Chapter 2 - Office Hours
Dr. Thomas Vance’s office smelled like antique leather and old books rather than sterile antiseptic. He was a tall man with a shock of white hair and sharp, assessing eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses. He didn't look like a local country doctor; he looked like a man who had spent forty years telling uncomfortable truths to people who didn't want to hear them.
He slid my file across his polished mahogany desk and closed it with a soft thud.
"Well, Mrs. Vance—or I suppose I should say, Ms. Montgomery, since your paperwork already reflects the reset," he said smoothly. "Arthur was right to bring you here. The pathology reports in this file from your previous clinic have been altered."
The world tilted slightly. Even though I had expected it, hearing a medical professional confirm it felt like a physical blow. "Altered how?"
"Your initial hormone panels from three years ago were entirely normal," Dr. Vance said, tapping a finger against a printed insert. "Someone swapped the digital PDF profiles in the portal backend. The laboratory values belonging to an anonymous donor with severe premature ovarian failure were grafted onto your patient ID. Furthermore, the prescription records show you were being administered a mild, continuous dose of a long-acting progestin antagonist—something that would consistently suppress ovulation without leaving dramatic side effects, disguised as a daily prenatal supplement."
My breath caught. "The vitamins. Julian gave them to me every single night."
"If you stopped taking them when you separated, your natural cycle should recover within a few months," Vance added, watching me closely. "The bigger question is why a man would go to such elaborate lengths to manufacture a medical condition in his wife."
"To control the narrative," I said, the pieces locking into place. "If I believed I was broken, I would never leave. I would stay small, grateful he kept me around despite my 'flaw.' And more importantly, I wouldn't have time to look at his books."
Arthur sat quietly in the corner chair, leaning on his cane. "What can we do with this, Tom? Legally speaking?"
"We can file an immediate injunction to preserve the medical records before the digital trail is scrubbed by Julian's IT provider," Vance said. "And we can report the falsification of medical data to the state medical board, which will trigger an investigation into the clinic Julian used. But Sloan..." He paused, looking at me with deep concern. "This is going to detonate his life. Once this goes public, his construction licenses, his commercial contracts, and his social standing will evaporate. Are you prepared for that?"
I thought of Julian standing on the porch in the rain, smiling as he handed me a single suitcase and locked the front door. I thought of Evelyn sipping her wine, telling me some women aren't meant to be mothers.
"Prepared?" I managed a small, humorless smile. "Dr. Vance, I’m the one who built the foundation of his company. If I pull out the cornerstones, it won't just detonate. It will collapse straight down to the dirt."
When we left the clinic, my phone buzzed in my pocket. It was an unknown number, followed by a text message containing a single photo: my discarded suitcase sitting in a municipal dumpster downtown, soaked in muddy runoff.
Underneath it, Julian had written: Drop the bank card inquiry, Sloan. You don't want to play this game.
I stared at the screen, typed a quick reply—*You built the board, Julian, but I wrote the rules*—and deleted it before sending. Instead, I called Leo, the young warehouse worker who had saved my files.
"Leo," I said when he answered on the second ring. "Are you still at the yard?"
"Yeah, Sloan. Everyone's panicking. Julian is screaming about missing digital archives from the server room. He thinks someone hacked him."
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"Tell him he didn't get hacked," I said softly. "Tell him the bookkeeper is coming back to audit her desk."
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