Chapter 6 - The Nurse Who Disappeared
The medication cabinet had not been forced open.
Someone had used legitimate credentials.
That frightened Raymond more.
The drug had been removed by a nurse named Hannah Cole.
Dr. Pierce shook her head immediately.
“Hannah would never do this.”
“Where is she?”
“No one can find her.”
Security began searching the hospital.
Emily remained under observation.
Raymond refused to let her leave the secured maternity suite.
Preston was kept in another room.
Charles had lawyers surrounding him.
Vanessa had started giving a formal statement.
By midnight, Emily felt as if she were living inside someone else’s nightmare.
Then Dr. Pierce returned.
“Hannah’s car is still in the employee garage.”
Emily sat up.
“Phone?”
“Off.”
Raymond appeared behind the doctor.
“Security footage shows her entering the service elevator forty minutes ago.”
“Coming here?”
“Going down.”
“To what floor?”
Raymond hesitated.
“Sublevel two.”
Emily frowned.
“What’s there?”
“Old records storage.”
The original Saint Claire hospital had been constructed almost seventy years earlier.
Sublevel two was part archive, part mechanical space.
Most staff had no reason to enter it.
Raymond took two security officers downstairs.
Emily hated staying behind.
But thirty-two weeks pregnant and bruised was not the moment to prove bravery by wandering through basements.
Twenty-three minutes later, Raymond called.
“We found Hannah.”
Emily’s heart jumped.
“Is she okay?”
“She’s alive.”
The answer told Emily everything else.
Hannah had been discovered unconscious inside a supply room.
Someone had taken her badge.
The medication removal had happened after she was attacked.
“Who?”
“We’re checking cameras.”
Emily stared toward the locked door.
Then she remembered something.
“Vanessa.”
“What?”
“When she kicked me, she adjusted her sleeve.”
Raymond waited.
“She was wearing a hospital access bracelet.”
Silence.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“But Vanessa is upstairs.”
“Now.”
Emily looked toward the hallway.
“What if the person who took Hannah’s badge gave it to someone else?”
Raymond immediately disconnected.
Minutes later, the hospital’s internal camera network started tracking the stolen badge.
One access point appeared.
Then another.
Then another.
Whoever carried it was moving upward.
Second floor.
Third floor.
Fourth.
Maternity.
Emily heard running outside.
Dr. Pierce locked the examination room door.
A security announcement ordered staff into controlled areas.
Emily stood despite the doctor’s protest.
Then the door handle moved.
Once.
Twice.
Someone outside tried Hannah’s badge.
The lock flashed red.
Dr. Pierce grabbed a metal instrument tray.
Emily almost laughed.
“You’re going to fight them with that?”
“If necessary.”
The handle stopped moving.
Footsteps retreated.
Seconds later, security officers tackled a man near the stairwell.
Emily knew him.
Everyone did.
He was the Whitmore family’s private driver.
Gerald Knox.
He had driven Emily and Preston home after their wedding.
He had carried her bags during their honeymoon departure.
He had stood outside her baby shower.
Inside his jacket, security found Hannah’s badge.
A syringe.
And an envelope.
Raymond brought the envelope upstairs.
It had Emily’s name written across it.
Inside was a printed instruction.
ADMINISTER BEFORE TRANSFER.
Beneath it was Charles Whitmore’s digital authorization.
Preston demanded to see the evidence.
When he did, he sat down hard.
“My father sent Gerald?”
Vanessa laughed from across the conference room.
“You’re surprised?”
Preston looked at her.
“I didn’t know.”
Emily believed him.
Not because she trusted him.
Because terror looked different from guilt.
He had helped build the trap.
But perhaps Charles intended to close it without telling him.
Raymond entered carrying another document.
“We found Gerald’s payment records.”
Charles’s shell company had paid him for eighteen months.
One payment occurred the day Emily announced her pregnancy.
Another occurred yesterday.
The final scheduled payment was dated tomorrow.
Two million dollars.
Emily whispered, “For what?”
Raymond looked at her.
“Completion.”
A security officer entered behind him.
“Sir, there’s something else.”
He placed a small drive on the table.
“It was in Gerald’s pocket.”
Raymond connected it to an isolated laptop.
Only one video file appeared.
It showed Charles Whitmore sitting behind his desk.
And beside him sat Preston.
The timestamp was eleven months earlier.
Before Emily became pregnant.
Charles’s recorded voice filled the room.
“If she conceives, we move to Phase Three.”
Preston looked directly at his father.
May you like
Then he gave an answer that shattered the last excuse Emily had left for him.
“Understood.”
