Chapter 4 - The Nurse’s Discovery
Back in the emergency room cubicle, the police officer clicked his ballpoint pen shut, slipping the notepad into his breast pocket.
“Ma'am, I've noted the statement,” the officer told the silver-haired nurse, looking down at Amanda Wellman. “And based on the medical assessment of the trauma to the patient's knee, this injury is entirely inconsistent with a fall down stairs. This is a direct blunt-force trauma impact.”
Amanda’s face turned a violent shade of crimson. “You have no proof! My daughter is mentally unstable! She’s trying to ruin my son's career!”
“Step out of the cubicle, please, ma'am,” the officer instructed firmly, placing a hand on his utility belt. “Interfering with an active assault investigation is a criminal offense.”
Fuming with rage, shooting me a look of pure, murderous hatred, Amanda was escorted out of the curtained area by hospital security.
The silver-haired nurse waited until the heavy fabric curtain swung shut, cutting off my mother's angry protests. Then, she pulled a rolling medical stool over, sat down beside my stretcher, and clicked her privacy light on.
She pulled up my medical chart on the bedside computer terminal, staring intently at the screen. Her brow furrowed, her expression shifting from professional clinical detachment to deep, unsettling concentration.
“Monica,” she whispered, leaning in close so her voice wouldn't carry through the thin fabric walls.
“Yes?” I gasped, clutching my knee through the pain meds.
“I need to ask you something very important.”
She turned the computer monitor slightly toward herself, scrolling rapidly through an administrative database.
“Why does your brother's name—Austin James Wellman—appear on high-level financial authorization logs connected to specialized patient accounts and restricted pharmaceutical supply contracts within our hospital network?”
My blood went instantly cold. The white-hot pain in my knee seemed to vanish, replaced by a sudden, terrifying numbness.
Because Austin didn't work for the hospital network. He was a junior real estate developer who dabbled in questionable crypto ventures and high-end retail leasing. He had zero medical credentials, zero administrative clearance, and zero business touching hospital finances.
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And suddenly, his multi-year secret marriage wasn't the question frightening me anymore.
It was what my brother had been doing with access he was never supposed to have—and what kind of nightmare he had dragged our entire family into.
