Chapter 3 - THE MAN AT SAINT CATHERINE'S
When Jack was angry, he usually got quieter.
It unsettled people more than shouting ever did.
For three days he worked double shifts, slept almost not at all, and spent every break calling banks, loan servicers, and a legal aid clinic that finally told him he needed a fraud attorney, not sympathy.
The signatures on the last two private-loan documents resembled his.
Enough to pass if no one looked too closely.
But Jack knew his own hand the way he knew the weight of a framing hammer.
Someone had practiced him.
Emily or someone helping her.
That thought alone made him feel sick.
On the fourth day, he drove to Saint Catherine’s Medical Center and waited in the public parking garage until he saw Ryan Holloway walking out in a blue blazer with two trustees and Emily beside him in a fitted cream dress.
No gown.
No cap.
No lilies.
No trace of the girl who once ate instant noodles on the floor of their first apartment because they could not afford a table.
She looked polished.
Remote.
Ryan touched her lower back and guided her as if she were already a decorative part of his future.
Jack stepped out before he could talk himself down.
“Emily.”
She froze.
Ryan turned first.
His expression soured instantly.
“Well,” he said. “The labor class found us.”
Jack ignored him.
“Emily, I need to talk to you.”
“No,” Ryan said.
“I wasn’t talking to you.”
Ryan took one step forward.
Emily caught his sleeve.
“Ryan.”
That tiny movement stopped Jack colder than anything else had.
Not because she defended him.
Because she sounded afraid to interrupt him.
Ryan smiled without warmth.
“Three minutes,” he said to her. “Then we’re late.”
He walked several paces away but stayed within sight.
Jack stepped toward her.
The bruise on her wrist was gone, hidden by makeup or long sleeves.
She crossed her arms anyway.
“You shouldn’t have come here.”
“You forged my name.”
Her face changed.
Not surprise.
Recognition.
“You got the notices.”
“You knew I would.”
Emily looked away.
“It wasn’t supposed to happen like that.”
Jack laughed bitterly.
“You used me for tuition, rent, exam fees, food, gas, and every damn white coat you ever wore—and now you’re telling me the betrayal was supposed to happen more smoothly?”
Her eyes flashed.
“You think I don’t know what you gave up?”
“Then why did you do it?”
She opened her mouth.
Closed it.
The silence stretched until Jack felt it splintering through him.
“I need you to tell me,” he said. “Was any of it real?”
At that, something finally cracked in her face.
But she pulled it back under control almost instantly.
“Please go home, Jack.”
“Answer me.”
She looked past him toward Ryan.
Then back.
Very softly, she said, “Not here.”
The phrase hit him like a blow, because it was exactly what she had said in the courtyard.
Not here.
As if location mattered more than truth.
As if the truth existed but had to be kept in one room and denied in another.
Jack saw her fingers trembling at her sides.
He lowered his voice.
“Are you in trouble?”
Her eyes widened a fraction.
Then the mask returned.
“No.”
Ryan was already coming back.
Emily stepped away before he reached them.
“Don’t come here again.”
Ryan arrived with a smile that looked built to wound.
“Problem solved?”
Emily nodded once.
Jack stood there as the two of them walked away together.
But just before they reached the hospital’s private entrance, Emily’s hand brushed the outside pocket of her cream handbag, and something small slid free and fell near the curb.
She did not turn around.
Ryan did not notice.
Jack waited until they disappeared, then walked over and picked it up.
A key card.
Saint Catherine’s Research Pavilion.
Level 4 Access.
E. Carter.
May you like
On the back, written faintly in blue ink, were three words.
Look at Holloway.
