Chapter 7 - The Corridor of Whispers
St. Anthony’s Hospital in Denver felt like a clinical nightmare.
The bright fluorescent lights burned my eyes, throwing harsh glares against the sterile white tile floors. Outside the main glass doors, a sea of news vans sat parked along the curb, their heavy broadcast antennas raised into the snowy sky. Reporters pressed against the security gates, their camera lenses flashing through the dark glass every time a door opened.
“Mr. Black! Was your wife alone at the cabin?”
“Ethan! Can you confirm reports that you were out of the country during the storm?”
“Is it true Clara filed for divorce before the avalanche?”
Marcus’s security detail shoved a path through the horde, forcing the heavy glass doors shut behind us.
I rushed down the long, quiet hallway of the Intensive Care Unit, my expensive shoes squeaking against the linoleum. At the far end of the corridor, outside Room 412, stood two uniformed Denver police officers and a woman wearing a tailored charcoal suit.
It was Sarah Vance—Clara’s sister and her primary legal representative.
When Sarah saw me approaching, her eyes narrowed into two slivers of pure, lethal hatred. She didn't wait for me to reach the door. She stepped into the center of the hallway, blocking my path.
“Don't you dare step another foot toward that room, Ethan,” Sarah said, her voice quiet, sharp, and shaking with suppressed rage.
“Sarah, please,” I choked out, reaching for the door handle. “I need to see her. I need to know if she’s out of surgery—”
“She is in stable condition,” Sarah interrupted, her tone dropping into an icy register that cut straight to my bone. “Her leg has been set with titanium pins. She has severe frostbite on her left foot and three cracked ribs. But she is conscious. And ten minutes ago, she gave me explicit legal instructions.”
Sarah pulled a folded sheet of paper from her coat pocket and held it out between us.
“This is an emergency temporary restraining order signed by a district judge an hour ago,” Sarah announced. “You are legally prohibited from coming within one hundred feet of Clara, accessing her medical chart, or speaking to her attending physicians. If you attempt to enter that room, those officers will arrest you on the spot.”
I stared at the paper, the world spinning beneath my feet. “She’s my wife, Sarah! Eleven years!”
“You gave up the right to call her your wife the moment you turned your phone off in Malé to buy a diamond bracelet for a twenty-four-year-old mistress!” Sarah shouted, her composure finally snapping as tears of fury filled her eyes. “She lay under a collapsed roof for twelve hours bleeding from her head, Ethan! She recorded a video for you because she thought she was dying, and you were drinking champagne on an island!”
“I didn't know!” I roared, burying my face in my shaking hands. “I didn't know the storm hit!”
“Because you didn't want to know!” Sarah spat, stepping closer until her finger was pressed into my sternum. “You wanted your paradise. Well, congratulations, Ethan. You have your money, you have your mistress, and you have your freedom. Now get out of this hospital before I bring the news cameras up to this floor and show the world exactly what kind of monster you are.”
I looked past Sarah’s shoulder through the narrow glass window of Room 412.
Inside, beneath the soft green glow of the heart monitors, lay Clara. Her head was wrapped in white gauze, an IV line taped to her pale arm. Her eyes were open, staring blankly at the ceiling.
May you like
She didn't turn her head. She didn't look toward the door. She knew I was standing there, but she treated my presence like air—like I had already ceased to exist.
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