Chapter 11 - The Nurse With the Key
The nurse’s name badge read Melissa Grant.
The woman wearing it was not Melissa.
I reached for the emergency button.
She caught my wrist.
“Do not wake the baby.”
Her voice was calm.
She placed a syringe beside my IV.
I looked toward Hope’s bassinet.
“What do you want?”
“The trust password.”
“I do not have one.”
“Your father gave you access before he died.”
“My father gave control to a board.”
“The board requires your voice authorization.”
She held up a phone.
A transfer document waited on the screen.
Richard did not need me dead yet.
He needed me to speak.
I glanced toward the hallway.
No guard stood outside.
The false nurse had disabled the camera.
“Where is Marcus?”
“Waiting to meet his daughter.”
“He was going to kill her.”
“Marcus says many things when angry.”
“He planned every minute of my death.”
The woman’s expression did not change.
“Sign.”
Hope stirred.
The woman looked toward the bassinet.
I grabbed the syringe.
We struggled beside the bed.
Pain tore through my healing body.
The syringe fell.
Natalie entered carrying coffee.
She took one look at us and swung the metal tray.
It struck the woman’s shoulder.
I pressed the emergency button.
Security arrived within seconds.
The gold key was recovered.
The woman was identified as Lorraine Pike.
She managed one of the private facilities used by the Hale network.
Her phone contained messages from Richard.
It also contained my hospital room number.
Only four people knew the number.
Natalie.
Owen.
The charge nurse.
And federal prosecutor Daniel Frost.
Frost had approved Marcus’s transport operation.
He had also selected the compromised guard.
Investigators arrested him at home.
He admitted Richard had financed his political career.
He insisted he never knew women were being killed.
His messages proved otherwise.
One read:
Claire must remain alive until the voice transfer.
After that, use Wallace’s method.
The network had reached prosecutors, judges, physicians, and police officers.
Owen requested a federal protective detail for Hope and me.
The request was denied by a senior official who claimed there was insufficient evidence of a continuing threat.
Owen stared at the decision letter.
May you like
Then he said something I had not heard from him before.
“We cannot trust the official chain.”
