Chapter 2 - The Question the Nurse Asked
Monica’s knee was fractured.
Not shattered beyond repair, as Austin later claimed she had exaggerated, but fractured badly enough that the orthopedic surgeon scheduled surgery for the following morning.
A long bruise ran across her ankle where Austin had dragged her.
Her mother and brother were nowhere near the hospital.
Police had separated them at the house.
Austin was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon and domestic battery-related offenses after officers photographed the tire iron, damaged marble, Monica’s injuries, and the chaotic dining room.
Amanda was questioned and released pending further investigation.
The marriage certificate went into evidence because Monica told officers it fell from Amanda’s bag during the attack.
At Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla, a nurse named Erin Walsh completed Monica’s intake.
She was in her forties, calm, practical, and apparently incapable of pretending obvious things were not obvious.
“Did someone do this to you?”
“Yes.”
“Do you feel safe going home?”
“No.”
“Is there anyone else you believe your brother may have harmed?”
Monica started to say no.
Then stopped.
Erin noticed.
“You don’t have to prove anything to answer.”
Monica looked toward the dark hospital window.
“There’s a woman named Kathleen.”
Erin pulled her chair slightly closer.
“What makes you worried about her?”
“My brother is still married to her. Nobody knew.”
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
That answer sounded worse aloud.
Austin had told the family Kathleen was unstable.
They supposedly met during a business conference in Phoenix, married impulsively in Las Vegas, and separated almost immediately.
According to Austin, Kathleen became obsessed with him afterward, then moved north after “some kind of breakdown.”
Amanda always called her “that disturbed woman.”
Monica had never met her.
But she remembered things now.
A Christmas five years earlier when Austin vanished for two days and Amanda said he was dealing with a “private mistake.”
A certified letter from a rehabilitation hospital that Amanda ripped up before anyone else could read it.
A phone call three years earlier when Monica heard a woman crying through Austin’s speakerphone before he hurried out of the room.
And the certificate in Amanda’s handbag.
Erin asked one more question.
“If Kathleen were standing here right now, do you think she would say she was safe with them?”
Monica stared at her.
“No.”
That was the answer that changed the direction of everything.
Erin documented Monica’s concern as part of the assault history.
The police detective assigned to Monica’s case, Dana McBride, visited that afternoon and asked why Kathleen’s name mattered.
Monica told her everything she remembered.
Dana did not promise to hunt down a missing wife based on family suspicion.
She did something more useful.
She verified the marriage.
Then she searched for divorce records.
There were none.
She checked Kathleen’s public address history.
Her last normal residential address ended three years earlier.
After that, Kathleen’s mailing address changed to a private neurorehabilitation facility in Carlsbad.
Monica stared at the detective.
“Neurorehabilitation?”
Dana nodded.
“Kathleen Mercer was seriously injured in a car crash three years ago.”
Monica felt cold despite the hospital blanket.
Austin had told everyone Kathleen moved away because she was obsessed with him.
He had never mentioned an accident.
May you like
Dana continued.
“And your mother is listed as one of her emergency contacts.”
