One Lipstick, Nine Lies, Zero People On My Side Chapter 05

One Lipstick, Nine Lies, Zero People On My Side Chapter 05

[Patient: Sabine Hollowell]

Pregnancy: Approximately six weeks

Diagnosis: Pregnancy loss following physical assault

Procedure: Emergency D&C

Stellan stared at the report until the words blurred.

The room seemed to shift beneath him, and he caught the edge of the table to keep himself upright.

“She was pregnant?” Orson leaned over his shoulder, then went white. His gaze moved slowly toward the blood on the floor. “That was Sabine’s?”

Iona went rigid.

Her eyes dropped to the dark stain spreading across the hardwood, and her hands began to shake.

She had attacked an innocent woman.

Her best friend.

Her husband’s sister.

And Sabine had lost her baby because of it.

“I didn’t know,” Iona whispered. “The baby was missing. Anyone would have panicked.”

Her voice rose as she tried to convince herself.

“Why didn’t she tell us she was pregnant? She’s a doctor. She would’ve known how to protect herself.”

No one answered.

Iona shook her head harder.

“This has to be fake. She left it here to punish us.”

At the mention of the baby, Leonie glanced at Orson.

The look lasted less than a second, but guilt flashed across her face.

“Maybe we should go to the hospital,” she said quickly. “Dr. Hollowell is a skilled surgeon. I’m sure she’ll be fine.”

As the others turned toward her, Leonie reached for the flash drive on the table.

Stellan caught her wrist before she could reach the drive, then snatched it off the table.

He knew what electrical shock could do to the body. His own heart had stopped during surgery years ago, and he had woken with burns from the defibrillator pads and pain buried deep in every muscle.

What Iona had done was different, but he knew Sabine’s medical report was real.

He also knew Sabine.

She had never stayed silent when someone wronged her. After being accused, attacked, and left bleeding on the floor, she would have made sure the truth came out.

Stellan plugged the flash drive into the laptop.

Leonie’s face changed instantly.

“Stellan, don’t.”

She lunged for the computer, but he pushed her hand away.

Orson’s panic was even more obvious.

“Don’t play that.”

Stellan turned toward him.

“Why?”

Orson opened his mouth, but no answer came.

There was only one video on the drive.

It had been copied from Aureline University Medical Center’s security system after I filed a police report from the hospital.

The footage had been there the entire time.

One call to hospital security would have proved she I never gone near the baby.

Instead, they had decided I was guilty before asking a single question.

They had trusted their own hatred more than they had trusted me.

No one in that room knew what I had felt when investigators showed me the video after my emergency procedure.

They didn’t know how completely the truth had broken whatever remained of my faith in them.

The footage began to play.

Iona stared at the screen, her eyes turning red.

“What is this?”

Her entire body started trembling.

“What did you two do?”

The security footage clearly captured the entire incident.

The baby had never been taken by me.

Leonie and Orson were the ones who had lost him.