Chapter 4 - the story that changed twice
Marcus reached the suite less than three minutes after security called him.
By then, Isabella was crying in the corridor, Khloe was seated against the wall, and two hospital guards were speaking over each other.
Marcus ignored everyone except his wife.
He knelt beside Khloe.
“Are you hurt?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where is the doctor?”
A maternity specialist arrived with a medical team. They moved Khloe onto a transport bed and checked the baby’s heart rate.
Marcus followed them into the suite.
Isabella tried to enter.
Officer Reyes stopped her.
The officer was assigned to the hospital gala because of threats received by several donors. He had been standing one floor below when the emergency alarm activated.
“She needs to stay outside,” he said.
Isabella held up her injured wrist.
“She attacked me.”
Marcus turned.
“You said she attacked you inside the suite?”
“Yes.”
Officer Reyes looked toward the broken lamp.
“How did the door open?”
“I opened it.”
A security guard shook his head.
“The suite was locked from the outside. We used an emergency override.”
Isabella’s expression shifted.
“I meant I tried to open it.”
Officer Reyes watched her carefully.
“So the door was already locked when you entered?”
“I don’t remember.”
“You remembered thirty seconds ago.”
“She attacked me. I was terrified.”
From the bed, Khloe spoke without raising her voice.
“Ask her who was inside before I arrived.”
Isabella looked at her.
“No one was inside.”
“You were speaking to a man.”
Marcus went still.
“What man?”
“I never saw his face,” Khloe said. “But Isabella told him I had signed something.”
Isabella laughed nervously.
“She is inventing this because she knows the camera recorded her.”
Officer Reyes turned toward the ceiling.
“There is a camera inside the suite?”
Isabella immediately realized her mistake.
The hospital security director, Owen Shaw, appeared in the doorway.
He was a broad-shouldered man in his fifties who had worked for the Vale family for more than a decade.
“Private recovery suites do not record patients,” Owen said. “There are cameras in the corridor but none inside.”
Isabella’s eyes moved toward him.
Khloe noticed.
“So how did Isabella know a camera recorded me?”
Owen did not answer.
Officer Reyes looked at the small dark lens above the door.
“That appears to be a camera.”
“It is an inactive motion sensor,” Owen replied.
Officer Reyes raised his own phone and photographed it.
“We will verify that.”
Elaine entered the corridor holding a hospital tablet. She took in the broken lamp, Isabella’s wrist, and Khloe on the bed.
“What happened?”
“Your daughter-in-law attacked me,” Isabella said.
Elaine looked at Khloe.
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Then we find the recording.”
Owen stepped forward.
“There may not be one.”
Elaine turned toward him.
“This hospital records every private corridor.”
“The system experienced an interruption during the power failure.”
“How convenient.”
Owen’s face hardened.
“I am protecting patient privacy.”
“You are protecting something.”
Marcus stood beside Khloe.
“No one leaves this floor until we know who unlocked that door.”
Owen opened his mouth to protest.
Officer Reyes lifted a hand.
“Mr. Vale is correct. This is now a possible assault investigation.”
Isabella began crying again.
“She nearly harmed me.”
Marcus looked at the marks on her wrist.
Then he looked at the torn strap beside Khloe’s handbag.
“Those marks came from the clasp.”
Isabella’s tears stopped.
Khloe met Marcus’s eyes.
“She made them herself.”
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For the first time that night, Marcus looked at Isabella not with anger, but with certainty.
“You have changed your story twice,” he said. “Do not change it again.”
