Chương 6
“Then explain.”
“I can’t over the phone.”
“You can.”
“No, I really can’t.”
“Then we’re done.”
“Emma, wait.”
She waited.
Daniel’s voice broke.
“I love you.”
Emma looked at the dark hospital television screen and saw the white bandages reflected faintly around her face.
“You loved my old face too.”
“I did.”
“Apparently not enough.”
“That isn’t why.”
“Then why?”
He was crying now.
Quietly.
Daniel had always cried quietly.
Even that remained familiar.
“Elena came to me,” he said.
Emma’s fingers tightened around the phone.
“When?”
“Three months ago.”
“Why?”
“Because she was scared.”
“Of Claire?”
“Yes.”
Emma looked toward the door.
“Why would she come to you?”
Daniel said nothing.
Emma understood before he answered.
“You knew her.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Before you.”
The answer was somehow worse because it was not an affair.
An affair would have been ordinary.
Ugly, but comprehensible.
“How long before me?”
“Six years.”
“What was she to you?”
Daniel breathed out.
“My wife.”
Emma stopped moving.
Sophie looked up.
Emma put the call on speaker.
“Say that again.”
Daniel went silent.
“Daniel.”
“Elena was my wife.”
Sophie whispered, “Jesus Christ.”
Emma’s engagement ring was in the drawer beside her hospital bed.
She had not put it back on after surgery.
Now she understood why.
Some part of her body had known before the rest of her.
“You told me you’d never been married.”
“I know.”
“You filed paperwork for our marriage license.”
“I know.”
“Are you divorced?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Seven years ago.”
“Why did you lie?”
“Because what happened was—”
“No. Don’t give me a story. Give me an answer.”
He stopped.
“Because I was ashamed.”
“Of being divorced?”
“Of why.”
Emma waited.
“Elena had surgery with Claire seven years ago.”
The room became very quiet.
“What kind?”
“The same kind you had.”
Emma looked at Sophie.
“No.”
“Emma—”
“You’re saying Claire did this before?”
“Not exactly.”
“Stop saying not exactly.”
Daniel exhaled.
“Elena wanted the surgery.”
“Then what are we talking about?”
“She wanted some of it.”
Emma closed her eyes.
The pieces were arriving in the wrong order.
Daniel continued.
“Claire was just starting to build her private practice. Elena worked for her.”
“As what?”
“Patient coordinator. Marketing. Everything, basically. They were friends before that.”
Emma said nothing.
“Elena became the clinic’s first big transformation story. Before-and-after photos, interviews, social campaigns. It helped Claire get investors. It helped Elena too. She got modeling work.”
“And?”
“And Elena said Claire changed the plan during surgery.”
Emma opened her eyes.
“Without consent.”
“Yes.”
“Did she report it?”
“She tried.”
“What happened?”
“She settled.”
“With Claire?”
“With the company that financed the clinic. Confidential agreement. Payment. Records sealed. She stopped talking about it.”
“And you?”
“I told her to take the settlement.”
Emma heard the shame in his voice.
“I told her we needed the money. We were in debt. I told her nobody would believe she hadn’t agreed because she had promoted the results afterward.”
“Did she?”
“At first.”
“Why?”
“Because she was scared and because the clinic was paying her.”
Emma leaned back.
A dull ache had begun near her temple.
“So she left you.”
“No. I left her.”
That surprised Emma.
Daniel’s voice dropped.
“She couldn’t stop looking at herself. She covered mirrors. She accused me of staring at the changes. I didn’t know how to help. I got angry. I told her she had chosen the surgery, even if she hadn’t chosen every part of it.”
Emma looked at the mirror on the bedside table.
The hospital had provided it after removing her dressings for an examination.
She had kept it facedown.
“What happened three months ago?”
“Elena contacted me. She said Claire was doing it again.”
“To whom?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then why me?”
“She found your name on Claire’s schedule.”
Emma’s mouth went dry.
“What?”
“She said Claire had selected you.”
“For what?”
Daniel did not answer.
“Daniel.”
“For a demonstration.”
Emma’s stomach turned.
“What demonstration?”
“Claire has been working with a medical-device company. Surgical planning software. Imaging. Custom guides. They’re trying to develop a system that can reproduce aesthetic proportions from a reference model.”
Sophie muttered, “That sounds insane.”
Daniel heard her.
“It isn’t supposed to copy a face. It predicts measurements. Claire was pushing it further.”
Emma said, “Why me?”
“I don’t know.”
“You know something.”
“You fit the parameters.”
“What parameters?”
“Age. Bone structure. Skin quality. No major medical conditions.”
Emma stared at the wall.
She remembered Claire during the consultation turning her head gently between two fingers.
Excellent structure.
Emma had taken it as a compliment.
Daniel continued.
“Elena believed Claire wanted to use you to prove the system could reproduce her original surgical result on another patient.”
Emma felt cold.
“Why Elena?”
“Because her face was already in the old dataset.”
“Dataset.”
The word made her want to throw something.
“So you tried to stop it by signing permission?”
“No.”
“Then explain the signature.”
“I confronted Claire.”
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
“Where?”
“At her house.”
Emma remembered the timestamp.
10:32.
“Did you sign anything?”
“Yes.”
Sophie swore.
Daniel spoke quickly.
“Claire told me she needed written authorization to cancel the experimental portion because you had supposedly consented electronically.”
“I never did.”
“I know that now.”
“You knew it then.”
“I suspected.”
“What did you sign?”
“A form she showed me on a tablet. It said I was your designated medical proxy for changes if you were incapacitated.”
“I never made you my medical proxy.”
“I know.”
“Then why would you sign it?”
“Because she said without it she couldn’t override the surgical plan already in the system.”
Emma closed her eyes.
It was stupid.
Terrifyingly, recognizably stupid.
Daniel had been frightened. Claire had given him a mechanism. He had used it.
“What did the form actually say?”
“I don’t know.”
“You signed something without reading it?”
“I read what was on the screen.”
“And you trusted Claire?”
“No. I was trying to beat her at her own paperwork.”
May you like
“You lied to me.”
“I was going to tell you.”
