Chapter 7: Friday
At two in the morning, room 714 of the Manhattan private hospital showed all the correct readings.
The monitors beeped at the right intervals.
The IV line ran to the correct port.
The figure in the bed was still, breathing slowly, covered to the shoulder by a white blanket.
Marcus had arranged it in forty minutes.
A medical-grade monitoring relay, a pulse simulator, and one of his men lying in the bed with strict instructions not to move regardless of who entered.
I watched from the supply room across the corridor through a gap in the door.
At two forty-seven, Dr.
Carl Reiss entered the room alone.
He was carrying a small case.
He set it on the bedside table without turning on the light.
He worked by the glow of the monitors.
His movements were practiced and unhurried — a man who had done careful things before.
Marcus's hand came down on my shoulder before I could move.
"Wait," he said quietly.
Reiss reached for the IV line.
The door to the room opened again.
Two detectives from the NYPD and a representative from the DA's office stepped inside and turned on the light.
Reiss spun around.
"Dr.
Reiss," the first detective said.
"Step away from the patient, please."
The case on the table was still open.
Inside it, clearly visible, were two unlabeled vials and a syringe.
Reiss looked at the figure in the bed.
Then at the detectives.
Then at the monitoring equipment with an expression that moved through confusion and landed somewhere much worse.
"I was—" He stopped.
"Sir," the detective said.
"Step away from the bed."
He stepped away.
Grace had called the DA's office at midnight with the full referral packet.
The fraud investigation had been formally opened at one a.m.
Hargrove had been contacted at his home address at one thirty and informed that his license was under emergency review.
The account freezes had executed automatically at two a.m.
as scheduled.
By the time Reiss was being walked out of room 714, Anthony's access to every financial instrument connected to my name had already been revoked for two hours.
I stepped out of the supply room.
Chloe was standing at the end of the corridor.
She had come.
Of course she had come.
She was wearing the black silk again, her hair perfect, her expression arranged into something that was supposed to look like a grieving fiancée arriving for an early vigil.
She had probably planned to be present when the monitors flatlined.
She had probably planned exactly what her face would do.
She saw me.
The expression didn't fall apart dramatically.
It didn't crumble.
It simply stopped — like a clock that had been running perfectly and then wasn't.
"Julian," she said.
"Chloe."
She looked at the detectives.
At Marcus.
At the open door of room 714.
"I don't understand," she said.
"Yes you do," I said.
Her jaw tightened.
The grief performance was gone.
What replaced it was something colder and more honest.
"You can't prove anything," she said.
"The documents were never filed.
I never signed anything.
Whatever Anthony did—"
"The transfer authorization was in your coat pocket," I said.
"Your handwriting is on the margin notes.
Your phone records show fourteen calls to Hargrove in the last six days and eleven calls to Anthony." I paused.
"And you told a man you believed was unconscious exactly what you were planning.
Twice."
She went very still.
"The room has a monitoring system," I said.
"It's been running since day one."
It hadn't been.
But she didn't know that.
Her hand moved toward her bag — toward her phone.
"I wouldn't," Marcus said from behind her.
May you like
She didn't reach the phone.
The second detective stepped forward.
