Chapter 4 - THE BADGE WITH MY FACE
I did not go back into the house myself.
That was not courage.
That was stupidity.
Naomi coordinated with the appropriate authorities once the financial and hospital-security concerns became substantial enough to investigate.
The house became evidence before it became home again.
The second safe existed.
Behind the wine rack.
Inside:
Eight hospital access badges.
Four employee ID cards.
Three prepaid phones.
Cash.
USB drives.
A stack of prescription pads that did not belong to Luca.
And one badge with my photograph.
Name:
JESSICA MORAN, RN.
I had never been Jessica Moran.
The badge design matched my hospital’s old system.
Expired two years earlier.
Access logs showed the credential had entered restricted supply areas fourteen times.
On nights when I was working.
My stomach dropped.
Someone using my face.
My schedule.
A false name.
Then hospital security found footage.
Not me.
A woman with similar dark hair.
Mask.
Scrubs.
My approximate build.
The cameras never captured a clean face.
The false badge contained my employee photo copied from an internal directory.
Why?
To create confusion if access was investigated.
Then Crown Trauma Solutions appeared again.
One temporary nurse associated with Crown had accessed the same restricted areas.
Name:
Megan Shaw.
I knew her vaguely.
Worked nights.
Quiet.
Competent.
Stopped picking up shifts six months ago.
Why?
Moved.
Supposedly.
Hospital HR could not verify where.
Then another item from Luca’s safe:
Megan Shaw’s driver’s license.
I felt cold.
“Is she alive?”
Naomi looked at me.
“We don’t know enough to answer that.”
Good.
No invented tragedy.
Then police located Megan.
Alive.
Living in Arizona.
She had left Chicago suddenly after Luca threatened her.
How did she know Luca?
Crown Trauma’s owner introduced them at a hospital fundraiser.
Luca recruited Megan to help him obtain internal supply records.
At first, she thought it was corporate consulting.
Then he asked her to use altered access credentials.
She refused.
He showed her photographs proving he knew where her son attended school.
She quit.
Moved.
Never reported it.
Fear.
Then investigators asked:
“Who created the false Jessi badge?”
Megan answered:
“Chloe.”
My stomach fell.
My sister.
Again.
Chloe denied knowingly creating a false credential.
Then remembered something.
Luca asked her to Photoshop several “presentation mockups” for a hospital-security pitch.
She worked in marketing design.
One mockup used my photo.
Different surname.
She thought it was a sample.
Luca had turned it into a real badge.
Could that be true?
Digital files supported her account.
Chloe created the image.
Luca later exported and altered it.
Complicity through carelessness.
Not necessarily intent.
I was learning to separate those things.
Then investigators opened the USB drives.
Encrypted.
One contained spreadsheets.
Hospital vendor bids.
Pricing.
Competitor proposals.
Confidential procurement information.
Some came from internal systems.
Someone had been feeding Luca information for years.
Not me.
Then my name appeared in a folder.
JESSICA LEVERAGE.
I stared.
Photographs.
Work schedule.
Medication.
Bank statements.
Naomi visits.
Fiona school records.
Even therapy receipts from two years earlier after my mother died.
Every vulnerable thing cataloged.
Then a text file:
IF JESSI DISCOVERS ACCOUNT:
1. EMPHASIZE EXHAUSTION.
2. DOCUMENT EMOTIONAL REACTION.
3. FAMILY HISTORY OF ANXIETY.
4. FIONA PRIMARY ROUTINE WITH LUCA.
5. CHLOE AVAILABLE AS SUPPORT WITNESS.
I felt physically sick.
He had written instructions for how to discredit me.
My affair discovery had not triggered the plan.
It already existed.
Then another file:
SILENT SOLDIER.
I could barely open it.
Not a child-abuse manual.
A schedule.
Dates.
My shifts.
Times Fiona woke at night.
Notes:
FIONA INTERRUPTS AFTER 1 A.M.
GAME WORKS 12–20 MINUTES.
REWARD SYSTEM EFFECTIVE.
Then:
LONGER DURATION NEEDED IF GUESTS PRESENT.
Guests.
Plural.
Chloe was not the only person Luca needed Fiona not to see.
Naomi looked at me.
“Who else came to your house?”
“I don’t know.”
Then one date stopped me.
March 11.
2:00 a.m.
GUEST: D.R.
D.R.
Daniel Ross.
Luca’s attorney.
The trust protector.
The man preparing custody paperwork.
He had been inside my house in the middle of the night while my daughter played Silent Soldier.
May you like
This was no longer Luca hiding an affair.
They were using my home for meetings Fiona was trained not to witness.
