Chapter 2 - The Emergency Call
Jocelyn made it six blocks before her vision blurred.
She pulled to the side of the road and pressed both hands against the steering wheel.
Her breaths came in short bursts.
She knew the signs of shock. Her skin was cold. Her pulse was rapid. There was pressure in her abdomen and pain radiating into her shoulder.
Something was bleeding.
She reached for her phone but hesitated before calling Gordon.
The hesitation lasted only a second.
Then she called.
He rejected the call.
She tried again.
Rejected.
A text appeared.
Driving. Stop being dramatic.
Jocelyn stared at the message until the letters doubled.
She dialed emergency services.
“My name is Dr. Jocelyn Hale,” she said. “I’m parked near the intersection of Bedford and Ninth. I may have internal bleeding.”
The dispatcher kept her speaking while an ambulance approached.
“Are you alone?”
Jocelyn looked at the passenger seat.
Rita had left a shopping catalog there.
“Yes.”
“Is there anyone we should contact?”
Jocelyn almost laughed.
“My husband.”
“What is his number?”
Jocelyn gave it.
Minutes later, paramedics opened her car door.
One of them recognized her.
“Dr. Hale?”
“Evan?”
Evan Brooks had worked in the emergency department for four years. Jocelyn had once helped save his father during an aortic rupture.
His face tightened when he saw her blood pressure.
“We need to move.”
As they lifted her onto the stretcher, Jocelyn heard the dispatcher attempting to reach Gordon.
No answer.
Inside the ambulance, Evan cut open the side of her blouse to attach monitoring leads.
“Pain level?”
“Eight.”
“Any chance you’re pregnant?”
“No.”
“Recent trauma?”
“No.”
“History of ulcers? Liver problems?”
“No.”
He pressed carefully along her abdomen.
Jocelyn cried out.
Evan exchanged a look with his partner.
“We’re notifying trauma.”
Jocelyn gripped his wrist.
“My phone.”
“You need to lie still.”
“Please.”
He placed it in her hand.
She opened the banking application.
For years, Gordon had insisted on combining everything. He claimed separate finances meant separate lives. Yet Jocelyn had retained one private account connected to her medical practice because hospital regulations required it.
That account held her emergency savings, malpractice reserve, and investments inherited from her father.
Gordon did not know its full value.
But he had access to one household card linked to it for emergencies.
Rita was carrying that card.
Jocelyn froze it.
Then she opened the joint account.
The balance was far lower than it should have been.
She scrolled through recent transfers.
Forty thousand dollars.
Twenty-five thousand.
Eighteen thousand.
All sent to a company called Hale Strategic Development.
Gordon’s company.
The company he had claimed was dormant.
Another payment had gone to Bellamy Luxury Group.
Nine thousand eight hundred dollars.
Jocelyn felt a pain sharper than the one inside her body.
“How long until the hospital?” she asked.
“Seven minutes.”
She forwarded the account statements to her attorney, Naomi Carter.
Then she typed a message.
Emergency. Freeze all discretionary access. Revoke financial authority. Gordon has been moving funds without permission. I am going into surgery.
Naomi answered within seconds.
Are you safe?
May you like
Jocelyn typed:
Not yet.
