoon asked.

"I can't speak of now, but in college she started taking Zoloft for anxiety. I don't know if she is still taking it."

"Thank you, Miss Shorgrove. That is very helpful." Erik said before ending the call.

"Zoloft is unlikely to have caused anything like this on its own." Dr. Yoon said.

"You say on its own. What if it was combined with something else?" Erik asked.

"Do you think Miss Derring was drugged?"

"I'm suspicious of the young woman holding her purse like it's the holy grail." He nodded to Mindy who sat straight in her chair and looked ready to bolt.

"Can you think of a reason why we would need to search her?"

"I think I don't care enough to come up with an excuse." Erik stormed over to Mindy and before she could utter a word in protest took her handbag.

"Mr. Gardner! What are you doing?"

Erik ignored her, rifling through her bag.

"Give me my bag right now! You have no right to do that! What are you even looking for?"

"Erik - what - what are you doing?" Marie stared at him with concern.

"Did you give her something? I saw the look on Christine's face at the meeting. She thought you did something. What did you do?"

"I don't know what you're talking about!" But her face had gone white. "Give me my bag back right now! You can't look through my purse. It's not legal!"

Erik ignored her. His hands felt a wallet, a lipstick. He opened a zipper and he felt exactly what he was looking for, a mostly empty pill bottle.

"Amphetamine Salt Combo ER" Erik looked at Dr. Yoon. "What is that?"

"Generic name for Adderall." He turned on Mindy with fury. "40 Mg pills. How much did you give her?"

"I have ADHD that's my medication."

"I don't doubt it - how much did you give her? This is very important."

"I don't have to tell you anything."

"Listen you bitch, if you don't tell me what you did, I will make your life a living hell." He charged on her. Mindy took a step back and slipped, grabbing in front of her for purchase. Unintentionally, she grabbed Erik's mask. As he closed upon her, he felt a vicious satisfaction at the look of fear on her face. His face was a weapon, and he would wield it as necessary. His hand was on her arm. "Tell me what you did, Mindy." His voice was cold and calm, and she stared at him with blank horror.

"I put four pills in her water. I just wanted her to m-mess up during the presentation. I wanted to make her look bad. I didn't think she would drink all of it." She began to wail in mingled horror and fear.

"Is that what you needed to know?" He looked at Dr. Yoon who nodded and swallowed. Erik was beyond caring if the man was shocked by his face.

"Yes. Yes! Zoloft with a massive dose of Adderall together…" His eyes were moving as if working out a complicated equation. "It's Serotonin Syndrome. It's Serotonin Syndrome!" He turned and ran through the doors of the emergency room.

Erik grabbed his mask from Mindy's nerveless fingers and affixed it to his face. Mindy sat sobbing on the floor of the waiting room.

"Marie - call the police."

Everything hurt. A soreness pervaded her entire body from her legs that felt bruised and battered up through her abdomen that felt as if she had done 1000 crunches. Her head pounded making the late afternoon light coming through window blinds feel like a hammer. She moaned and moved her hand and was surprised when she felt the slight resistance of an IV drip.

"Christine…" she heard Erik's soft voice. Why was his voice always a balm against the assault of other input. "You're awake." She heard the relief in his voice.

"The blinds, please." She whispered and felt the immediate relief when they were drawn. Her eyes opened slightly. The room was dark except for a slight reflection of the hallway lights on the floor of the room and that light which leaked out through her bottom of the windows. "Where am I?"

"You're at Columbia Presbyterian hospital. You've been here for 36 hours. You're going to be okay." She felt his hand take hers.

"What happened to me?" She tried to remember what had happened. She had a flash of falling on the floor – then nothing.

"Mindy drugged you with an extremely high dosage of Adderall. It's a drug for ADHD. It combined with the Zoloft you take and caused something called Serotonin Syndrome. It caused you to have seizures and raised your temperature to 105 degrees. Your heart was racing at 140 beats per minute."

"I was drugged?"

"Yes. The excellent news is that you are going to be okay. You were treated with cyproheptadine and Valium as well intravenous fluids and oxygen. You were fortunate the underlying cause was discovered so quickly. You'll need to take it very easy for the next few weeks, but you should make a full recovery. Dr. Yoon will be here in the morning. He and the other doctors here saved your life."

"Dr. Yoon - the board member?"

"He was with you the whole time, so was Marie. Would you like to know who else came by?"

Christine nodded. Her throat hurt. She wanted Erik to keep talking in his soothing whisper.

"Meg, Rafe and your foster mother, Valerie. Reza wants to visit but he wanted to make sure you were okay with it. You've had quite a few people worried about you. I think that professor you like so much sent some flowers." He looked back towards the dark of the room where Christine imagined an arrangement was sitting. She would look at it later, after she slept.

"Is it okay if I sleep some more?" She didn't think she could stay awake. Exhaustion suffused every bone and muscle in her body. Her head felt thick with it.

"Of course."

"Will you sing to me?" She asked, her own voice soft in the dark of the room.

"Of course." Erik hummed as if considering what to sing before choosing the song that brought them together in the first place. Christine let herself be soothed to sleep by Erik's rendition of Vienna.

When she woke again it was Val and Meg at her bedside. The light had changed. It was morning. By her judgement she had slept another 12 hours. She felt significantly better than the afternoon before but still quite weak.

"Christine, welcome back!" Meg noticed her wake first. She moved from the chair by the door and sat on the side of Christine's bed. "We missed you."

"You needn't have gone to so much trouble to get my attention, Chris." Valerie smiled at her warmly. Her foster mother's concern made her feel an unexpected warmth inside.

"How did you know about me?"

"Your young man sent his driver for me, and he put me up at a lovely hotel nearby. If I weren't so terrified for you, it would have been a treat."

Christine was moved. She hadn't known Val cared so much about her.

"If Val hadn't told Erik and Dr. Yoon that you take Zoloft, they wouldn't have figured out why you got so sick." Meg added.

"How did he figure out what Mindy had done?"

"He saw something in the way you looked at her at the board meeting. It made him suspicious - and a good thing too. If he hadn't, they might have taken much longer to figure out what was wrong with you. You could have gotten much sicker." Val explained.

"Well, mostly good." Meg hemmed. "Things got a little heated in the ER waiting room."

"What happened?" She raised her eyebrows in concern.

"Erik was confronting Mindy, and his mask came off. Someone was recording…"

"I never thought I'd say this, but I hate smart phones." Christine groaned.

"Perhaps we should wait to tell…" Valerie suggested.

"No, I want to know. What happened?"

Meg pulled out a copy of the New York Post. Christine saw Erik's face plastered on a corner of the front page. The headline screamed: The Mask Is Off: Gardner Exposed at city hospital.

Christine opened the paper and read; "Police offers from the 33rd precinct were called to the emergency department at Columbia Presbyterian on Wednesday night following an altercation between a man and woman."

"The man, billionaire financier, Erik Gardner, was seen cornering an employee of his after taking her purse. Bystanders say Mr. Gardner (35) had uncovered that the woman, Mindy Koring (32) had drugged a third woman who was under the care of doctors in the emergency department."

"Videos of the event show that Mr. Gardner, who has long cultivated a high degree of privacy, has been revealed to struggle with severe facial deformity. This news came as a surprise to many who know and work with Mr. Gardner. Sources say that Mr. Gardner did not come to the offices of his firm but worked through intermediaries over the years. Public events that featured his attendance included his annual gala event at the Gardner Opera House as well as a recent video on Halloween of Mr. Gardner singing with employee Christine Derring. Both events featured Mr. Gardner in a mask."

The article continued from there. Christine hated the gossipy tone of the NY Post but never so much as right now.

"Ugh Page Six too?" She said when she noticed the society column discussing the event. "Poor Erik." Christine whispered. "Is that why he's not here now?" She looked up at Meg and Val. She would understand if that was the case.

"No, he was here for the first two days until you woke up the first time. We made him go home and take a shower and get some rest. He said he'll be back by noon. He asked us to fill in for him in case you woke up. He didn't want you to be alone." Valerie brushed a stray piece of hair off of Christine's forehead.

"He even called Rafe, Christine. He came by yesterday and dropped off flowers." Meg indicated a large number of arrangements behind her.

"You got some from THE Taylor Lipa!" Val exclaimed making her seem much younger than her 62 years of age.

Meg ignored Val's comment with an eye roll. "Erik just wanted to make sure you were with people who care about you."

Christine struggled to think of the right words. "That's really nice of him." But nice was so weak a word for how he had come to her rescue. Sometime later when she wasn't so exhausted, she would think about the sacrifice he had made for her. Had anyone ever done for her what he had done in the last two days?

"Do you think you'd be able to eat something, dear?" Val asked. "The food here is atrocious but Erik has said we can order anything you like on DoorDash. He also sent up a few pints of that soup you like."

"Of course, he did." She looked at Meg with a smile. Meg shrugged in response but was smiling.

"I'd like some soup. Thank you."