Chapter 4 - The Secrets of the Drive
The emergency ward grew quiet once the police officers and Gavin had departed. The rhythmic beep of the fetal monitor provided a soothing counterpoint to the racing thoughts in my head.
"You okay, Mara?"
I looked down. Caleb was still standing near the bed, clutching the empty water bottle.
"I'm okay, Caleb," I said, offering a tired smile. "More than okay. But you... you shouldn't have been at the station alone. Where are your parents?"
Caleb’s gaze dropped to the linoleum floor. He kicked a tiny speck of dust with his worn-out sneaker. "My mom passed away last year. Dad took off when I was six. I've been staying with my uncle, but... well, let's just say the door is usually locked from the inside."
A sharp ache squeezed my heart. I knew what it felt like to be abandoned by the people who were supposed to protect you.
"Well," I said gently, "you're not going back there tonight. Let's see what we can do about getting you some real help."
Just then, the curtain parted, and a woman in a crisp white lab coat entered. Her badge read Dr. Evelyn Vance—no relation to Julian, she later assured me—our lead obstetrician.
"Mrs. Ellison, your vitals have stabilized significantly," Dr. Vance said, reviewing my chart. "The glucose levels are back in the safe zone, and baby girl is kicking up a storm. However, given the stress you've experienced today, I want to keep you overnight for observation."
"Thank you, Doctor," I said. "Can I ask... did Officer Ramirez leave anything behind for me?"
Dr. Vance nodded, reaching into her coat pocket and pulling out a small, heavy envelope. "He said this was recovered from the evidence intake. It’s a temporary secure terminal tablet containing an encrypted mirror of the data found on that flash drive, cleared for your viewing by the district attorney's cyber crimes unit."
My pulse quickened. I took the tablet with trembling fingers.
"What is it?" Caleb asked, leaning in close.
"Let's find out together," I whispered.
I tapped the screen and entered the four-digit security PIN—my mother’s birthday, a number only I knew, which I had used to lock the files before leaving the house that morning.
The screen flickered, and a folder popped up: Vance_Ellison_Auditing_2026.
I tapped the first file. It was a digital ledger—not the clean, sanitized financial statements Gavin brought home to show me every quarter, but the raw, unedited internal records of Vance & Ellison Financial.
Rows and columns of numbers scrolled past. Offshore accounts in the Cayman Islands. Shell companies registered in Panama. Millions of dollars—investor funds, retirement accounts, municipal bonds—systematically siphoned away into private accounts under the joint signatures of Julian Vance and... Gavin Ellison.
Worse still, a sub-folder caught my attention: Personal_Assets_Liquidation.
I tapped it. Documents popped up detailing the planned transfer of our family home, our savings, and even my personal inheritance into a high-risk offshore venture designed to crash cleanly, leaving Gavin and Julian legally bankrupt while they vanished overseas with twenty million dollars in clean cash.
And the target date for the final transfer?
Tomorrow.
"They were going to frame you," Caleb whispered, his eyes wide as he read the screen over my shoulder. "The company debt, the missing funds... they were setting it all up to look like you did it."
I stared at the glowing screen, the cold reality settling deep into my bones. Gavin hadn't just been cheating on our marriage; he had been building a legal cage around me for months, using my signature on forged corporate resolutions, setting me up to take the fall for a massive financial collapse.
My sudden hypoglycemic collapse at the station hadn't been a random accident, either. I remembered the cup of herbal tea Gavin had handed me before I left the house this morning—a tea that had tasted slightly bitter, unlike my usual blend.
He had spiked it. He knew my condition, and he knew a sudden drop in blood sugar in the middle of a crowded transit station would look like simple medical neglect, paving the way for Julian to intercept my purse and destroy the only digital proof of their embezzlement.
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If Caleb hadn't stepped in, the drive would be gone, Gavin would be a grieving widower or a betrayed husband seeking solace, and I would be waking up in a prison cell—or a cemetery.
"We need to talk to Officer Ramirez," I said, reaching for the call button on the bed rail. "And we need to do it now."
