Chapter 7: The Least of Your Problems
Marcus called Detective Reyes at seven the next morning.
She arrived at the hospital by eight, listened to the recording of Isabella's call — Marcus had insisted I put it on speaker the moment I'd answered, and the room's camera had caught the audio — and closed her notebook with a quiet, decisive snap.
"That's a witness intimidation charge on top of everything else," she said.
"Ms.
Crane's attorney is going to have a difficult morning."
"Can you bring her in?" Marcus asked.
"We're already working on it." She looked at me.
"Is there anything else you haven't told me?
Any contact, any message, anything that seemed minor?"
"There's one more thing," I said.
I had been thinking about it since three in the morning, when I'd woken up and lain in the dark piecing together a timeline I hadn't known I was building.
"Six weeks ago," I said, "Isabella offered to help me find a new obstetrician.
She said Dr.
Anand had a poor reputation and she knew someone better.
I didn't take her up on it.
But she sent me a name and a clinic address."
"Do you still have that message?"
"Yes."
Detective Reyes waited while I found it and forwarded it to her.
She looked at her phone.
Her expression didn't change, but something sharpened behind her eyes.
"I know this clinic," she said carefully.
"We've had interactions with it before."
She didn't say more than that.
She didn't need to.
Marcus sat down heavily in the chair beside my bed.
"How long has she been doing this?" he said.
Not to Detective Reyes.
Not really to me.
Just to the room.
"Long enough to plan it carefully," Detective Reyes said.
"Which actually helps us.
Careful planning leaves evidence."
She stood to leave.
"Detective," I said.
She turned.
"She told me last night that the attorney is the least of my problems.
What does that mean?
What else does she have?"
Detective Reyes considered the question.
"In my experience," she said, "when someone says that, it means one of two things.
Either they have a genuine second line of attack — another person, another piece of information, another plan.
Or they're trying to make you feel surrounded so you stop fighting."
"Which do you think it is?"
"I think Ms.
Crane is intelligent and has resources," she said.
"So I'd plan for both."
She left.
The room was quiet.
A nurse came in to check my monitors.
She was young, with a name badge that read PETRA, and she moved efficiently and without fuss, checking readings, adjusting the IV line, noting something on her tablet.
"How are you feeling?" she asked.
"Tired," I said.
"That's normal." She glanced at the monitors.
"Baby's doing well.
Strong heartbeat all night."
"Thank you."
She was almost at the door when she stopped.
"Mrs.
Hargrove," she said.
She turned around slowly.
"I need to tell you something.
I've been trying to decide since last night whether I should."
I looked at her.
"The woman who was here yesterday," Petra said.
"Before everything happened.
I saw her in the hallway.
Before she came into your room."
"You saw Isabella?"
"She was talking to someone." Petra's hands were still at her sides.
"A man.
I didn't think anything of it at the time.
But after everything — after the police came — I kept thinking about it."
"Who was the man?"
Petra hesitated.
"I don't know his name," she said.
"But he was wearing a visitor badge.
And he had a folder with him.
The kind with a hospital logo on the front." She paused.
"He gave it to her.
She put it in her bag."
Marcus stood up.
"What did he look like?" he asked.
Petra described him.
Average height.
Fifties.
Gray at the temples.
A lanyard with what looked like an administrative ID.
Marcus went very still.
I looked at him.
"What?" I said.
He didn't answer immediately.
"Marcus."
"That sounds like Richard Holt," he said.
"Who is Richard Holt?"
He looked at me with an expression I had never seen on his face before.
Something between disbelief and a very old, slow-burning anger.
May you like
"He's the administrator who oversees patient records for this entire hospital system," Marcus said.
"And he's been Isabella's family friend since she was twelve years old."
