Chapter 2 - WHAT RITA DID WHILE I WAS SEDATED
The first person to betray me after surgery was not Victor.
It was hospital security.
Not intentionally.
Their cameras simply showed me something I was never supposed to see.
Daniel requested footage from the transplant floor because the forged deed required identification. If Rita had copied my driver’s license or insurance card, we needed to know when.
At 2:18 p.m. on the day of surgery, I was unconscious in recovery.
Victor was in another wing.
The camera showed Rita Cole walking into my private room.
She wore scrubs.
Not hospital-issued scrubs.
Costume-store blue.
A mask covered half her face.
She remained inside for six minutes.
My stomach turned.
“What was in the room?”
Daniel asked.
“My purse. Wallet. Phone. Discharge folder.”
The footage continued.
Rita came out holding nothing visible.
But she had entered with flat pockets.
She left with something rectangular beneath her scrub top.
My wallet.
I felt colder than I had when I heard Victor promise her my house.
She hadn’t forged my identity eleven days earlier and stopped.
She had returned while I was unconscious.
Why?
Daniel contacted hospital administration.
They searched visitor records.
Rita had never been authorized to enter my room.
Someone had given her the door code used by staff.
The security director traced it.
Victor’s nurse had not provided it.
Neither had mine.
Then they found a temporary access request entered under Victor Bennett’s emergency-contact authority.
He had told staff Rita was my sister.
I didn’t have a sister.
That afternoon, Victor called again.
This time I answered.
“Sarah.”
His relief sounded almost convincing.
“Where are you?”
“Still in the hospital.”
“I woke up and your ring was here.”
“Yes.”
“What is going on?”
I closed my eyes.
For twenty-two years, I had filled silences for him.
Not anymore.
“You tell me.”
He paused.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Try harder.”
Another pause.
Then his voice changed.
“You’re emotional. The anesthesia—”
I hung up.
Ten seconds later, Daniel’s phone rang.
He listened.
Then looked at me.
“What?”
“The hospital found what Rita accessed from your phone.”
My stomach tightened.
“She opened your banking application.”
“That’s impossible. It needs Face ID.”
Daniel nodded.
“Exactly.”
He turned the screen toward me.
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A security image showed Rita holding my sleeping face toward my own phone.
And according to the banking log, while I lay unconscious after donating a kidney, someone had attempted to transfer $250,000 from my personal account.
