The ceiling above me had a brown water stain shaped like Florida, and that was the first thing I knew was wrong. The oral surgery clinic where I had fallen asleep that morning had spotless white ceilings, recessed lights, and framed photographs of smiling families. Wherever I had awakened, it smelled of floor wax, cold pizza, and something faintly medicinal trying to cover both.
Chapter 3
Friday night, Hannah parked behind the tire shop next to Eastgate. Investigator Greer was on speakerphone because he was finishing another case across town. Marisol had agreed to retrieve the DVR herself, since she still had lawful employee access to the building.
At 8:50, she was supposed to walk out carrying it in a gym bag.
At 8:44, headlights swept across the wall.
A gray Volvo XC90 entered the lot.
My stomach dropped.
“That’s Curtis.”
Hannah turned toward me. “Why would he be here?”
“Because he doesn’t trust anyone else to destroy it.”
Marisol was inside.
I got out before Hannah could stop me.
The back door had been propped open with a brick. Inside, the hallway was dark except for a yellow light near the supply room. A shredder whined somewhere ahead, high and mechanical, almost like a dental drill.
The supply closet door stood open.
Curtis was kneeling beside a black DVR, pulling cables from the back.
Marisol stood in the hallway clutching a gym bag.
Frozen.
“Curtis.”
He turned.
For the first time in eight years, I said his name and heard a stranger’s.
“You shouldn’t be here, Nora.”
“Neither should you.”
He glanced toward Marisol. “That equipment belongs to Eastgate.”
“It contains evidence.”
“Of what?”
“You carrying my thumb.”
Something changed in his face.
The warmth disappeared. The fatherly patience disappeared. What remained was a man calculating distance.
“You never felt anything,” he said.
“You disabled Face ID attention sixty-one days ago.”
“You wore sunglasses.”
“You configured the phone.”
He gave a tired little smile.
“Nobody checks that setting.”
“You taught me to check everything.”
That struck him harder than I expected.
He stood.
“You know how this looks, don’t you? Suspended employee. Angry at her supervisor. Breaks into a closed clinic after hours with her sister and a disgruntled assistant.”
“Why me?”
He looked almost offended by the question.
“Because you were going to find Eastgate.”
“So you gave me the audit.”
“I needed an analyst whose credentials would pass scrutiny.”
“You picked my surgery day.”
“You announced it in the break room.”
My mouth went dry.
“How much?”
He stared at me.
“How much was worth doing this?”
“Twelve percent.”
“Of almost two million?”
“That’s one payment.” His jaw tightened. “There were others.”
“Your wife’s company.”
His expression told me I was right.
“My daughter’s tuition,” he said. “My mortgage. My wife’s business. You think I’m throwing my family away because you woke up confused in a recovery chair?”
“You already threw them away.”
He stepped closer.
I held my ground.
“You were the only one who would have found the scheme,” Curtis said. “And the only one nobody would believe I’d ever hurt.”
That was the worst thing he said all night.
Because it was true.
“Move.”
“No.”
“Nora.”
“No.”
He grabbed my arm and threw me aside.
My jaw struck the edge of a steel shelf exactly where the wisdom tooth had been removed.
Pain exploded through my face.
The stitches tore open.
Blood flooded my mouth so quickly I couldn’t breathe. I slid down the shelving, one hand pressed against my jaw, while Curtis reached for the DVR.
Marisol moved first.
She grabbed the black box and yanked the last cable free.
Curtis lunged.
I caught his legs from the floor.
He drove an elbow into the side of my face.
White light filled my vision, but I held on.
From outside came Hannah’s scream.
Then sirens.
A police officer shouted from the back entrance.
“Hands! Let me see your hands!”
Curtis stopped struggling.
For one second, he looked down at me. Blood covered my sweatshirt and one of his shoes.
“Nora,” he said, almost accusingly.
Two officers pulled him away.
I lay on the cold vinyl floor and stared upward.
Another ceiling tile had a water stain on it.
Not Florida this time.
Just a stain.
A paramedic pressed gauze against my mouth. Hannah knelt beside me, crying and furious, still gripping her phone.
“I never hung up,” she said.
Greer had heard everything.
The twelve percent. The Face ID setting. The timing. Curtis admitting he chose me because I would discover the fraud.
Marisol sat outside on the ambulance bumper with the DVR clutched against her chest. She refused to surrender it until Greer arrived and gave her an evidence receipt.
At the hospital, a doctor told me my lower jaw had fractured along the weakened socket where the tooth had been removed. She stitched the torn wound and wrote one word across the chart.
ASSAULT.
Caleb walked into my emergency room bay at 1:10 a.m. still wearing his airline uniform. He had gotten off his final flight early and caught the first seat home.
He stared at my bandaged face, sat beside the bed, and put his forehead against my hand.
Days earlier, when Hannah and I had argued about whether I should go after the evidence, Caleb had told me, “Nothing you do from here on is only yours.”
I squeezed his fingers.
“Nothing I do is only mine.”
He gave a broken little laugh.
“Don’t steal my good lines.”
Greer arrived carrying his laptop.
“We recovered the footage.”
The front-door camera showed Curtis wheeling me into Eastgate at 11:31 Thursday morning. My head lolled against one side of the chair.
The recovery-room recording was clearer.
At 11:44, Curtis took my hand.
He pressed my thumb onto the laptop once.
Then twice.
At 11:46, he lifted my phone and aimed it at my unconscious face.
First attempt.
Nothing.
Second attempt.
Nothing.
On the third try, the screen unlocked.
Curtis smiled.
At 12:02, he sent the text to Caleb from my phone.
At 12:38, he carefully wiped the laptop trackpad with a napkin.
In the corner, Marisol kept two fingers on my wrist.
When Curtis turned away, she looked directly at the camera.
Her lips moved.
Greer had already watched the footage several times.
“She says, ‘I’m sorry.’”
I closed my eyes.
“No,” I whispered. “She shouldn’t be.”
