Chapter 12 - Phantom Heartbeats
The private study of our estate was engulfed in cold silence. Outside, rain began to lash against the floor-to-ceiling glass windows, mirroring the terrible night three years ago that had shattered my existence.
Maps, architectural blueprints of St. Jude’s Children’s Memorial Hospital, and court transcripts covered the mahogany desk. Andrew stood by the fireplace, his phone pressed to his ear, his voice low and dangerous.
"I don't care what it costs, Marcus. Pull the flight logs from the Federal Aviation Administration for October 14th three years ago. Every private charter, every medevac, every helicopter that cleared the airspace within fifty miles of St. Jude’s between midnight and 6:00 AM. If anyone tries to stall you, remind them of the subpoena power the state attorney gave us."
He hung up, running a hand through his dark hair, the stress etching deep lines across his forehead. He turned to me.
I hadn’t moved from the leather sofa for three hours. The music box sat on the coffee table before me, its brass gears glinting under the amber lamp light. Beside it lay the transfer document.
"Clara," Andrew said softly, walking over and kneeling beside me. He took my ice-cold hands into his warm ones. "You have to drink something. The doctor said the first trimester requires absolute stability. You cannot let this destroy your health."
"How can I eat, Andrew?" I whispered, tears rolling down my cheeks. "How can I sleep? If this paper is real... if there is even a one-percent chance that my baby didn't die that night..."
"We don't know that yet," Andrew said firmly, though his voice wavered. "This could be a psychological attack. Victoria Vance is a monster. Her family’s pharmaceutical empire lost billions when we exposed their counterfeit distribution ring. Her brother was sentenced to twenty-five years in federal prison last month. She has the money, the connections, and the motive to forge documents just to drive you insane."
"Then why the camellia?" I countered, my voice rising with desperate conviction. "Victoria Vance wasn't at the private service. Only four people were there: you, me, Julian, and the funeral director, Mr. Mercer. How would she know about the flower in Chloe’s hands unless someone who was actually in that room told her—or someone who watched the body before it ever reached the mortuary?"
Julian entered the study, carrying a heavy laptop and a hard drive. He looked exhausted, the celebratory tuxedo replaced by a wrinkled dress shirt and rolled-up sleeves.
"I ran the digital cryptographic watermark on the intake log," Julian said, setting the laptop down. "It’s not a forgery, Clara."
A sharp gasp escaped my throat. Andrew stood up abruptly. "Are you certain?"
"The digital signature uses an obsolete 256-bit encryption key that St. Jude’s decommissioned two years ago during the corporate buyout," Julian explained, turning the screen toward us. "You can’t fake this timestamp. The file was created at 3:48 AM on October 14th, three years ago, on an internal terminal inside the pediatric intensive care unit. It was archived to a cold storage server and deleted from the local network twenty minutes later."
"Deleted," I repeated, my breath catching. "They erased her file before they even brought me the news."
I remembered that night with horrifying clarity. The sterile smell of floor wax. The harsh fluorescent lights humming overhead. The cold cup of stale coffee in my trembling hands. The doctor walking into the waiting room with his head bowed, his hands shoved deep into his white coat pockets, telling me that Chloe’s heart had given out despite their best efforts.
I had begged to hold her one last time. But they had told me her body was placed in an isolation container due to suspected antibiotic-resistant pathogen contamination. They insisted on a sealed viewing behind glass.
I remembered pressing my forehead against the cold, thick glass of the isolation room. Inside, a tiny form wrapped in white linens lay under a blue ultraviolet lamp. Her face was partially obscured by an oxygen hood and bandages. I was weeping so hard I could barely see.
*Did you ever check the blood beneath the stone?*
The words from the note echoed through my skull like a funeral knell.
"Julian," I said, my voice turning frighteningly calm, cold, and razor-sharp. "Who signed the transfer voucher?"
"Dr. Robert Vance, as head of pediatric therapeutics, and a secondary signature from the duty pathologist: Dr. Arthur Harrison."
"Harrison," Andrew muttered, his eyes narrowing. "He retired abruptly three weeks after Chloe’s funeral. Moved out of state. We tried to depose him during the first trial, but his lawyers claimed he was suffering from advanced cognitive decline and was unfit to testify."
"He lied," I said, rising to my feet. A fierce, maternal fire ignited deep in my gut, obliterating the shock and sorrow. "He didn't retire because of illness. He was paid off to sign a falsified death certificate and vanish."
"Clara, wait," Andrew grabbed my shoulders. "What are you thinking?"
"I'm thinking that I am not going to spend another night wondering if my child is buried in the dirt or locked in a cage," I said, looking directly into my husband’s eyes. "We need to know what is inside that grave."
Julian turned pale. "Clara... you’re talking about an exhumation. A legal petition for exhumation takes months, and it requires judicial sign-off. If the press catches wind of it, the media frenzy will be catastrophic. The foundation’s donors—"
"I don't give a damn about the donors!" I cried out, the pain tearing through my composure. "That was my baby! If someone stole her body, if someone used her for an experimental trial, I will tear this city apart with my bare hands until I find the truth!"
Andrew pulled me into his chest, holding me so tightly I could hear the rapid, furious beat of his heart. "She’s right, Julian. We can't wait for a public court order. Victoria Vance has judges in her pocket. If she learns we’re petitioning the court, whatever evidence is left will vanish overnight."
"So what do we do?" Julian asked quietly.
May you like
Andrew stroked my hair, his jaw set in a hard, dangerous line. "We don't go through the courts. Not yet. Tomorrow morning at dawn, we find Dr. Arthur Harrison. And if he refuses to talk, I will make sure he never speaks another lie again."
***
