Chapter 6 - The Investigation Begins in the Trauma Corridor
By noon,
the hospital corridors were buzzing with whispered gossip among the nursing staff and resident physicians,
who had quickly pieced together the scandalous drama unfolding in the fourth-floor recovery suite.
As an attending physician,
my reputation had always been built on an unshakeable foundation of professionalism,
emotional resilience,
and absolute integrity.
Now,
my private life had exploded into a public spectacle,
splashed across the metaphorical bulletin boards of every nurse's station from the ER to the ICU.
I retreated to my private office at the end of the administrative wing,
locking the heavy wooden door behind me and leaning my forehead against the cool mahogany panel.
My phone buzzed incessantly on the desk—text messages from mutual friends asking if Ethan was alright,
missed calls from his corporate office inquiring about his medical leave,
and frantic voicemails from his mother demanding to know why she couldn't reach her son.
I ignored them all,
pulling open the bottom drawer of my desk to retrieve a spare notebook and a heavy black pen.
If Ethan had been living a double life for two full years,
there had to be financial footprints,
property deeds,
hidden bank accounts,
and corporate secrets that explained how a middle-management executive could afford a suburban house,
a pregnant mistress,
and two entirely separate lifestyles without raising suspicion.
I picked up my office phone and dialed a confidential number—Marcus Vance,
a retired private investigator who occasionally handled delicate background checks for hospital personnel facing extortion or corporate espionage.
'Marcus,
it’s Claire Bennett,
' I said the moment he picked up the line,
my voice dropping into a cool,
professional register.
'I need your services.
Absolutely off the books,
and as fast as humanly possible.
' Marcus’s voice crackled through the receiver,
deep and gravelly from decades of smoking and late-night stakeouts.
'I heard about the accident in the trauma bay last night,
Claire.
Half the city's emergency personnel are talking about it.
Are you alright?' 'I am entirely focused on the truth,
Marcus,
' I replied,
my grip tightening around the pen until my knuckles turned white.
'I need you to run a full asset search on my husband,
Ethan Bennett.
Property deeds,
secondary bank accounts,
corporate expense reports,
LLC registrations—everything.
I want to know where the money came from,
and who else was involved.
' 'Consider it done,
' Marcus answered without hesitation.
'Give me twenty-four hours.
' I hung up the phone just as a soft knock echoed at my office door.
Without waiting for a response,
the door pushed open,
and Mia walked into the room,
her eyes no longer swollen with tears,
but hardened into a brittle,
vengeful glint that matched my own inner fury.
'He’s lying,
' Mia announced without preamble,
closing the door behind her and leaning against it.
'Ethan just told the nurse he wants his phone back.
He said he needs to call his lawyer.
But before security took his belongings,
I managed to grab his secondary smartphone from the side pocket of his jacket.
' She reached into her oversized coat pocket and dropped a sleek,
black,
unbranded smartphone onto my desk with a sharp thud.
May you like
I stared down at the device,
recognizing instantly that this was the missing puzzle piece that would tear the rest of Ethan’s lies to shreds.
