The police reached the hospital while the livestream was still running downstairs.
Mona sat in the conference room, a wad of tissues clenched in her hand.
She was crying harder now than before.
Merlin kept his phone trained on the side of her face.
"We believe in the law."
"And we hope the hospital won't use its power to crush an ordinary girl."
He finished, then glanced at me, as if waiting for me to blow up.
I didn't.
I just shut the door.
The police started by getting the basics.
Mona spoke in broken fragments.
She said the anesthesia had left her groggy.
Said she woke up with a sore neck and her clothes in disarray.
Said she couldn't remember all the details, but she was sure Lowell had been there.
Every sentence left herself an out.
Every sentence was filthy enough to stick.
An officer asked:
"You're certain it was Lowell Delgado?"
Mona's voice trembled.
"I only remember his eyes."
"And his voice."
Merlin jumped in at once:
"She was in terrible shape when she came to. There's no way she made this up."
The hospital director sat off to the side, his face grim.
He'd already told the Public Relations Department to draft a statement.
I could see the lines on the computer screen:
【Our hospital takes the online allegations very seriously. We have suspended the doctor in question and offer our apologies to the patient.】
Apologies.
Apologies again.
In my last life, it was exactly this statement that convinced everyone Lowell was guilty.
No matter that no evidence ever surfaced, no matter how many times he explained, the public only remembered one thing: the hospital apologized first.
I walked over and closed the laptop.
The head of the Public Relations Department froze.
"Ms. Simmons?"
"Nothing's been investigated yet. No one confesses on his behalf."
The director finally lost his patience.
"Evelyn Simmons, how long are you going to keep making a scene?"
"The most important thing right now is damage control!"
I looked at him.
"Whose damage?"
"The hospital's, or an innocent doctor's?"
The question left him without an answer.
Mona suddenly broke into sobs.
"So you're still going to protect him."
"I knew it."
She stood up, swaying as if she couldn't hold herself steady.
Merlin caught her at once.
The lens swept across her bloodless face, then across Lowell's silence.
The internet exploded again in seconds.
【The doctor's wife is a real bully.】
【The victim's crying her eyes out and she's still going in for the kill.】
【With a wife like that, no wonder the doctor thinks he can get away with anything.】
【Somebody should investigate this whole hospital.】
The officer frowned and told Merlin to stop filming.
Merlin lowered his phone, unwilling.
I waited until the screen was off before I spoke.
"Mona, let me confirm this one last time."
She looked at me, a flicker of nerves behind her eyes.
I asked it word by word:
"You're certain it was yesterday afternoon, two seventeen."
"Operating Room Three."
"Lowell was at your side."
"And it was only the two of you?"
The room went quiet.
Mona didn't answer right away.
Merlin lightly touched her arm.
She lifted her head, as if she'd finally made up her mind.
"I'm certain."
"I wouldn't lie about something like this."
As the words landed, Lowell closed his eyes.
I knew it wasn't fear.
It was disgust.
Being pinned by a charge that filthy, no one could stomach it.
I walked to the conference room computer.
The director watched me warily.
"What are you doing?"
I inserted my staff card.
"Pulling yesterday's records for Operating Room Three."
Mona's face went white in an instant.
Merlin said immediately:
"Operating rooms aren't allowed to have cameras, are they?"
"Did I say anything about cameras?"
That shut him up.
I logged into the system, and the screen lit up.
A row of records appeared.
Door access, medications, nurse signatures, recovery room entries and exits.
Every time stamp, crystal clear.
The director stared.
"What is this?"
I said:
"Surgical-area tracking."
"Just went into pilot use."
"You signed off on the approval."
Mona's fingers slowly tightened.
I opened the first record.
Two oh-nine PM, Operating Room Three access log, Lowell badged out.
No one in the room spoke.
I opened the second.
Two twelve PM, circulating nurse entered the recovery area.
The third.
Two seventeen PM, footage from the recovery room's public area came up.
The camera didn't capture the beds, only the doorway and the corridor.
Lowell never appeared.
Mona did.
She slowly sat up on the bed and glanced left and right.
Lowered her head, raised her hand, and dug her fingers hard into her own neck.
Once.
Twice.
The red marks surfaced fast.
A sharp intake of breath ran through the room.
Mona shot to her feet.
"No!"
"That isn't me!"
I didn't stop. I opened a voice message backup.
Two nineteen PM.
Mona had sent Merlin a voice clip.
Her voice was low, but perfectly clear.
"Are the red marks obvious enough?"
"What do I say later?"
Two seconds after, Merlin replied to her:
"Don't nail it down too hard."
"Just say something felt off after you woke from the anesthesia."
"The netizens will fill in the rest for you."
The screen glowed cold white.
It threw Mona's face into a bloodless mask.
Merlin reached out to grab the mouse.
The officer pinned his hand down on the spot.
I turned around and looked at Mona.
"You said no one could vouch for what happened under anesthesia."
"Well, now the door, the drugs, the nurse, the machines are all vouching for my husband."
Mona's lips trembled, and not a single word came out.
I opened the last record.
The pre-op consent form.
On the signature page, her name, crystal clear.
And below it, one more line: 【Acknowledges that the entire surgical-area process is tracked and logged.】
I looked at her.
"It's not that you didn't know."
"You just bet no one would ever pull it up."
