Chapter 5 - THE SECOND ATTEMPT
The man wearing hospital scrubs entered Bridget’s room at 2:13 a.m. He moved with the confidence of someone who expected doors to open for him. A surgical mask covered most of his face, and an identification badge hung correctly at chest level. To the security camera in the hallway, he looked like any exhausted overnight employee. He carried a blood-pressure cuff in one hand and a syringe in the other. Bridget was sleeping when he approached the IV line.
Sarah Bennett was not supposed to be there. She had come upstairs after finishing a late ambulance transfer because Bridget had asked the nurses whether the paramedic from the estate might visit again. Sarah entered the corridor just as the masked man closed Bridget’s door. Something about the badge bothered her. The color stripe was green, used by respiratory therapy, but the man carried medication supplies normally handled by nursing staff. Sarah stopped walking.
Inside the room, the man reached for the IV port. Bridget stirred. “Nurse?” she murmured. He did not answer. He uncapped the syringe. Sarah pushed the door open. “Can I help you?” The man froze. For one second they stared at each other. Then he shoved the bedside table toward her and ran. Metal crashed against the floor. Bridget screamed as Sarah jumped aside. The man struck the hallway at full speed, ripping off his mask while two nurses shouted for security.
He reached the stairwell before an officer stationed near the elevators reacted. Sarah stayed with Bridget rather than chasing him. The syringe lay on the floor beside the bed. Later testing revealed a concentrated dose of potassium chloride—enough to trigger a fatal cardiac arrhythmia if injected rapidly. The attempt would have looked like a sudden medical complication unless someone noticed the timing. Detective Park arrived before dawn, furious that the hospital’s credential system had been compromised a second time.
Security footage showed the attacker entering through a service door using a valid employee card stolen from a respiratory therapist. His face appeared briefly after he removed the mask. Lauren identified him immediately from a still image. “That’s Mason Creed.” The missing contractor had not fled the region. He had been moving inside it, following instructions from someone who wanted Bridget permanently silent.
Police circulated Mason’s image statewide. His motel room had already been abandoned by the time officers found it, but technicians recovered partial fingerprints and fibers from the safe. The room contained no phone, no flash drive, and no obvious copy of Bridget’s evidence. A maid reported hearing Mason argue with someone the previous afternoon. She remembered one sentence because he shouted it twice: “I’m not taking the fall for your family.”
Bridget’s fear hardened into anger after the second attempt. “He tried to kill me in a hospital,” she told Park. “How much more proof do you need to arrest Tyler?” Park understood the frustration, but the legal picture remained complicated. Lauren’s recording was powerful, the sabotaged railing was strong physical evidence, and Mason connected the planning to Tyler. Yet Mason was missing, Tyler denied involvement, and the chain connecting Tyler to the hospital attack had not been established. Park promised they were close. Bridget did not look reassured.
The breakthrough came from James, Sarah’s partner. While reviewing their original ambulance report, he noticed a detail he had almost forgotten. Tyler had been holding something dark in his left hand when they first approached Bridget. James had assumed it was his own phone. But the screen protector had a diagonal silver crack near one corner—the same crack Bridget described on her missing phone. James told Park, who requested all photographs taken at the scene. In the background of one guest’s image, captured seconds before police arrived, Tyler stood near the side gate holding a blue-cased phone.
A second photograph, taken less than a minute later, showed him without it. Between the two images, Tyler had walked past Mason’s former access corridor—the narrow passage connecting the terrace to the service garage. Investigators searched the garage drains and found a small smear of blue plastic caught beneath a grate. More importantly, a surveillance camera from a neighboring property recorded Mason’s truck leaving the Holloway estate eight minutes after the fall. Tyler had denied Mason was present.
Park returned to the mansion with an arrest warrant for conspiracy to commit murder and evidence tampering. Tyler’s bedroom was empty. His closet doors stood open, several drawers had been pulled out, and a passport was missing from the desk safe. Harold claimed he did not know where his son had gone. Diane said nothing. Then Park noticed Diane’s right hand trembling against the banister.
“Mrs. Holloway,” Park said quietly, “if you know where he is, this is the last moment when silence can still be called fear instead of assistance.” Diane closed her eyes. Harold barked her name. She flinched, then opened them again. “He has a cabin,” she whispered. “Lake Arlen. It’s under a company name.” Harold stepped toward her. Ruiz moved between them.
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Police searched the cabin before sunrise, but Tyler was already gone. They found burned papers in the fireplace, an empty gun case, and a map with three roads marked in red. One of those roads led toward Canada. Another led to a private airfield. The third led back toward the city—and ended at Bridget’s hospital.
Park stood over the map while her phone rang. The caller was an officer at the Holloway mansion. Harold had just reported Diane missing. Her car was gone, and so was the family’s old emergency cash box. Park looked again at the third red line. For the first time, she wondered whether Diane had fled with Tyler—or whether she was trying to reach Bridget before he did.
