Chapter 2 - The Diagnosis He Never Saw
At St. Catherine’s Hospital, nobody cared who I was.
That was probably why Mara liked the place.
A nurse blocked me outside the emergency room.
“You cannot go in.”
“I’m staying with her.”
“No, you’re not.”
Three of my security men stopped several feet behind me.
The nurse looked at them.
Then at me.
“If you want to help Miss Ellis, sit down and let the doctors work.”
I sat.
Daniel arrived twenty minutes later.
“What do we know?”
“Nothing.”
“Victor?”
“Gone.”
Daniel’s face changed.
“He left the estate?”
“Before the ambulance did.”
“That’s not good.”
“No.”
My phone vibrated.
Victor.
I stared at the screen.
Daniel said, “Answer it.”
I did.
“Where are you?”
Victor sounded offended.
“You told me to leave.”
“I told you to leave the conservatory.”
“You weren’t exactly calm.”
“Mara wrote your name before she collapsed.”
Silence.
Then a laugh.
“She probably found another accounting error and panicked.”
My grip tightened.
“Where are you?”
“Handling the missing shipment.”
“I didn’t authorize that.”
“You’re busy.”
“Victor.”
“What?”
“If anything happens to one truck, one driver, or one civilian without my permission, you’re finished.”
A pause.
“You’re letting that woman cloud your judgment.”
I stood.
“No. I’m beginning to think she was the only person helping me see clearly.”
I ended the call.
Daniel looked at me.
“He knows you suspect him.”
“Good.”
“That makes him dangerous.”
“He was already dangerous.”
Nearly an hour later, a doctor approached.
“Mr. Vale?”
I stood immediately.
“I’m Dr. Rebecca Chen.”
“How is she?”
“She’s stable.”
The word nearly dropped me.
“What happened?”
Dr. Chen looked toward the private consultation room.
“We should talk inside.”
Daniel started following.
I stopped him.
“Wait here.”
Inside, Dr. Chen opened Mara’s chart.
“Miss Ellis has severe anemia.”
I stared at her.
“From what?”
“That’s what we’re determining. But judging from her previous records, this didn’t happen overnight.”
“Previous records?”
“She’s been receiving treatment.”
I felt cold.
“For how long?”
“Several months.”
I said nothing.
Dr. Chen continued.
“She also has a bleeding gastric ulcer. Stress, inadequate nutrition, and certain medications may have aggravated it.”
I remembered the cinnamon roll.
The unopened bag.
Her thinner shoulders.
“Why didn’t I know?”
Dr. Chen looked at me strangely.
“I can’t answer that.”
I could.
Because I hadn’t asked.
“She collapsed because of the bleeding?”
“Most likely. She pushed herself far beyond what she should have.”
“Can I see her?”
“Briefly.”
Mara looked impossibly small beneath the white blanket.
An IV ran into her arm.
I stood beside the bed without touching her.
Her eyes opened.
The moment she saw me, she turned her head away.
That hurt more than any bullet I had ever taken.
“Mara.”
“Where’s my notebook?”
“With me.”
“Give it to Daniel.”
“What did you find?”
She looked back.
“You believe me now?”
The question stopped me.
“Yes.”
“Because I collapsed?”
“Because I was wrong.”
Her eyes became wet.
I hated myself for noticing only now how tired they looked.
“I tried to tell you.”
“I know.”
“You gave me one minute.”
“I know.”
“And then you humiliated me.”
“I know.”
She closed her eyes.
“Stop saying that.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“The truth.”
I pulled the chair closer.
“The truth is I was angry at everything except you, and you were the safest person in the room to take it out on.”
Her eyes opened.
I continued.
“That makes what I did worse, not better.”
Silence.
Then Mara whispered, “Victor has been stealing from the foundation for at least eighteen months.”
“How?”
“Fake clinics. Inflated invoices. Dead employees listed as active recipients.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“You wrote that he knows everything.”
She nodded.
“The missing pharmaceutical shipment wasn’t stolen by outsiders.”
My stomach tightened.
“What?”
“I checked transportation records against foundation invoices. The same shell companies appear in both.”
“So Victor moved my cargo.”
“Yes.”
“For three million dollars?”
“No.”
Mara looked toward the closed hospital door.
“I think the medical fund was just a test.”
“A test for what?”
“To see how much money could disappear before you noticed.”
That landed exactly where she intended.
I looked away.
Mara’s voice softened.
“Dominic.”
“I deserved that.”
“I wasn’t trying to hurt you.”
“You should.”
She studied me.
“You can’t solve everything by punishing yourself.”
“I’m better at punishing other people.”
“I noticed.”
Despite everything, the corner of her mouth moved.
Barely.
It was enough to make breathing easier.
Then she became serious.
“Victor knows I found him.”
“I’ll protect you.”
“Don’t say that unless you mean something different than locking me in your house with six guards.”
“What do you want?”
“To finish this.”
“No.”
“Dominic.”
“You nearly died.”
“And three million dollars meant for sick families disappeared while I was sitting ten feet away from the man who took it.”
“You’re not going back near Victor.”
She looked directly at me.
“Then stop acting like my boss and start listening.”
The door opened.
Daniel entered without knocking.
“Dominic.”
I stood.
“What?”
“Victor just accessed the Vale Foundation server remotely.”
Mara immediately pushed herself upright.
“What did he take?”
“Everything.”
Daniel looked at me.
“And then he wiped the backup.”
Mara went pale.
I smiled without humor.
Victor thought he had erased the evidence.
He didn’t know Mara Ellis very well.
Neither, apparently, had I.
Mara looked at Daniel.
“Get my laptop.”
I frowned.
“You’re in a hospital bed.”
“Yes.”
“You need rest.”
She raised one eyebrow.
“You had three years to start caring about that.”
Daniel suddenly became very interested in the floor.
I deserved that too.
“Fine,” I said.
Mara leaned back.
“But Dominic?”
“Yes?”
“No revenge.”
I stared at her.
“He almost got you killed.”
“We don’t know that.”
“We know enough.”
“No.”
Her voice strengthened.
“If you want me to trust you again, we expose him properly. Documents. Witnesses. Police. Federal investigators.”
I hated every word.
She knew it.
“Promise me.”
I looked at the woman I had failed once already.
Then I nodded.
May you like
“I promise.”
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