Chapter 3 - The Secret Alias and the St. Catherine’s LedgerI didn't go home.
Instead of walking out into the hospital parking garage where whoever had sent that encrypted text message might be waiting, I ducked into the public women's restroom on the ground floor, locked myself inside a stall, and tried to steady my breathing.
My hands shook as I pulled out my phone. The threat was real. Someone was watching my every move, and they were willing to use intimidation to keep me quiet. But the moment Nathan told me to walk away and forget about L. Monroe, he sealed his own fate. When a man tells you not to look behind the curtain, it’s because the corpse is lying right there on the floor.
I needed allies. And I needed legal protection that St. Catherine’s administrative board couldn't influence.
I dialed Victor Sterling, my family’s veteran estate attorney and legal bulldog, whose offices were located in downtown Boston.
"Elena?" Victor answered on the second ring, his gravelly voice instantly grounding my racing thoughts. "Is everything alright? You sound shaken."
"Victor, I need you to run an emergency records subpoena for St. Catherine’s Medical Center," I said, keeping my voice low and urgent. "Specifically, I need every digitized intake log, administrative incident report, and surgical audit file associated with a patient initials or surname: L. Monroe."
A heavy pause settled over the phone line. "L. Monroe? Elena, that’s restricted tier-four medical data. Federal HIPAA regulations and hospital liability shields lock those files down tighter than a federal vault. What's this about?"
"My husband is the chief of surgery, and he's hiding a file under that exact name," I explained quickly. "His mistress—who is using his security badge—was caught red-handed carrying the physical folder out of his office. Someone just texted me a photo of my car in the parking garage with a direct threat. Nathan is knee-deep in something illegal, Victor."
Victor's tone shifted instantly from conversational to razor-sharp. "Listen to me very carefully, Elena. Do not confront Nathan again. Do not go back to his office. Meet me at my office in downtown Boston in forty-idde minutes. I’ll draft an emergency preservation of evidence writ through a sympathetic judge on the state circuit bench. If Nathan is scrubbing patient records, we need a federal preservation order before he deletes the database trails."
"I'm on my way," I whispered.
I slipped out of the hospital restroom, keeping my head down, my sunglasses pulled up over my face, and my trench coat collar turned high. I bypassed the main elevators, took the service stairs down to the subterranean parking level, and slipped into my car without incident.
As I pulled out of the St. Catherine’s garage and merged into the mid-day Boston traffic, I glanced in my rearview mirror.
A black sedan was pulling out three car lengths behind me.
I took two deliberate left turns, sped through a yellow light just as it turned red, and watched through the mirror as the black sedan was blocked by a lumbering city bus. They had lost me. But the realization that I was being actively stalked by my husband’s associates sent a chilling adrenaline spike through my veins.
When I arrived at Victor’s office forty minutes later, the air inside was thick with the scent of aged leather and strong black coffee. Victor wasn't alone; sitting across from him was a sharp-eyed young woman named Maya Lin, a forensic data recovery specialist who worked closely with the firm.
"We have a preliminary hit," Maya said without preamble, turning her laptop screen toward me as I sat down. "I ran a deep-web metadata search on the St. Catherine’s internal server firewall using an administrative backdoor bypass Victor’s office maintains for medical malpractice litigation."
She pointed to a digital spreadsheet glowing on the screen.
"The physical file in Nathan's office was labeled Patient Incident Review — L. Monroe," Maya continued. "But when I checked the digital archive registry for that specific file number... it doesn't exist under 'Monroe'."
I frowned, leaning closer. "What do you mean it doesn't exist?"
"The file was scrubbed from the main server database two weeks ago," Maya said grimly. "However, network audit trails show the file was accessed, modified, and downloaded locally by an administrator badge—specifically, badge #4802."
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I swallowed hard. "Badge #4802. Whose badge is that?"
"Registered to Dr. Nathan Pierce," Victor answered quietly. "And the secondary login timestamp attached to the local download belongs to an active session terminal located in the executive suite... logged under the user profile: Vanessa Cole."
