Chapter 4
The rain in New Jersey didn’t wash things clean; it just made the grime slicker. I sat in a booth at the back of a twenty-four-hour diner, the red vinyl cracked beneath my legs. Across from me, Dr. Marcus Webb looked less like a surgeon and more like a fugitive. He kept shredding a paper napkin, his eyes darting to the door every time the bell chimed.
"He'll destroy me," Marcus whispered, his voice barely audible over the clatter of silverware. "Elliott Hart doesn't just fire people, Mrs. Spencer. He erases them."
Holden leaned forward, his elbows resting on the sticky table. He didn't look sympathetic; he looked lethal. "You're already erased, Marcus. You were fired for asking a question. The only way you survive this is if you burn the house down while you're standing outside it. Tell us about the cornea."
Marcus swallowed hard, his gaze dropping to his coffee. "It wasn't a rupture. The chart... the chart was fabricated."
I felt a cold pressure in my chest, expanding like a balloon. "What was it?"
"A scratch," Marcus said, the words tumbling out now. "A two-millimeter corneal abrasion from a lash extension procedure. It was cosmetic, Elyse. Just cosmetic."
My hand flew to my mouth. "My mother died for a scratch?"
"The Met Gala was three days away," Marcus continued, misery etching deep lines into his face. "Maisy didn't want to wear a patch or glasses. She told Collin she refused to look 'ugly' for the cameras. She demanded the transplant. Collin... he gave her what she wanted."
The diner spun. I gripped the edge of the table, my knuckles turning white. A cosmetic fix. A party. My mother had fallen into the dark, terrified and alone, so a spoiled socialite could pose for photos without a blemish.
"I have the original triage notes," Marcus said, sliding a flash drive across the table. "Before they were scrubbed."
I picked up the drive. It was cold, small, and heavy with the weight of my mother's life.
***
The television studio was silent, a vacuum of air-conditioned stillness. The anchor, a woman known for her shark-like interviewing style, looked at me with genuine softness. The cameras were dark eyes in the gloom, waiting.
"We're live in three," the producer signaled.
I didn't shout. I didn't rage. When the red light blinked on, I just spoke. I told them about the tea kettle. I told them about the sound of my mother's body hitting the floorboards.
"They said it was a critical emergency," I said, my voice trembling but clear. I held up a photo of my mother, intubated and dying, her eyes forever closed. "This is what a lack of care looks like."
Then, I pulled out the second photo Holden had sourced from a deleted Instagram story. It was timestamped forty-eight hours after my mother's death. Maisy Hart was at a club, a champagne flute in one hand, a diamond-encrusted eye patch over her left eye. She was laughing.
"And this," I said, staring into the lens, addressing Collin directly, "is the emergency. She wore the patch as a fashion statement, Collin. Was it worth it?"
***
The fallout was immediate and nuclear. By the next morning, the sidewalk outside Manhattan General was a sea of signs and shouting. *JUSTICE FOR GRACE* was spray-painted on the pristine limestone facade.
Holden and I bypassed the chaos, flanked by two private security guards he’d hired. We weren't there to protest; we were there to serve an emergency preservation order for the hospital's servers.
The executive floor was usually a fortress of silence, but today, the receptionist was gone. Phones were ringing off the hook, unanswered. As we approached the double oak doors of the Director's suite, voices bled through the wood—shouting, raw and unfiltered.
Holden didn't knock. He pushed the doors open.
The scene inside was a tableau of ruin. Maisy was pacing, her face blotchy with tears, kicking at a fallen chair. Collin stood by the window, looking like a man who had not slept in days, his perfect suit rumpled. Dr. Elliott Hart sat behind his desk, an island of ice in the firestorm.
"You promised!" Maisy shrieked, pointing a manicured finger at Collin. "You said you handled it! You said she was a nobody! Now my face is on every news channel in the country!"
"I did what you asked!" Collin roared back, spinning around. The desperation in his eyes was feral. "I gutted my own department for you!"
"Enough," Elliott’s voice cut through the air like a scalpel. He didn't look at us, even as we stepped fully into the room. His focus was entirely on Collin. "You’ve become a liability, Collin. The board is convening in an hour. You will take a voluntary leave of absence. Indefinitely."
Collin froze. "Leave? You signed off on the transfer, Elliott. You authorized the funds."
"I authorized a bridge loan," Elliott said smoothly, picking up a pen. "I had no knowledge of your illicit affair or your misappropriation of donor organs. You are a rogue actor, Dr. Spencer. I will not let you drag this hospital down with your incompetence."
It was a slaughter. The mentor was eating the protégé alive.
Collin’s face went from pale to a dangerous, mottled red. He stepped toward the desk, his hands shaking violently. "You think you can pin this on me? I have the emails, Elliott. I know about the skimming from the endowment fund. I know about the Cayman accounts."
"Are you threatening me?" Elliott stood up, his presence filling the room.
"I'm telling you," Collin hissed, spit flying from his lips, "that if I go down, I am taking your entire legacy with me."
"Excuse me," I said.
The silence that followed was absolute. Three heads snapped toward the door. Collin saw me, and the color drained out of him so fast I thought he might faint. Maisy looked at me with pure, unadulterated hatred. Elliott just narrowed his eyes.
I stepped forward, the flash drive in my pocket burning against my hip. "I hate to interrupt," I said, my voice steel, "but I think the FBI might be interested in the Cayman accounts, too."
Collin looked at me, then at Elliott, and for the first time, he realized the trap wasn't closing. It had already snapped shut.
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