Chapter 2 - The Hospital Question
The emergency department smelled like disinfectant, coffee, and rain.
Merritt lay beneath a thin blanket while a physician examined the sensation along her right foot.
“Tell me when you feel this.”
A touch near her ankle.
“Yes.”
Lower.
“Barely.”
Another point.
“Yes.”
The physician nodded.
“That’s encouraging.”
“Is the graft torn?”
“We can’t tell from the X-ray. There’s no fracture. Orthopedics wants an MRI because of the twisting mechanism and the numbness.”
Merritt closed her eyes.
Eight weeks of physical therapy.
Eight weeks of waking before sunrise to ice, stretch, activate muscles, regain range.
Eight weeks of being told the hardest part was behind her.
Now Sloan’s “joke” might have erased all of it.
Her phone buzzed on the bedside table.
ArcLight Corporate Security.
Again.
She had let the first two calls ring because she could not decide whether answering as an employee or a daughter would hurt more.
A nurse entered.
“Your fiancé is asking if he can come back.”
Merritt blinked.
“My what?”
“Sorry. He said he’s the groom.”
“That’s my sister’s fiancé.”
The nurse looked embarrassed.
“Oh.”
Merritt almost laughed.
Of course even here she had somehow become an extension of Sloan’s wedding.
“Let him in.”
Thatcher entered without his tuxedo jacket.
His shirt sleeves were rolled once at the wrists.
The velvet ring box was gone.
He stopped several feet from the bed.
“I’m sorry.”
Merritt looked at him.
“You didn’t push me.”
“No. But I stood there for two seconds trying to decide whether what I saw was what I saw.”
“It was.”
“I know.”
She watched his jaw tighten.
“Where’s Sloan?”
“With your parents.”
“Of course.”
“They wanted to come here.”
Merritt raised an eyebrow.
Thatcher corrected himself.
“Your mother wanted to come here after I said I was coming.”
“That sounds more accurate.”
His eyes dropped to the brace.
“Are you going to be okay?”
“I don’t know yet.”
He nodded once.
Then said, “I postponed the rehearsal dinner.”
Merritt stared at him.
“Postponed?”
“The wedding too.”
That surprised her.
“Does Sloan know?”
“She knows I’m not marrying her Saturday.”
Silence settled between them.
Merritt had never been especially close to Thatcher. He was thoughtful, ambitious, and often quiet around the Whitmores. Sloan had called that composure.
Merritt now wondered whether he had simply been observing.
“Why did she do it?” he asked.
Merritt gave a humorless smile.
“Because my knee brace was ugly.”
“That can’t be the whole reason.”
“It might be enough for Sloan.”
Thatcher turned away.
“I heard her say something before you went upstairs.”
“What?”
“She asked your mother whether they could keep you out of the formal pictures if your brace showed.”
Merritt looked toward the rain-streaked window.
“What did my mother say?”
Thatcher hesitated.
That was answer enough.
“Tell me.”
“She said, ‘Just get through tonight. We’ll manage Merritt tomorrow.’”
Merritt felt something colder than anger.
Manage Merritt.
Like a seating problem.
A lighting problem.
A stain.
Her phone rang again.
She finally answered.
“This is Merritt Whitmore.”
“Merritt, it’s Elena Park.”
ArcLight’s chief financial officer.
Elena’s voice was controlled but urgent.
“We received a fraud alert for your emergency card.”
“I saw it.”
“Did you authorize a forty-two-thousand-five-hundred-dollar payment to Rosecliff Harbor Estate Events?”
“No.”
Thatcher looked at her.
“Did you lend the card to anyone?”
“No.”
“Is the physical card in your possession?”
Merritt stopped.
She tried to picture it.
Her corporate card normally stayed in a small locking drawer in her home office.
She had not touched it since before surgery.
“I believe it’s at home.”
“We need certainty.”
“I’m in the emergency room.”
Elena went silent.
“What happened?”
Merritt looked at Thatcher.
“My sister knocked me down a staircase at her wedding rehearsal.”
Another pause.
“Merritt…”
“I have video.”
“Send it to your attorney, not me. Right now I need to deal with the company card. We froze it. The merchant says the charge was submitted as card-not-present.”
Meaning no physical swipe was required.
Someone only needed the number.
Expiration date.
Security code.
Billing information.
Merritt’s stomach tightened.
“Who had access to your home office recently?” Elena asked.
Images came quickly.
Blythe bringing soup after surgery.
Blythe arranging medication bottles on the desk.
Blythe insisting Merritt sleep while she “tidied everything.”
Sloan arriving with wedding magazines.
Judson using Merritt’s printer because, according to him, his own had stopped working.
All three had been inside the condo.
All three had been near the office.
“I don’t know,” Merritt said.
Elena’s voice softened.
“Corporate security will interview you tomorrow. Until we establish what happened, your purchasing authority has to be suspended.”
Merritt understood.
She also hated how much the words hurt.
“I didn’t do this.”
“I’m not saying you did.”
“But someone wants it to look like I did.”
Elena did not respond immediately.
Then she said, “There’s something else.”
Merritt’s fingers tightened around the phone.
“What?”
“The venue did not initiate the charge tonight.”
“What do you mean?”
“The payment request was created nine days ago.”
Merritt’s heartbeat changed.
“Nine days?”
“Yes.”
“It only posted tonight?”
“Yes.”
Thatcher’s expression sharpened.
Merritt looked toward the hospital curtain.
Nine days ago, Sloan had visited her condo.
So had Blythe.
They had brought lunch, argued about dresses, and stayed almost three hours.
At one point Merritt had fallen asleep from her pain medication.
When she woke, her mother had been sitting at her desk.
Blythe claimed she was printing directions to Newport.
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Merritt had believed her.
Until now.
