Chapter 11 - WHAT THE HOSPITAL RECORDS SAID|
Emilio was taken to a hospital under police protection.
Marisol arrived just after one in the morning and found him sitting upright in a bed, his left wrist bandaged and a bruise spreading beneath his eye. He looked exhausted, furious, and embarrassed by the tears gathering in his sister's eyes.
“You look terrible,” he said.
She laughed through a sob.
“You look worse.”
She crossed the room and hugged him carefully, afraid of hurting him.
For several seconds, neither of them spoke.
Then Emilio held her tighter.
“I thought they were going to kill me.”
Marisol closed her eyes.
“I know.”
“No, you don't. They kept asking about the cake. They wanted to know exactly what you saw.”
She pulled back.
“What did you tell them?”
“Nothing useful. I told them you worked at the estate and that you wouldn't lie about something like that.”
He swallowed.
“One of them said I should tell you to forget the vial.”
Marisol felt cold move through her.
“Did he say anything else?”
“He asked whether you had ever been inside Mr. Hawthorne's father's office.”
She frowned.
“Why would he ask that?”
“I don't know. He kept mentioning a hospital. He said your employer's family had been hiding things for years.”
Adrienne stood near the window, listening.
“Did he mention Nathan Hawthorne?”
Emilio looked at him.
“Yes. He said Nathan was supposed to be dead.”
Adrienne approached the bed.
“Did you see the man who said it?”
“Only for a second. He was wearing a mask most of the time.”
“Could you identify his voice?”
Emilio thought carefully.
“Maybe. It sounded older than Victor's. Rough, like he smoked a lot.”
Adrienne exchanged a look with Grant.
Then Emilio reached toward the bedside table.
“They left something.”
He handed Marisol a folded piece of paper.
It had been tucked inside his shoe when police brought him to the hospital. Someone must have slipped it there during the abduction.
On the paper was a hospital name, a date, and a medical record number.
Adrienne read it twice.
The hospital was the private facility where his father had received treatment before his death.
“What is it?” Marisol asked.
“A record from the week Nathan supposedly died.”
“Can it prove he was alive?”
“Not by itself.”
Adrienne contacted the family's former physician, Dr. Samuel Price, whose name appeared on the paper. The doctor initially refused to speak without legal authorization. But when Adrienne explained that a potential homicide investigation was underway, the physician agreed to meet them the following morning.
The meeting took place in a small conference room at the hospital.
Dr. Price was seventy-two, with careful hands and tired eyes. He had treated the Hawthorne family for more than two decades.
He examined the paper.
Then he removed his glasses.
“I wondered when someone would ask about this.”
Adrienne leaned forward.
“You knew Nathan was alive?”
“I knew a patient was admitted under his name. The patient had severe injuries and facial trauma. The family requested privacy.”
“Was it Nathan?”
Dr. Price hesitated.
“I cannot confirm that from this record alone. The patient was unconscious when admitted. Later, a family representative arranged for the records to be sealed.”
“Who?”
The doctor looked down.
“Your father.”
Adrienne sat back.
His father had died months after the alleged boating accident. If he had known Nathan was alive, why had he allowed the family to believe otherwise?
Dr. Price continued.
“Your father told me that the patient had to disappear for his own safety. He said there had been threats against the family and that revealing the patient's identity could endanger everyone.”
“Did Nathan recover?”
“The patient was transferred to another facility. I never saw him again.”
“Where?”
“I was told the transfer had been arranged through a private medical foundation.”
Marisol looked at the document.
“The same kind of foundation that funded Emilio's scholarship?”
Adrienne turned sharply.
“What?”
She explained the scholarship, the anonymous grant, and the records she had never been able to trace.
Dr. Price examined the foundation's name.
“I recognize it. It was established by your father, Mr. Hawthorne. It funded medical research and discreet care for people who could not safely remain in ordinary hospitals.”
Adrienne's face grew pale.
His father had not simply concealed a patient.
He had built an entire system for hiding people.
When they left the hospital, Adrienne walked in silence beside Marisol.
“Do you think Nathan arranged the scholarship?” she asked.
“I don't know.”
“Do you think he knew who I was?”
“I don't know that either.”
He stopped near the entrance.
“But if my brother survived, someone spent eight years making sure the world believed he was dead. That requires money, influence, and a reason.”
Marisol looked at him.
“And now someone is willing to poison you to finish it.”
Adrienne nodded.
May you like
For the first time, he seemed less like a man who controlled an empire and more like someone standing at the edge of a room he had never dared to enter.
“I think,” he said quietly, “we've been investigating the wrong crime.”
