The Hand Above The Hospital Bed
Chapter 01 - The Hand Above The Hospital Bed
Nora Whitmore was eight months pregnant when her husband raised his hand beside her hospital bed.
The private maternity room smelled of antiseptic and expensive flowers. Blue curtains framed the bed. A monitor traced the baby’s heartbeat in steady green lines while Nora gripped the white blanket with both hands.
Grant Whitmore stood over her in a black suit, his jaw tight, his right fist drawn back.
“Give me the phone,” he said.
Nora’s gold satin gown was still wrinkled from the Whitmore Foundation gala. She had been carried out of the ballroom after a sudden contraction left her unable to stand. Grant told the doctors she was overwhelmed by pregnancy.
He did not tell them what she had recorded.
“You sold the maternity centers,” Nora whispered. “You bribed the board.”
Grant leaned closer.
“You heard part of a conversation you did not understand.”
“I heard you say your father would be declared incompetent by Friday.”
His expression changed.
The baby monitor accelerated.
Grant reached for the blanket, searching for the phone Nora had hidden beneath it. She pulled away. His knuckles struck the side of her face as he grabbed for her shoulder.
The glass doors burst open.
Richard Whitmore entered like a storm.
At sixty-five, the silver-haired founder of Whitmore Medical Group was still broad-shouldered and physically imposing. He seized Grant by the lapels, dragged him away from the bed, and drove him backward into the corridor.
“You touched her?” Richard shouted.
Grant tried to pull free.
“She is destroying this family!”
Richard shoved him toward approaching hospital security.
“No,” he said. “You are.”
Two guards restrained Grant.
Richard turned back to the room. All the fury left his face when he saw Nora trembling beneath the surgical lamp.
He crossed to the bed, took her face gently between both hands, and searched her eyes.
“Did he hurt the baby?”
Nora shook her head through tears.
“He was trying to delete the recording.”
Richard looked toward the monitor, then toward the camera mounted above the glass doors.
The security light was red.
Everything had been recorded.
Nora placed one hand over her stomach.
“Richard, Grant said you were already drugged enough for the competency hearing.”
The older man froze.
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Grant had not only planned to silence his pregnant wife.
He had planned to erase his father too.
