Chapter 3: What She Carried Back Into the Room
Victoria pushed the door open with her shoulder, both hands occupied.
In one hand, a paper coffee cup from the hospital café downstairs.
In the other, a manila envelope, thick and sealed, with the name of a law firm printed in the upper left corner — Hargrove & Associates, Estate Planning Division.
Lucas didn't move.
He stood beside the bed, Jonathan's phone still warm in his palm, Gerald Holt's line ringing unanswered on the other end.
Victoria's eyes went to Lucas first.
Then to the phone in his hand.
"What are you doing with that?" she said.
"Just checking on Mr.
Mercer's vitals, ma'am." Lucas set the phone face-down on the tray table.
"He asked for water.
I was about to get it."
Victoria looked at Jonathan.
Jonathan's eyes were closed, his breathing shallow and even.
The performance of a man barely conscious.
She set the coffee down on the windowsill and held up the envelope.
"I had this drawn up last week," she said, more to herself than to Lucas.
"His signature is all I need." She turned to Lucas.
"You can go."
"Of course." Lucas moved toward the door, then paused.
"Should I send the nurse in?
His heart rate's been a little irregular this evening."
"He's fine," Victoria said flatly.
"I'll call if I need someone."
Lucas stepped out.
The door didn't latch fully behind him.
He stood in the hallway, back pressed to the wall, and did not walk away.
Inside the room, he heard the envelope tear open.
"Jonathan." Victoria's voice changed — softer now, practiced.
"Jonathan, sweetheart, I need you to sign something.
It's just an update to your power of attorney.
Your lawyer drew it up.
It's nothing complicated."
A pause.
"Jonathan.
Open your eyes."
Another pause, longer this time.
"I know you can hear me." The softness left her voice like a coat being dropped.
"Sign it.
If you sign it now, I'll make sure the next few days are comfortable.
If you don't—" She let the sentence hang.
"The dosage can always go up."
Lucas's jaw tightened.
His hand went to his own phone in his scrubs pocket.
He opened the camera.
Pressed record.
Held it at the gap in the door.
Inside, Victoria had moved to the side of the bed.
She was pressing the envelope against Jonathan's chest, a pen already uncapped in her other hand.
"Last chance," she said quietly.
"Be reasonable."
Jonathan's hand moved.
Slowly.
He reached up — not for the pen.
For the call button on the bedrail.
He pressed it.
The alert tone sounded at the nurses' station down the hall.
Victoria's head snapped toward the door.
She shoved the envelope into her bag, capped the pen, and stepped back from the bed in one fluid motion.
By the time the night nurse pushed through the door thirty seconds later, Victoria was standing at the window, coffee cup in hand, the picture of a worried wife keeping vigil.
"Everything all right in here?" the nurse asked.
"He seemed restless," Victoria said.
"I think he was having a bad dream."
The nurse checked the monitor, adjusted something on the IV line, and looked at Jonathan.
"Mr.
Mercer?
Can you hear me?"
Jonathan's eyes opened.
He looked at the nurse.
Then, very slowly, he looked at Victoria.
He said nothing.
But his hand moved to the bedrail and stayed there, fingers resting on the call button.
The nurse made a note on her tablet and stepped back into the hallway.
Lucas was gone from his spot by the wall.
Victoria didn't notice.
She was watching Jonathan, and the expression on her face had shifted into something colder than anger.
It was calculation.
She pulled out her phone and typed a message.
One line.
Lucas, still at the end of the corridor, saw the name on his own screen light up — not a message to him.
A notification from the hospital's shared patient-family portal.
May you like
Victoria had just submitted a request to have Jonathan's visitor access list updated.
She was trying to lock out his attorney.
