Chapter 3 - The Doctor’s Lie
Khloe understood Dr. Shaw’s warning before anyone else noticed it.
They have my son.
The doctor’s lips barely moved.
Her eyes shifted toward the police captain.
Then she lowered her head and allowed the officers to escort her away.
“Stop them.”
Khloe tried to sit up.
Pain pulled across her abdomen.
The fetal monitor accelerated.
Sebastian moved to steady her, but she recoiled.
“Mara, stop them.”
Mara stepped into the corridor.
The police captain blocked her path.
“Dr. Shaw is being taken in for questioning.”
“She is a physician treating a high-risk patient.”
“She is also a witness in an assault investigation.”
Khloe pointed toward the glass.
“She is being threatened.”
Isabella gave a small, wounded gasp.
“Now you are accusing the doctor too?”
Khloe looked at her.
“You should be more careful.”
Isabella’s tears paused.
“You perform sadness beautifully, but you still forget your face between lines.”
Celia moved behind Isabella’s wheelchair.
“Khloe, you need rest.”
“What I need is for you to stop helping her.”
Celia’s expression hardened.
“I am helping this family avoid a public catastrophe.”
“Your granddaughter almost died.”
“And screaming conspiracy theories will not help her.”
Mara returned to the room.
She lowered her voice.
“Dr. Shaw’s son is named Jonah.”
Khloe remembered seeing photographs in the doctor’s office.
Jonah Shaw was a first-year engineering student in Boston.
“Can you locate him?”
“I already asked my team.”
Mara looked toward the police captain.
“The officers who took Dr. Shaw are not assigned to this precinct.”
Sebastian turned sharply.
“What?”
“Their badges are authentic, but their names are not on tonight’s dispatch record.”
The two officers had already disappeared into the elevator with Dr. Shaw.
Mara grabbed her radio.
“Seal every exit.”
The police captain reached for his own radio.
“I will contact central command.”
Mara stopped him.
“No hospital network.”
“Why?”
“Because someone controls it.”
The lights flickered again.
Isabella’s wheelchair shifted backward.
Celia gripped the handles.
Sebastian crossed the room and closed the door.
“No one leaves until we know who is real.”
Isabella looked up at him.
“You cannot possibly think I arranged this.”
Sebastian stared at her bandaged shoulder.
“Remove the bandage.”
“What?”
“The footage shows you tearing your own dress.”
“It was corrupted.”
“I saw enough.”
Her expression changed.
Only for an instant.
Then she began trembling.
“Khloe attacked me before the camera recording began.”
Mara walked toward her.
“Remove the bandage.”
Celia stepped between them.
“You will not intimidate her.”
“I am conducting an investigation.”
“You are a hospital employee.”
“I am also a sworn special deputy during emergency incidents.”
Mara looked at Isabella.
“Remove it yourself, or a female officer will do it for you.”
Isabella slowly peeled back the white gauze.
Four shallow scratches marked her shoulder.
They were evenly spaced.
Too even.
Mara photographed them.
“Self-inflicted injuries usually follow the dominant hand’s natural angle.”
Isabella’s voice sharpened.
“I am left-handed.”
“No, you are not.”
Khloe remembered Isabella signing donation cards at the gala.
She had used her right hand.
Mara did too.
“You signed thirty-two documents tonight with your right hand.”
Isabella looked toward Celia.
That glance told Khloe more than any confession could have.
Celia knew.
Sebastian saw it as well.
“Mother?”
Celia lifted her chin.
“Do not start imagining things.”
“You told me Isabella was left-handed after the yacht incident last summer.”
“Because she injured her right wrist.”
“She never injured it.”
Isabella’s face lost color.
Celia gripped the wheelchair harder.
“This conversation is absurd.”
Sebastian approached his mother.
“Did you help her fabricate evidence against Khloe?”
Celia’s voice became cold.
“I protected you from a woman whose family has been planning to take your company since before your wedding.”
Khloe stared at her.
“My family?”
“Your mother never trusted the Thornes.”
“My mother died six years ago.”
“And left behind enough legal traps to destroy everything Alexander built.”
Sebastian looked between them.
“What legal traps?”
Celia said nothing.
Khloe felt the first stirring of another truth.
Owen Mercer had repeatedly asked her to review sealed estate documents.
She had postponed the meetings because of the pregnancy and gala obligations.
The photographs Isabella sent Sebastian had been taken outside one of those meetings.
“They were afraid of my mother’s estate,” Khloe said.
Isabella’s eyes moved toward Celia.
Celia’s grip tightened.
Sebastian noticed.
“What is in the estate?”
Khloe shook her head.
“I do not know.”
“You met Owen Mercer three times.”
“To discuss a trust.”
“What trust?”
“I was not ready to open it.”
Celia laughed without humor.
“Convenient.”
Khloe turned toward her.
“You seem to know more about my inheritance than I do.”
Celia’s face remained expressionless.
A phone began ringing.
It was not Sebastian’s.
The sound came from Isabella’s lap.
She looked down.
The screen displayed UNKNOWN CALLER.
Mara took the phone before Isabella could answer.
She activated the speaker.
A distorted male voice filled the room.
“You have seven minutes.”
Isabella went still.
Mara held the phone closer.
“Seven minutes until what?”
The caller ignored her.
“Bring the external drive to the south loading dock.”
Mara’s eyes narrowed.
“Who is this?”
“Seven minutes, Ms. Voss.”
A faint sound came through the call.
Someone breathing rapidly.
Then a young man’s voice cried out.
“Mom!”
Dr. Shaw shouted in the background.
“Jonah, do not tell them anything!”
The call ended.
Khloe looked at Mara.
“They have both of them.”
Mara checked the number.
“Encrypted relay.”
Sebastian reached for his phone.
“I will bring the drive.”
“No,” Mara said.
“They asked for me.”
“They asked for the evidence.”
Khloe studied Isabella.
She was no longer pretending to cry.
She looked genuinely afraid.
“You did not expect this call.”
Isabella said nothing.
“Who is doing this?”
“I do not know.”
“You knew someone would erase the footage.”
“I was told it would be handled.”
“By whom?”
Celia spoke before Isabella could.
“Do not answer her.”
Sebastian turned on his mother.
“A doctor and her son have been abducted.”
“You do not know that.”
“We heard them.”
“Audio can be manufactured.”
Khloe almost smiled at the irony.
“That was your defense for my fabricated recording.”
Celia ignored her.
Mara removed the external drive from the laptop.
“This copy contains only eleven seconds.”
“Then make another copy,” Sebastian said.
“The drive uses a secure encryption key.”
“Can you duplicate the key?”
“Not in seven minutes.”
Khloe extended her hand.
“Give it to me.”
Everyone looked at her.
Mara did not move.
“The attacker expects you,” Khloe continued.
“They will search you.”
“You are not going anywhere.”
“I did not say I was.”
Khloe pointed toward the medical identification bracelet around her wrist.
“Hide it inside the bracelet.”
Mara examined it.
The plastic band contained a hollow tracking module.
One nurse helped remove the module without cutting the bracelet.
Mara slid the drive inside.
The fit was almost exact.
Sebastian looked toward the hallway.
“What will you take to the loading dock?”
“A decoy.”
Mara inserted a blank drive into her pocket.
“Mr. Thorne, remain with your wife.”
“I am coming with you.”
“That will make them nervous.”
“They already kidnapped a physician.”
Mara moved closer to him.
“If I do not return in fifteen minutes, send the original footage to every media outlet and law enforcement agency you trust.”
Sebastian glanced at Khloe’s bracelet.
“Understood.”
Mara left through the service corridor.
The captain ordered legitimate officers to surround the loading dock without approaching it.
Khloe watched the clock.
Six minutes.
Five.
Four.
Isabella began rubbing her palms together.
Khloe recognized the motion.
She had seen Isabella do it before every foundation speech.
It was not fear.
It was anticipation.
“You know who will be at the dock.”
Isabella looked away.
“Tell me.”
“I cannot.”
“Because they threatened you?”
Isabella laughed softly.
“No one threatens a Rossi.”
“Someone just used your phone to threaten Mara.”
“They were sending a message.”
“To whom?”
Isabella’s gaze moved to Sebastian.
“To the person who still thinks he owns this hospital.”
Sebastian’s face hardened.
“My father owned the controlling stake.”
“Your father controlled what he was permitted to control.”
“What does that mean?”
Isabella leaned back in the wheelchair.
“It means Alexander Thorne spent thirty years pretending he built an empire.”
Celia slapped Isabella across the face.
The sound shocked everyone.
Isabella slowly turned her head back.
A red mark appeared on her cheek.
“You foolish girl,” Celia whispered.
Khloe stared at them.
Celia had not struck Isabella out of anger.
She had struck her to silence her.
The realization reached Sebastian at the same time.
“Mother, what did my father steal?”
Celia’s lips parted.
An explosion shook the floor.
Smoke rolled past the observation window.
The lights changed from white to flashing amber.
An alarm announced a fire in the south loading dock.
Sebastian rushed to the window.
Khloe grabbed his arm.
“Mara.”
He pulled away and ran into the corridor.
The police captain followed.
Celia pushed Isabella’s wheelchair toward the opposite door.
Khloe called to the nurses.
“Do not let them leave.”
Two nurses blocked the exit.
Isabella stood abruptly from the wheelchair.
Her injuries had never prevented her from walking.
She shoved one nurse aside.
Celia swiped an executive badge across the private pharmacy door.
The lock opened.
Before they could disappear inside, Khloe heard Isabella whisper to Celia.
“You promised Miles would never hurt me.”
Celia looked back.
For the first time that night, genuine terror appeared on her face.
Khloe knew the name.
Miles Thorne was Sebastian’s cousin.
He was also the chief financial officer of the entire Thorne empire.
At that exact moment, Sebastian reached the loading dock.
A black utility vehicle burned beside the service entrance.
Mara lay unconscious on the pavement.
The decoy drive was gone.
May you like
A message had been painted across the wall behind her.
ASK KHLOE WHO HER REAL FATHER WAS.
