Chapter 208

“What do you mean he’s missing?” Spencer Collins demanded, his voice sharp with disbelief and rising anger.
The nurses and doctors exchanged uneasy glances, their silence more telling than any words. No one dared to speak, though, in the face of his anger.
Spencer exhaled slowly, trying to rein in his growing frustration and stepped closer to the doctore, “I asked you-where is Adam Collins? What do you mean he’s missing? The man was dead. Are you seriously telling me his corpse just got up and walked away on its own?”
A young nurse-barely out of training, by the looks of her-finally spoke. “Sir, the night shift report says he was transferred to the morgue around 4:15 AM for formal documentation… they were waiting for the forensic consultant to confirm the death before issuing the certificate.”
“The morgue?” Spencer repeated slowly, as he felt his heart settling and he asked, “So, he’s in the morgue now?”
“Well… that’s the issue,” the nurse hesitated, clutching the tablet in her hands like it might shield her from whatever anger was going to come her way. “The morgue staff just called back. They say no one named Adam Collins was brought in. In fact, no dead body was brought into the morgue last night.”
Spencer blinked. “What?”
“They said… they never received him,” she said quietly. “No records. No body.”
He turned sharply to the senior doctor on duty, Dr. Reed, who looked terrified. “You transferred a dead man, and you didn’t confirm his arrival to the morgue?”
“We followed protocol,” Dr. Menon said, holding up a hand defensively. “The body was prepped and released by the ICU team. The transport was logged, but somewhere between the ICU and the lower level, the handover seems to have been missed. It’s being looked into—”
“Oh, it’s being looked into,” Spencer snapped, the sarcasm venomous. “You lost a corpse, doctor. Not a delivery package. A human body. And not just any body—Adam Collins. You have any idea what that name means right now?”
He didn’t wait for a reply. He turned on the team like a storm. Dam* it! He had gone to such lengths to make the death possible and now he didn’t even have a death certificate in his hands let alone a dead body.
Finally the director appeared in front of him and without waiting for an introduction, he shot “I want everyone checking that building—ICU, morgue, storage, basement corridors, everything. I want footage pulled. If someone moved him, I want to know who it was, when, and why. If he vanished on your watch, you better pray that his dead body is found lying somewhere in this place, otherwise this entire hospital is going to burn under the fallout. Now move.”
The command snapped the staff into motion and the director hurriedly nodded and started giving out instructions. Clipboards and tablets were snatched up, intercom calls began flying, and Spencer stormed down the hallway, yanking his phone from his coat pocket. He needed to call Ben! He had told the idiot to finish the job and report back to him then. But now, the dead body had gone missing! Couldn’t the idiot have just waited to get the death certificate and then run off?
He hit Ben’s contact. It did not ring. Instead a flat, robotic voice of the recording came up, ” The number you are trying to reach is currently switched off. Please try again later.”
“Damn it,” he muttered under his breath, lowering the phone. His fingers hovered for a beat, then dialed a different number. This one was answered on the second ring.
“Yeah?” a groggy male voice answered.
“It’s Spencer.”
“Jesus, it’s barely six in the morning—what’s going on?”
“I need you to get to West Block Ward C. Take Ben Harris’ mother off the medication protocol. Pull her from the machines and put her in secure hold. Quietly. No noise. Got it?”
There was a pause on the other end. Then the man said carefully, “Spencer… I thought you knew.”
“Knew what?” Spencer’s voice dropped to a chilling tone as he realized something was wrong.
“Harris’ mother… Ben’s mother… she’s not here anymore.”
Spencer stilled. “What do you mean she’s not here?”
“She was removed from the hospital yesterday. A formal discharge. Signed paperwork, medical clearance. He even paid the entire bill dues in one shot. Everything legal. It was signed off by Dr. Yew and two of the board members. Look, I figured you were in the loop otherwise how would he get so much money?”
“I wasn’t,” Spencer snapped. ” I wasn’t told anything. And why would I give him the money and let him off so easily when I can still use him!”
Jacob sounded more awake now. “It was done quietly and I didn’t realise…
Spencer lowered his phone slowly, his mind racing. Adam’s body had vanished. Ben was unreachable. And now Ben’s mother—one of the last leverage pieces they had—was out of reach, gone from the system.
He swallowed hard, fingers curling into a fist at his side. Ben had made a move. A big one which he should not have been able to…Dam* it! Always! Why did this always happen! First, he had patiently waited three years and just when he was about to get everything, Melanie changed.
And now, Ben. Everything had gone right. Saira’s murder had been planned by grandfather and he’d added Adam’s murder to that and Melanie being convicted for both! Everythhing had gone to plan but now that it was time to collect the benefits of these moves, something had gone awry!
He looked over his shoulder at the flurry of activity in the ICU, then back down the hallway, eyes narrowing. A thousand possibilities ran through his head, the worst being the Adam should not ’resurrect’. And the only way to make sure of that was to see and bury his dead body.
Spencer sighed! But he would find Adam even if he had gone to the depths of hell…