Chapter 2 - The Pouch That Disappeared
A nurse entered before Marcus could touch the tablet again.
Khloe had apparently triggered a silent fall alert when she hit the floor.
Within minutes, the room filled with exactly the kind of calm professionalism Isabella could not control.
A maternity nurse checked Khloe’s blood pressure.
Another placed fetal monitors across her abdomen.
Dr. Nina Patel, Khloe’s maternal-fetal medicine specialist, ordered an examination and ultrasound.
Marcus refused to leave Khloe’s side.
Isabella tried twice.
The first time, Marcus blocked the doorway.
“You stay until somebody tells me what happened.”
“You don’t control me.”
“No. But hospital security does.”
The second time, a charge nurse asked Isabella to wait in a consultation room while staff assessed whether Khloe wanted her removed from the floor.
Khloe said yes.
That one word changed the room.
Isabella’s expression hardened.
“You’re really doing this?”
Khloe looked at the woman she had called her sister for thirty years.
“Yes.”
Marcus turned toward her.
Sister.
That was the part an outsider would have missed.
Isabella Reed was Khloe’s older sister by eleven months.
Same mother.
Different fathers.
They had grown up in the same suburban Cleveland house, worn each other’s clothes, fought over bathroom mirrors, and survived their mother’s death together.
When Khloe married Marcus three years earlier, Isabella was maid of honor.
When Khloe suffered two miscarriages, Isabella stayed in the guest room for a week.
When this pregnancy finally passed twenty weeks, Isabella cried harder than Khloe did.
At least, that was how Khloe had understood it.
Now the burgundy pouch was missing.
“Where is it?” Khloe asked.
Marcus leaned closer.
“What?”
“The pouch.”
“What pouch?”
Khloe looked toward the cabinet.
“It was right there.”
Dr. Patel paused.
“Hospital property?”
“No. Isabella brought it.”
Marcus looked toward the consultation-room door.
“What was inside?”
Khloe swallowed.
“A lab report.”
“What kind?”
“I only saw the first page.”
Marcus’s jaw tightened.
“Khloe.”
She looked at him.
“It had our fertility clinic’s name on it.”
The monitors continued their soft rhythmic beeping.
Marcus sat slowly.
They had used Lakeview Reproductive Medicine outside Cleveland after two years of trying naturally.
The pregnancy came from their second embryo-transfer cycle.
Every scan had been normal.
Every prenatal genetic screen reassuring.
Marcus had no reason to think about the clinic anymore.
Khloe did.
Because the page inside the burgundy pouch contained one line she could not stop seeing.
Embryo disposition discrepancy — Bennett/Reed cycle.
Marcus stared.
“Reed?”
Khloe nodded.
Isabella’s last name.
Before Marcus could ask another question, hospital security called the room phone.
The internal camera recording existed.
But there was a problem.
The previous forty-two minutes were missing.
Someone with authorized credentials had disabled local recording before Marcus arrived.
May you like
And the access code used belonged to Khloe’s emergency family contact.
Isabella Reed.
