Chapter 4 - The Unraveling Web
An hour later, my laptop sat on the rolling tray table over my hospital bed. My fingers flew across the keyboard, bypassing security protocols, diving deep into the back-end infrastructure of the hospital network’s database.
Sitting beside me was Naomi Millican.
When Naomi heard what had happened, she had rushed straight to the hospital. Her face was pale, her eyes red from crying, but her stance was rigid with newfound resolve.
“I can’t believe I was going to marry him,” Naomi whispered, clutching a warm cup of coffee. “He told me he was a self-made medical consultant. My father was even planning to invest two million dollars into his new medical research foundation next week.”
“You got out just in time, Naomi,” I said softly, without taking my eyes off the cascading lines of code on my screen. “If you hadn't dropped that passport, he would have married you, taken your father’s money, and tied you into his financial crimes.”
“Kathleen is here too,” Naomi added, gesturing toward the waiting room. “She’s giving her official statement to the detectives right now. Austin had been blackmailing her for years, threatening to ruin her family business if she ever sought an official divorce or spoke up about his secret accounts.”
I paused my typing, looking up at Naomi. “Kathleen knew about the money?”
“She suspected it, but she was too terrified of him to act,” Naomi explained. “When you called her yesterday, you gave her the courage to stand up. Monica... what he did to your leg... it’s monsterous.”
“It’s the last terrible thing he will ever do to me,” I said grimly.
I hit Enter. A bright red notification flashed across my screen: AUTHORIZATION OVERRIDE SUCCESSFUL.
The screen lit up with dozens of financial records. The scope of Austin and Amanda’s enterprise was staggering. Over six years, they had siphoned off more than twelve million dollars from vulnerable patients and fraudulent hospital vendor contracts. They had bought luxury vehicles, high-end properties, and offshore portfolios, all while leaving a trail of ruined lives behind them.
“I’ve found his master account,” I announced, calling Detective Thorne back into the room. “Austin is currently attempting an emergency wire transfer of $3.4 million to an unlisted account in Panama. The transaction is pending biometric confirmation from his secondary device.”
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“Can you track his location through the transfer request?” Thorne asked urgently.
“I can do better than that,” I replied, a cold smile touching my lips. “I can trace the IP address of the device making the request right now. He’s not at the border. He’s sitting in a motel room less than three miles from here—using the hospital’s guest Wi-Fi network to execute the breach.”
