Chapter 3 - The Price of Silence
By 4:00 AM, Nathan was sitting in the back of his darkened car, parked three blocks away from the hospital. He had Elias on the phone, a private investigator who operated in the spaces where the law didn't reach.
"Victoria Hale doesn't exist, Nathan," Elias said, the sound of keyboard clicks audible in the background. "I mean, she exists, but the background she gave you? The prestigious boarding school, the dead parents in Paris, the trust fund? All fiction. She’s a ghost. She’s been moving through the social circles of wealthy men for a decade, but her name changes every time she gets too close to a marriage license."
Nathan felt a surge of nausea. "How did she get into the hospital? How did she get assigned to Lily's care?"
"That’s the part you’re not going to like," Elias said. "There’s a connection between Victoria and the head nurse, Carmen Ruiz. They’ve been linked through offshore accounts for years. It’s a racket, Nathan. They find wealthy, vulnerable targets, they isolate the kids, they keep the parents stressed and exhausted, and they bleed the accounts dry while the patient stays just sick enough to require 'specialized' care."
"They're keeping her sick," Nathan whispered, the realization hitting him like a blow to the gut.
"They're using a low-level sedative cocktail," Elias confirmed. "It’s untraceable if you're looking for common poisons, but it induces lethargy, confusion, and fear in children. It makes the patient entirely dependent on the person administering it."
Nathan looked up at the hospital. The VIP wing was a beacon of light against the dark, stormy skyline. His daughter was up there, trapped in a cage with her tormentor, while he sat in the dark, helpless.
"I need access," Nathan said. "I don't care how."
"There's a maintenance shaft behind the service elevator," Elias said. "The fire code was updated last month, and the system is still on a legacy server. If you can get into the basement, I can loop the feed for ten minutes. That's all you get."
"Ten minutes," Nathan repeated.
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He didn't think about the consequences. He didn't think about the board of directors, or the bankruptcy proceedings that would follow if he was caught breaking into his own hospital. He thought about the blank face Lily had drawn in black crayon.
He had to get her out.
