Chapter 8 - The Hospital He Could Still ReachHarborview switched Eli’s room to manual equipment.
Every networked monitor was unplugged and replaced with portable devices that could not receive remote instructions. Nurses used paper charts. Security officers guarded both doors.
Owen’s threat continued through the camera until technicians cut its power.
Hannah stood beside Eli’s bed with one hand resting near his uninjured shoulder.
“You’re not going anywhere,” he whispered.
“No.”
“He wants the badge.”
“He won’t get it.”
Eli looked toward the evidence case holding the smartwatch.
“The recording is on there.”
“It has already been copied.”
“Then why does he need it?”
Hannah had asked herself the same question.
The watch contained more than audio. Because it was a Meridian pediatric safety prototype, it continuously stored impact data, oxygen estimates, pulse patterns, and location history.
Its emergency upload had captured a biometric signature from every person near Eli during the assault.
Voice.
Movement.
Device proximity.
It could place Judith, Ryan, Harold, and the remote speaker inside the event with far more precision than ordinary audio.
But one device signature remained unidentified.
Someone stood in the hallway for forty-two seconds before Hannah entered.
The watch detected that person’s phone near Eli.
The device was registered to Hannah.
Her personal smartphone had been in Judith’s handbag.
This was a second phone carrying Hannah’s identity.
Detective Bell examined the connection.
The duplicate device also accessed Harborview’s network and attempted to alter Eli’s infusion.
Owen was not working alone.
Someone physically close to the family had copied Hannah’s digital profile.
Claire Mercer offered a name from Riverside.
“Lauren Price.”
Owen’s wife.
Hannah had never met her.
Meridian records said Lauren died from cancer four years earlier.
Claire shook her head.
“Lauren manages identity substitution. She attends meetings, signs records, and enters hospitals under other people’s credentials.”
A photograph showed a woman in her early forties with dark hair and a narrow face.
Another image showed her entering Hannah’s neighborhood wearing a blond wig and carrying a grocery bag.
She had been inside the Mercer house before Hannah arrived.
The hidden hallway figure was likely Lauren.
Ryan confirmed that someone came through the rear service door during the assault. He never saw the face.
“She told my mother the badge chip might be inside Eli’s watch.”
“Did she touch him?” Hannah asked.
“She checked whether he was breathing.”
“And left him there.”
“Yes.”
The duplicate Hannah phone connected again.
This time, the signal came from Harborview’s surgical floor.
Security cameras displayed a woman wearing Dr. Lane’s coat, walking toward the pediatric elevators.
The real Dr. Lane stood beside Hannah.
Police intercepted the impostor near the stairwell.
She removed the blond wig.
Lauren Price smiled at Officer Ruiz.
“You should be searching Riverside.”
“Your husband is no longer there.”
“I wasn’t referring to Owen.”
She carried no weapon.
Inside her pocket, officers found a current photograph of Adam Cole.
Alive.
The image had been taken inside Riverside two weeks earlier.
Hannah gripped the bed rail.
“Adam died five years ago.”
Lauren looked directly at her.
“No. Owen needed the world to believe that.”
Ryan had said Adam was breathing after the crash.
Owen reached the vehicle first.
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The missing evidence drive was not the only thing he removed.
👉 Hannah’s first husband may have survived the crash, and Owen had hidden him inside the same facility as Claire.
