They told me she was just an unidentified vagrant brought into Bayfront Medical Center at 2:00 AM.
I left Beatrice’s house with the heavy, cold knowledge of Higgins’s deeper betrayal. The forged signature, the offshore accounts — it meant he hadn’t just used me as leverage; he had actively built his wealth on my stolen identity.
Returning to the hospital, a cold dread hung in the air. I had hoped to avoid Daugherty, but he seemed to materialize from the shadows.
He intercepted me in an empty stairwell, the only sound the distant whir of the air conditioning. The fluorescent lights hummed, casting long, stark shadows.
“Dr. Harrison,” Daugherty said, his voice flat, devoid of its usual bureaucratic oiliness. He held a thick white envelope.
“Daugherty,” I replied, my hand already resting on the door handle, ready to escape.
He extended the envelope. “Dr. Higgins asked me to convey a revised offer.”
I didn’t take it. “I’m not interested in any offers from Higgins.”
He just kept his hand out, unmoving. “A cashier’s check for $500,000, made out to you. Clean. Untraceable.”
My eyes narrowed. Half a million dollars. For what?
“And,” Daugherty continued, “a promotion. To Surgical Directorship of the new trauma wing. An unprecedented leap for someone of your… relatively junior status.”
My stomach churned. A bribe. A payoff.
“What’s the catch?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
“Simple,” he said, his face a mask. “You sign these.”
He pulled a few pages from the envelope. Discharge transfer papers for Hannah Parker. The destination was an “unaccredited private care home” in a rural corner of another state. A place where she would disappear forever.
“Hannah’s condition is stabilizing,” I said. “She doesn’t need to be transferred.”
Daugherty’s expression hardened. “Dr. Harrison, this isn’t a medical discussion. It’s a business proposition. For your own good. For your career. For your future.”
He gestured to the check and the promotion agreement. “All this can be yours. The prestige. The security. And a tidy sum to start fresh.”
I stared at the cashier’s check. $500,000. It could solve so many problems, could start a new life. But it would be built on Hannah’s vanishing, on my silence, on the death of my children.
My hand reached out, not for the check, but for the discharge papers. I took them, tore them in half, then in quarters, the crisp paper ripping loudly in the silence of the stairwell. Then I balled up the shredded pieces and tossed them to the ground.
Daugherty watched, his eyes unblinking. He didn’t move to stop me.
“A pity,” he said, his voice suddenly cold, devoid of any pretense of politeness. “Dr. Harrison, you should know that uncooperative doctors at Bayfront frequently suffer fatal career-ending accidents. Or worse.”
The threat hung in the air, a venomous promise. He wasn’t just talking about my medical license. He was talking about my life.
“Get out of my way,” I said, pushing past him.
He didn’t try to stop me, but his gaze followed my back, a predator watching its prey. The money, the promotion, the veiled threat—it was all leverage. And I had just thrown it back in his face.
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