Chapter 2 - THE LIST BENEATH ST. CATHERINE’S
Naomi had not spoken her sister’s name inside St. Catherine’s for years.
Mara Vale had been twenty-four when she disappeared.
She was a nursing student, stubborn, funny, and incapable of entering a room without rearranging something. She borrowed Naomi’s sweaters without permission, sang badly in the car, and carried three pens even though none ever worked.
Eight years earlier, Mara left a late shift at a rehabilitation center owned by the Ashwell Foundation.
Her car was found beside the Chicago River.
Her purse remained inside.
Police concluded she had entered the water, though no body was recovered.
Naomi never believed it.
Mara hated deep water.
She would not even sit near the edge of a swimming pool.
For two years, Naomi searched.
For six more, she learned how to keep living while part of her remained suspended beside that abandoned car.
Now Mara’s name existed inside Marcus Reed’s phone.
Closed.
Naomi followed the evidence officer into the corridor.
“I need to see that list.”
“You are not authorized.”
“My sister’s name is on it.”
Detective Lena Torres approached from the admissions desk. She was forty-five, sharply dressed beneath a winter coat, with the exhausted eyes of someone who had spent too many years requesting warrants from judges who preferred convenient explanations.
“You are Naomi Vale?”
“Yes.”
“I need you to step away from the evidence.”
“Mara Vale is my sister.”
Torres studied her.
“The woman who disappeared in 2018?”
“You know the case?”
“I reviewed it two years ago after another woman vanished from the same rehabilitation network.”
Naomi’s heart accelerated.
“Why didn’t anyone contact me?”
“There was not enough evidence to reopen either investigation.”
“There is now.”
“Possibly.”
Naomi stared at Marcus through the glass doors of a security room. He sat handcuffed beside an officer, wearing the expression of a man calculating which person to call.
“He said Ash Circle.”
“Elise said it,” Torres corrected.
“And Dr. Patterson tried to discredit her immediately.”
“I noticed.”
The operating-room doors opened behind them.
Roman’s surgeon hurried past carrying blood-stained gloves.
Naomi turned instinctively.
A nurse assured her that Roman was stable and the bullet had been removed.
She felt relief before she could question why.
Detective Torres noticed that too.
“Why was DeLuca here?”
“I don’t know.”
“Men like him do not sit bleeding in public emergency rooms by accident.”
“He protected Elise.”
“That does not make him harmless.”
“I did not say it did.”
Torres nodded slightly.
“Good.”
Elise was moved into a secure examination room. A domestic-violence advocate arrived, and two officers remained outside.
Marcus called his attorney.
Within an hour, a judge issued an emergency order preventing contact with Elise.
Within two hours, Marcus’s lawyer was arguing that Roman had coerced Elise’s statement.
By sunrise, St. Catherine’s administrators had suspended Naomi formally.
The letter cited insubordination, patient-boundary violations, and conduct threatening the hospital’s reputation.
It did not mention Marcus squeezing a broken wrist.
It did not mention fingerprints around Elise’s throat.
It did not mention Dr. Patterson’s immediate attempt to call her confused.
Naomi left through the employee entrance carrying a cardboard box.
Snow had begun falling.
A black sedan waited near the curb.
Marco Bell stepped out.
“Mr. DeLuca asked me to drive you home.”
“Mr. DeLuca is unconscious.”
“He is often ambitious.”
“I have a car.”
“Dr. Patterson had it towed from the employee lot.”
Naomi looked toward the empty space where her ten-year-old Honda had been parked.
“Why?”
“The official reason is unauthorized overnight parking.”
“I was working.”
Marco’s expression remained neutral.
“I suspect that detail did not trouble him.”
Naomi accepted the ride because exhaustion had begun turning streetlights into blurred circles.
Marco did not take her home.
He drove to a private medical facility overlooking Lake Michigan.
“Absolutely not.”
“Mr. DeLuca woke twenty minutes ago and asked whether Marcus’s phone was secured.”
“He needs rest.”
“He also asked whether you ate.”
“That is none of his business.”
“I gave him the same answer.”
Roman occupied a private recovery room with two armed guards outside. He was pale, irritated, and already attempting to read reports.
Naomi entered and took the tablet from his hands.
“Your spleen was repaired three hours ago.”
“The report will remain disappointing later.”
“Lie back.”
He obeyed.
Marco looked impressed.
Roman waited until the door closed.
“Did Torres secure the phone?”
“Yes.”
“Did you see your sister’s name?”
Naomi stopped.
“How did you know?”
“Marcus attended Ashwell Foundation events. My people monitored him after he began moving money through our docks.”
“Why?”
“Because shipments labeled as donated medical equipment weighed twice what their records claimed.”
“What was inside them?”
“Cash. Counterfeit medication. Occasionally passports.”
Naomi’s throat tightened.
“Women?”
“We never found people inside a shipment.”
“That is not an answer.”
“No. It is the limit of what I know.”
Roman explained that Ash Circle was not a single organization.
It was a network.
Wealthy donors used the Ashwell Foundation to move money through hospitals, shelters, rehabilitation centers, and international charities. Men accused of harming women received attorneys, false medical reports, and private transportation.
Victims who threatened to speak were discredited, relocated, or disappeared.
Marcus was a recruiter and enforcer.
Dr. Patterson controlled emergency-room documentation.
Judges and police officials ensured complaints died quietly.
Roman had been following financial transfers because one shell company had tried to use DeLuca shipping manifests without permission.
“Who shot you?” Naomi asked.
“A man who objected to my questions.”
“Does he have a name?”
“Yes.”
“Will you tell the police?”
“No.”
“Then you are protecting the same culture.”
Roman’s gaze sharpened.
“I am not like Marcus Reed.”
“No. Marcus hurts women with his hands. You decide which laws apply to you because powerful men have disappointed you. The result is still that truth remains private.”
Marco stared at the floor.
Roman looked toward the window.
“You are direct.”
“I was fired four hours ago. Courtesy is no longer in my budget.”
A quiet laugh escaped him, followed immediately by pain.
Naomi checked his monitor despite herself.
“You cannot chase criminals with a repaired spleen.”
“I have people.”
“That is not reassuring.”
Roman’s expression became serious.
“My younger cousin, Isabella, disappeared from an Ashwell residence three years ago. Police called it voluntary. Her bank account was never touched again.”
“Why didn’t you say that?”
“Because information is dangerous.”
“So is silence.”
“Yes.”
The admission surprised her.
He opened a file Marco had delivered.
Inside were names of women admitted repeatedly to St. Catherine’s emergency department.
Different injuries.
The same explanations.
Falls.
Sports accidents.
Kitchen mishaps.
Nearly every patient had been discharged under Patterson’s supervision.
Several later vanished.
Naomi recognized faces.
She had treated some of them.
“How many?” she whispered.
“Forty-three confirmed. Possibly more.”
Naomi remembered offering hotline cards.
Documenting bruises.
Following procedures.
Patterson had signed the discharge notes afterward.
He had known which women intended to leave.
The hospital had become a collection point.
Her phone rang.
Detective Torres.
“We recovered part of the list,” she said. “Most data is encrypted, but Mara’s file includes an identification number and an address.”
Naomi stood.
“Where?”
“An Ashwell rehabilitation property outside Lake Geneva.”
“Is she alive?”
“We do not know.”
“I’m going.”
“No. We are requesting a warrant.”
“How long?”
“The property is owned through four shell companies. A judge refused the first application.”
Roman held out one hand for the phone.
Naomi ignored him.
“What evidence does the judge want?”
“A current witness placing a victim inside.”
“Elise may know.”
“She is terrified.”
“She should choose whether to speak.”
Naomi went to St. Catherine’s secure patient wing with Torres.
Elise sat beside a social worker, her fractured wrist newly cast.
When Naomi mentioned Lake Geneva, Elise’s face changed.
“Marcus took me there once.”
“What did you see?”
“A house surrounded by trees. Women stayed upstairs. Men came for parties.”
“Did you see Mara?”
Elise studied an old photograph.
“I don’t know.”
Then she pointed toward the silver pendant around Mara’s neck.
“I saw that necklace.”
Naomi’s heart stopped.
“On whom?”
“A woman in the kitchen. She had scars near her hairline. Marcus called her Mary.”
“When?”
“Six months ago.”
Mara had been alive six months earlier.
Elise agreed to provide a sworn statement.
Torres submitted it to another judge.
The warrant was approved.
By the time officers reached the Lake Geneva property, the house had been emptied.
Beds remained warm.
Food stood on the kitchen table.
Someone had warned them.
On the wall above the fireplace, investigators found forty-three photographs.
Each showed a missing woman.
Mara’s picture occupied the center.
May you like
Beneath it someone had written:
THE NURSE KNOWS TOO MUCH.
