Chapter 9 - A Lie That Lasted for Years
Saint Matthew's Hospital immediately went into lockdown.
Every exit was secured.
Every visitor questioned.
Security footage from Emily's floor was reviewed minute by minute.
Yet no one could explain how a woman recovering from serious injuries had vanished without being seen.
Michael rushed through the emergency entrance.
Doctors, nurses, and police officers filled every corridor.
"Where is she?" he demanded.
No one answered immediately.
Detective Bennett met him outside Emily's room.
"The surveillance cameras went black for exactly forty-seven seconds."
"Someone hacked them?"
"Possibly."
"What about the guards?"
"They remember speaking to a nurse."
"So?"
"There was no nurse."
Michael entered Emily's room.
The bed was empty.
The IV had been removed carefully.
Not ripped out.
Folded neatly on the mattress lay a hospital blanket.
On top rested Emily's wedding ring.
Michael picked it up with trembling fingers.
She never removed it.
Never.
Not even while sleeping.
Bennett noticed something beneath the ring.
A folded note.
Michael opened it.
The handwriting was unmistakably Emily's.
I'm sorry. Everything I told you about my past was a lie. But I never lied about loving you or Ethan. Don't follow me. They'll kill you too.
Michael felt as though the room had vanished around him.
The detective quietly took another sheet from the evidence folder.
"We compared Emily's fingerprints."
"And?"
"They don't match any records before she turned nineteen."
"What does that mean?"
"It means your wife may have disappeared once before."
Michael stared at the letter.
"If she lied about her identity..."
He couldn't finish the sentence.
Bennett completed it for him.
"...then someone spent decades making sure she stayed hidden."
Just then another officer burst into the room.
"We've found another camera."
"Where?"
"In the ventilation shaft directly above this hospital room."
Bennett frowned.
"Was it recording?"
"Yes."
"For how long?"
The officer swallowed.
"Since before Emily was admitted."
Michael looked toward the ceiling.
Someone hadn't just been watching their apartment.
Someone had followed them all the way to the hospital.
May you like
And whoever that person was...
They already knew Michael had returned home.
