Chapter 3 - The Doctor Who Signed the Death Certificate
Liam moved between Hargrove and the bed.
“What are you doing here?”
Hargrove stopped just inside the doorway.
He was nearly seventy now, with silver hair and the same steady hands that had once rested on Liam’s shoulder as he delivered the news of Thomas Carter’s death.
“I came because Claire is in danger.”
“You are the danger,” Claire whispered.
Hargrove’s gaze shifted toward the disconnected camera.
“You need to reconnect that.”
“So Ethan can watch her?” Liam asked.
“So whoever is watching Ethan believes nothing has changed.”
Mara entered behind him with her hand near her weapon.
“Dr. Samuel Hargrove?”
Hargrove nodded.
“You’re going to answer some questions.”
“We don’t have time.”
Mara stepped closer.
“Then answer quickly.”
Hargrove looked at Claire.
“You found Orpheus.”
Claire did not respond.
His face tightened.
“How much did you see?”
“Enough.”
“That doesn’t tell me anything.”
“It tells you I know my father did not die in that operating room.”
Liam felt the old memory strike him again.
The hospital corridor.
His mother weeping.
Claire, only twenty-one at the time, pressing her face against his chest.
Hargrove removing his surgical cap and saying their father’s injuries had been too severe.
Liam grabbed Hargrove’s coat.
“Where is he?”
Hargrove did not resist.
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I helped Thomas disappear. I did not control where he went afterward.”
Mara pulled Liam back.
“Start from the beginning.”
Hargrove glanced toward the door.
“The beginning was not Thomas. It was a pediatric research program created almost thirty years ago.”
Claire closed her eyes.
“Project Orpheus.”
“Yes.”
Hargrove lowered his voice.
“Orpheus began as a private medical database. Hospitals shared information about unidentified children, abandoned infants, undocumented adoptions, and minors without reliable family records. The stated purpose was to reconnect families and prevent trafficking.”
“What did it become?” Liam asked.
“A marketplace.”
The word seemed to darken the room.
Hargrove continued.
“Private companies learned those children were useful. Some had no official records. Others could be moved through systems without anyone noticing. Identities were altered. Medical histories were rewritten. Families were paid to remain silent.”
Claire’s hand tightened around the sheet.
“Our father found out.”
“He was auditing a nonprofit hospital network,” Hargrove said. “He discovered payments linked to Orpheus. Thomas copied records. He planned to give them to federal investigators.”
“Why didn’t he?”
“Because Meridian Crown found him first.”
Liam stepped forward again.
Hargrove raised one hand.
“Thomas was brought into my emergency department after a staged collision. The men who delivered him expected him to die during surgery.”
“But he didn’t,” Claire said.
“No. He had broken ribs, internal bleeding, and a damaged spleen, but he was conscious. He told me they would kill both of you if anyone learned he survived.”
Liam felt sick.
“You lied to us.”
“I signed the certificate. I arranged the cremation of an unidentified body. I gave Thomas forty-eight hours to disappear.”
“And then?”
Hargrove looked toward Claire.
“He contacted me twice during the first year. The second time, he said he had located twelve children connected to Orpheus. After that, nothing.”
Claire stared at him.
“The warehouse photograph was taken three years ago.”
Hargrove’s face changed.
“You’re certain?”
“It was Dad.”
“Then he survived longer than I knew.”
A sharp alarm sounded in the hallway.
The lights flickered.
Mara turned toward the door.
The electronic lock clicked.
Then it sealed.
Liam tried the handle.
It would not move.
Every monitor in Claire’s room went black at once.
A message appeared across the medical display.
RETURN THE DRIVE.
Claire gasped.
The ventilator system in the next room began alarming.
Mara drew her weapon.
“Hargrove, is there another exit?”
“The bathroom connects to the adjoining suite.”
Liam pushed open the bathroom door and crossed into the next room.
A sedated patient lay beneath a failed respiratory machine.
Liam began manual ventilation while nurses shouted from the locked hallway.
Mara climbed onto a counter and struck the ceiling panel with a metal stand.
Hargrove helped Claire into a wheelchair.
The message on the dead monitor changed.
CLAIRE HAS TEN MINUTES.
Liam looked toward his sister.
“What does that mean?”
Claire reached beneath her hospital gown and touched her side.
Her face drained of color.
“They put something in me.”
Liam stared at her.
“When?”
“Three months ago. Ethan said it was a contraceptive implant.”
Hargrove moved toward her.
“Where?”
Claire pointed below her ribs.
Hargrove touched the skin and immediately recoiled.
“That is not a contraceptive device.”
A faint electronic pulse blinked beneath Claire’s skin.
May you like
The timer on the monitor began counting down.
Nine minutes and fifty-three seconds.
