Chapter 14 - The Betrayal Inside the Hospital
Gabriel expected the medical petition to fail immediately.
Khloe was alert.
Competent.
Stable.
Her physicians had documented everything.
But when his attorneys accessed the filing, they found a signed medical statement claiming otherwise.
Dr. Warren Pierce.
Senior obstetric consultant.
The same physician who had briefly examined Khloe after the attack.
Gabriel stared at the signature.
“He wrote that you displayed impaired judgment.”
Khloe laughed in disbelief.
“I spoke to him for four minutes.”
Marcus asked where Pierce was.
Nobody knew.
The physician had left the hospital before sunrise.
His phone went directly to voicemail.
Gabriel ordered an internal audit.
Within two hours, investigators found something worse.
Pierce had received a consulting payment from Northstar Biomedical Ventures six weeks earlier.
Khloe felt numb.
“They planted a doctor.”
Marcus paced the room.
“They planned every layer.”
Elaine entered holding a folder.
“I think there’s another problem.”
She had reviewed gala access logs.
Dr. Pierce had attended the charity event without appearing on the official guest list.
Someone manually added his credentials at 7:12 that evening.
The authorization came from Elaine’s office.
She stared at the record.
“I didn’t do this.”
Gabriel asked who had access to her login.
“Only my deputy.”
“Who?”
Elaine’s face fell.
“Rachel Morrow.”
Rachel had worked beside Elaine for nine years.
She coordinated donor events.
Private arrivals.
Security requests.
And VIP medical access.
Gabriel’s investigators searched her office.
The drawers were empty.
Her laptop had been wiped.
She had not returned home.
Elaine looked devastated.
“I trusted her.”
Khloe understood the feeling.
Everyone in the room had trusted someone who had failed them.
Marcus had trusted his father.
Khloe had trusted Marcus’s honesty.
Isabella had once trusted the Thornes.
Margaret had trusted her marriage.
Gabriel had trusted silence.
Now Elaine had her own betrayal.
The internal security chief entered.
“We found Rachel’s final badge scan.”
“Where?”
“Suite 14.”
Khloe’s room.
“What time?”
“Thirty-six minutes before the attack.”
Marcus frowned.
“Isabella hadn’t arrived yet.”
The security chief nodded.
Rachel had entered the empty suite.
She remained for five minutes.
Then left.
Gabriel asked whether the camera footage still existed.
“It does.”
They played it.
Rachel entered carrying a small black case.
She walked directly beneath the security camera.
Opened the case.
Climbed onto a chair.
And attached something behind the camera housing.
Marcus leaned closer.
“What is that?”
The security chief enlarged the image.
“A wireless relay.”
Khloe looked confused.
“For what?”
“To copy the camera feed.”
Gabriel stared at the screen.
“Someone wasn’t only deleting footage.”
“They were watching live.”
The security chief nodded.
Then his phone buzzed.
He read the message.
His expression changed.
“We traced the relay signal.”
Gabriel asked where it went.
May you like
The answer silenced the room.
“To Conrad Thorne’s private office.”
