Chapter 1 - THE OTHER MRS. PIERCE
I went to my husband’s hospital carrying his favorite sandwich and the blue tie he had forgotten at home.
Fourteen minutes later, I learned another woman had entered the building with his security badge, signed the visitor log as Mrs. Pierce, and removed a confidential file from his locked office.
The receptionist delivered the news with a cautious smile.
“That can’t be right,” she said. “Dr. Pierce’s wife was just here.”
I placed the lunch bag on the marble counter in the lobby of St. Catherine’s Medical Center and forced myself not to react.
“My husband has only one wife.”
The young woman’s badge identified her as Emily Warren. Her fingers stopped above the keyboard.
“She left about ten minutes ago.”
“What did she look like?”
“Tall. Blonde. Cream coat.”
Nothing about that description belonged to me.
My hair was dark. My raincoat was charcoal gray. I had been married to Dr. Nathaniel Pierce for eleven years, long enough to know every photograph displayed in his office and every woman he claimed was important enough to mention at dinner.
“What name did she use?”
Emily glanced down at the visitor log.
“Vanessa Pierce.”
The name meant nothing to me.
“She said Dr. Pierce asked her to collect paperwork,” Emily added. “She had his badge.”
Nathan had reported that badge missing three days earlier.
I had helped him search our kitchen, car, laundry room, and bedroom. He complained about the forms he would have to complete for a replacement and told me he probably dropped it near the physicians’ garage.
Now a blonde woman had used it to enter the hospital under my husband’s name and my title.
I thanked Emily and walked toward the private elevators before she could call security.
A surgical resident recognized me from hospital events and held the elevator door. Nathan’s name opened the restricted floor for me without anyone asking for identification.
His assistant’s desk was empty for lunch.
I left the sandwich and tie there, found the spare office key taped beneath the bottom drawer of her filing cabinet, and unlocked Nathan’s door.
His office looked almost untouched.
Diplomas hung in exact alignment. Journals formed precise stacks. Our wedding photograph faced his chair.
Only one detail was wrong.
The top drawer stood open.
Inside, a narrow gap separated two groups of files. A label remained on the divider beside the empty space.
PATIENT INCIDENT REVIEW — L. MONROE.
My maiden name was Monroe.
My younger sister’s name had been Leah.
She died at St. Catherine’s twelve years earlier following what the hospital called an unforeseeable complication during emergency abdominal surgery.
Nathan and I met three months after her death.
He told me he had worked in another surgical unit at the time and knew nothing about her case.
I photographed the empty drawer and the label.
My phone lit up.
Nathan.
Where are you?
He was supposed to be operating until three.
I typed:
At the hospital.
His reply came immediately.
Don’t move.
The office door locked from the outside.
I gripped the handle.
“Nathan?”
No answer.
Then something slid beneath the door.
His missing security badge stopped beside my shoe.
Footsteps moved away down the corridor.
I picked up the badge and looked through the narrow glass panel beside the door.
At the far end of the hall, a blonde woman in a cream coat entered the private elevator.
Before the doors closed, she turned toward me.
She was holding a thick gray folder against her chest.
May you like
For one second, our eyes met through the glass.
Then she lifted one finger to her lips.
