Chapter 13 - THE EMPTY HOSPITAL ROOM
Clara was gone.
Her IV had been disconnected properly.
Her chart showed a physician-approved transfer.
But the doctor whose name appeared on the paperwork was attending a conference in Chicago.
Someone had forged the order.
Julian looked ready to tear the hospital apart.
Instead, I grabbed his arm.
“Think.”
Victor wanted Clara’s trust.
Clara was valuable alive until she signed it over.
That meant we had time.
Daniel called the investigators.
I called Mara.
Then I remembered the condo.
Clara had once mentioned keeping an emergency phone in case treatments left her unable to reach her regular device.
The phone had location sharing enabled.
Its signal appeared eighteen miles west.
A private rehabilitation facility owned by a Hale Foundation subsidiary.
Of course.
Investigators reached the property before we did.
Clara was found in a private room, frightened but unharmed.
Victor had arranged the transfer under the excuse of protecting her from “family stress.”
He arrived twenty minutes later and walked directly into a room containing two federal investigators.
He didn’t know I was listening from the adjacent office.
“You can’t hold Clara here,” an investigator said.
Victor laughed.
“I’m her uncle.”
“She is a competent adult.”
“She is dying.”
Then Victor said the sentence we needed.
“Once she signs the trustee papers, everyone can go home.”
The investigator asked, “And Jessica Sterling?”
Silence.
Victor finally answered.
“She should have taken the money.”
My recording from the café was already evidence.
Now they had more.
But Victor wasn’t finished.
He smiled at the investigators.
“You think Julian Sterling is your witness?”
May you like
His voice turned cold.
“He’s the man who helped me move the money.”
