Chapter 2 - The Secret He StoleI read the message three times.
Then I looked at Nate through the glass.
He remained unconscious.
Monitors surrounded him.
Machines breathed with a quiet mechanical confidence that made the hospital seem almost normal.
Nothing about that night was normal.
I slipped my phone into my purse.
Khloe watched me.
"You got one too, didn't you?"
I turned.
"What did you get?"
Her face went pale.
"A message."
"Show me."
She hesitated.
Then pulled out her phone.
A single text.
HE WILL DIE BEFORE HE TELLS HER.
I stared at the screen.
"Who sent this?"
"I don't know."
"When?"
"Ten minutes ago."
"Before or after I arrived?"
"Before."
I thought about that.
Someone had been watching.
Someone knew Nate was in the hospital.
Someone knew I had asked questions.
Someone knew Khloe was afraid.
And someone apparently believed Nate had something worth killing for.
I turned toward Susan.
She was watching us.
"You said Nathaniel went to Khloe's apartment for work."
"He did."
"What work?"
"Corporate development."
"He stopped working on that project last week."
Robert looked uncomfortable.
"Maybe he had unfinished business."
"What kind?"
He didn't answer.
I looked at Dr. Harris.
"Can I get a full toxicology screen?"
He nodded.
"Already requested."
"Include uncommon agents."
He frowned.
"Why?"
"Because his electrolyte abnormalities are severe enough to be explained by prolonged fluid loss. But the pattern bothers me."
"What pattern?"
"Sodium high. Potassium low. Creatinine elevated. Hemoconcentration. If he was vomiting all day, I'd expect other abnormalities."
Dr. Harris understood.
"You think something was administered?"
"I think we shouldn't assume anything."
He nodded.
The police arrived twenty minutes later.
Detective Laura Bennett introduced herself.
She was in her forties, sharp-eyed, with a dark coat still wet from the rain outside.
She asked for an account of what happened.
Khloe spoke first.
"Nate came over around eleven."
"Why?"
"To discuss work."
"What project?"
"The Meridian acquisition."
I looked at her.
"The Meridian acquisition was terminated."
Khloe blinked.
"Officially."
That word caught my attention.
Detective Bennett noticed.
"So it wasn't really terminated?"
Khloe looked at Nate's parents.
Susan stepped forward.
"This is a family matter."
Detective Bennett's gaze hardened.
"A man nearly died in a private residence under circumstances that are still unclear. That makes it a police matter."
Robert lowered his voice.
"Detective, Nathaniel is a respectable businessman."
"That doesn't make him immune to investigations."
She turned to me.
"You found the medical issue?"
"I identified a severe electrolyte disturbance."
"And you believe the original diagnosis may have been wrong?"
"Yes."
She studied me.
"You've been married to him eight years?"
"Yes."
"Did you know he was at Ms. Mercer's apartment?"
"No."
"Did you know he was involved with her?"
My jaw tightened.
"No."
Khloe looked down.
Detective Bennett noticed.
"So there is something."
"No," Khloe whispered.
The detective waited.
Khloe started crying.
"I never slept with him."
Susan snapped, "Khloe!"
But Khloe continued.
"I never did."
My heart beat harder.
"Then why were you wearing his wife's pajamas?"
"I wasn't."
I pointed.
She looked down at the navy silk.
"They're not yours."
Khloe's expression changed.
"I know."
I stared at her.
"What?"
She whispered,
"Nate gave them to me."
Something inside me went perfectly still.
He had never worn them.
But he had given them away.
To her.
Why?
Detective Bennett asked quietly,
"When?"
"Three months ago."
"Why?"
Khloe wiped her face.
"He told me they belonged to someone who couldn't use them anymore."
I felt sick.
I had bought that set for myself.
Nate had hidden it in a drawer after I got angry at him for never using the matching set.
I had forgotten about it.
He hadn't.
He had taken it.
He had given it to her.
And she'd accepted it because she believed whatever story he'd told her.
I walked to the window.
For eight years, I had been married to a man I thought I understood.
Suddenly, every memory had developed a second meaning.
Late-night meetings.
Locked phone.
Sudden hotel stays.
Unexplained cash withdrawals.
His insistence that I stay out of his business.
I had mistaken all of it for ambition.
Maybe it had been fear.
My phone vibrated again.
Another message.
This time there was an attachment.
A photograph.
Nate standing outside a warehouse.
Beside him was another man.
I zoomed in.
The man's face made my blood run cold.
I knew him.
Dr. Michael Avery.
Chief of cardiothoracic surgery at the hospital where I worked.
The man who had interviewed me for my attending position seven years earlier.
The man who had told me I was "too ambitious" for a physician who wanted a stable marriage.
The photo was dated six months ago.
I looked at it again.
Then I noticed something in Nate's hand.
A folder.
Across the top were three words.
MERIDIAN PATIENT FILES.
My phone buzzed a third time.
One sentence.
ASK YOUR HUSBAND WHAT HAPPENED TO PATIENT 417.
I looked at Nate.
He still hadn't opened his eyes.
And I suddenly realized the question wasn't whether he'd cheated on me.
May you like
The question was much worse.
What had he done to someone who could no longer tell the truth?
