Chapter 3

I glanced up at the clock. It was 9:49 pm, three minutes until the falsified time of death that Cole had fabricated for the patient.

In my last life, I had been walking into the operating room at this exact moment, captured perfectly on the surveillance footage. Combined with the fingerprint evidence Cole had planted, I never stood a chance.

This time, I was in a treatment room. Two police officers, three medical staff, and seven security cameras could all confirm exactly where I was.

"Sign here," the nurse said, handing me the hospital admission form.

I stole a glance at the clock on the wall. It read 9:52 pm, the precise moment Cole had fabricated as the patient's time of death in my last life.

I signed my name and submitted the form. The timestamp read 9:52 pm.

It was done. At the exact minute the patient died, I was in the treatment room with surveillance footage, medical records and a full staff of witnesses documenting every second.

Cole could talk until he lost his voice and it would not matter. He could not put me in two places at once.

I was about to let out a breath of relief when my phone rang. It was Cole. I glanced at the screen and let it ring.

He had to be losing his mind right about now. His precious junior had botched the surgery and killed a mother along with her unborn child, and the woman he had lined up to take the fall was nowhere to be found.

He deserved every second of it.

I turned my phone off.

By the time they finished setting the bone and putting on the cast, it was past 10:00 pm. I leaned back against the hospital bed and stared at the ceiling.

In my last life, the police had already taken me away by now and the news had already broken, with headlines screaming that the state hospital's OB-GYN chief had caused a fatal surgical error.

This time around, I had never set foot in that operating room. I was alive and I was clean. My parents were not going to die.

I closed my eyes.

I had no idea what was happening on the surgical floor, but I could guess. Cole was not sitting idle. He had almost certainly shifted his plan and was already trying to pin the malpractice charge on me.

Sure enough, hurried footsteps echoed down the hallway moments later. The door swung open and a uniformed officer stepped in at the front of the group.

"Vera Stanton?"

He flashed his badge. "Criminal investigation division, city police. We just received a report of a medical incident at this hospital resulting in a patient's death. You've been named as the surgeon responsible for the procedural violation. We need you to come with us."

Every nurse in the room froze.

I did not. If anything, I felt an unusual calm settle over me, because I had already been through this once. The only difference was that this time, I had never gone near the operating room, and I had every piece of proof I needed to show it.

"A medical incident?" I put on a look of genuine confusion. "What medical incident?"

"One hour ago, at 9:52 pm, a patient died on your operating table during a surgery you performed. The cause of death was cardiac arrest triggered by an anesthetic overdose."

The detective delivered every word without inflection.

"The attending surgeon, Cole Barrett, has identified you as the one who performed the procedure. Your fingerprints were also found on the syringe used to administer the anesthesia."

I listened to every word without interrupting. It was identical to my last life, down to the smallest detail.

Back then, this was the moment I had fallen apart. I would have been scrambling to explain myself, desperate and frantic.

This time, I just looked up at him.

"You said the patient's time of death was when, exactly?"

The detective paused, caught slightly off guard. "Surgical records indicate 9:52 pm."

I nearly laughed. That was the exact minute I had signed my admission form.

The detective did not wait for a response. He gestured to the officers behind him. "Take her to headquarters for questioning."

Just then, one of the nurses stepped forward and blocked their path.

"Hold on."