Chapter 7 - The Clinical Truth
The atmosphere at St. Jude’s Memorial Medical Pavilion was sterile, bright, and suffocatingly quiet.
By noon, David was nowhere to be found—having fled the house in a frantic screech of tires the moment Grant showed him the sheriff’s cruiser en route. But Natalie had been unable to run. Faced with the reality of criminal charges for falsifying real estate deeds, she had agreed to the hospital evaluation, sobbing that she would "prove" her innocence.
Eleanor sat in the waiting room corner, her eyes hollow, holding a paper cup of lukewarm tea that had long since grown cold. The betrayal had aged her a decade in four hours.
Inside Examination Room 3B, Dr. Miller—a senior OB-GYN and longtime associate of my father’s veterans network—reviewed the electronic chart on her terminal while Natalie lay sullenly on the examination bed, arms crossed over her chest.
"Well, Mrs. Ross," Dr. Miller said, turning her stool toward us and resting the clipboard on her knees.
"Is the baby healthy?" Eleanor asked timidly from the doorway, clinging to the faint hope that a new life might redeem the horror of the morning. "Can we hear the heartbeat?"
Dr. Miller looked at Eleanor with deep, professional sympathy, then shifted her gaze to Natalie.
"There is no heartbeat, Mrs. Ross," Dr. Miller said gently.
Eleanor let out a sharp, strangled sob. "Oh, God... did the stress... did she lose it?"
"No," Dr. Miller stated firmly, her voice carrying the undeniable weight of clinical science. "Natalie was never pregnant."
The room went deathly still.
"What?" Eleanor gasped, staggering forward. "What did you say?"
"The serum hCG levels are zero point two," Dr. Miller explained, turning the monitor toward us. "Natalie’s urine screen was negative. Furthermore, an ultrasound scan confirmed no gestational sac, no uterine enlargement, and no signs of recent miscarriage or termination. The ultrasound images Natalie presented earlier were downloaded from a medical imaging library in the UK; the metadata on the digital files confirmed the forgery."
I looked at Natalie.
She wasn't crying anymore. The fake tears had dried instantly, replaced by a cold, spiteful glare. She sat up on the gurney, smoothing down her skirt, completely devoid of remorse.
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"You faked it?" Eleanor whispered, her voice trembling so violently she could barely speak. "You told me... you told me you were pregnant with your sister's husband's child... you tried to take your father's house... on a lie?!"
"Why not?" Natalie sneered, her voice dropping into a register of raw malice that made Eleanor flinch. "David was going to pay me fifty grand upfront from the mortgage! And even if he didn't, seeing Diana’s face when I told her her husband chose me was worth every damn second."
