Chapter 6 - THE HOSPITAL WITH NO PATIENTVanessa was taken to St. Catherine’s Medical Center.
Nathan rode in the ambulance beside her.
Ethan followed in his own car.
By the time he reached the emergency entrance, Vanessa had already been moved behind locked doors.
Nathan stood in the waiting area, pale and shaken.
“She might lose the baby,” he said.
“Who told you that?”
“The nurse.”
“Which nurse?”
Nathan pointed toward an empty hallway.
“She just left.”
Ethan approached the reception desk.
He asked whether Vanessa Reed had been admitted.
The receptionist searched the system.
No patient by that name was registered.
Ethan repeated the spelling.
The result did not change.
Nathan joined him.
“She came in through the ambulance entrance.”
The receptionist checked again.
“No ambulance patient named Vanessa Reed arrived today.”
Nathan stared at her.
“That’s impossible.”
They returned to the hallway where Vanessa had disappeared.
At the end of it was a service exit.
The door stood slightly open.
Outside, tire tracks crossed the damp pavement.
Vanessa had never entered the hospital system.
Someone had been waiting to help her leave.
Nathan called her repeatedly.
Her phone was turned off.
They drove back to the mansion.
Vanessa was already there.
She wore a hospital wristband and lay beneath a blanket on the sofa.
Damian Cross stood beside her.
He claimed Vanessa had been treated at a private women’s clinic connected to the hospital.
“The emergency room was too crowded,” Damian explained.
Nathan looked confused.
“How did you know where she was?”
“She called me because you weren’t answering.”
“I was standing in the hospital.”
Vanessa began crying.
“I was frightened.”
Ethan noticed that the wristband around her arm contained no printed name.
It was a blank band anyone could purchase online.
He reached toward it.
Vanessa pulled her arm away.
“Don’t touch me.”
Nathan stepped between them.
“Enough.”
Ethan looked directly at Damian.
“You arranged the car at the service exit.”
Damian smiled without warmth.
“That is a serious accusation.”
“So is forging medical records.”
Nathan turned toward Ethan.
“Stop.”
Ethan removed the tiny pin from his jacket.
He held it up between them.
“This fell from Vanessa’s clothing.”
Vanessa’s face became still.
“It contains theatrical silicone.”
Nathan looked at the pin.
Then he looked at Vanessa’s unchanged stomach.
For the first time, doubt appeared in his eyes.
Vanessa saw it too.
She threw back the blanket and stood.
“If you believe him, ask your brother what he gains when you lose control of the company.”
Nathan frowned.
Vanessa pointed at Ethan.
“He wants your position.”
It was a perfect lie.
Because it contained just enough truth to sound possible.
Nathan had always known the board respected Ethan.
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Vanessa was no longer defending her pregnancy.
She was turning the brothers against each other.
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