Her words wouldn’t stop echoing in my head.
Desperate for the truth, I did something I never imagined I’d do: I set up a hidden camera in my husband’s hospital room while he was out for a scan.
I concealed the tiny device inside a hollowed-out book on the shelf facing his bed. My heart pounded so violently I was sure the nurses could hear it. When the orderlies wheeled Eric back in, he looked exactly like a dying man should—frail, pale, breath shallow and uneven.
“I’m so tired, baby,” he whispered, gripping my hand weakly. “I just need to sleep.”
“I know,” I murmured, kissing his forehead, fighting nausea. “I’m going to grab coffee from the cafeteria. I’ll be back in twenty minutes.”
Instead, I went straight to my car in the parking garage and opened the live feed on my phone.
For two full minutes, he didn’t move.
Guilt flooded me. Maybe that woman was unstable. Maybe grief was making me paranoid. I’m spying on my dying husband, I thought.
Then the hospital door clicked shut.
On my screen, Eric’s eyes flew open.
The exhaustion vanished. He sat up—smoothly, effortlessly—and stretched his arms above his head, cracking his neck. The same man who couldn’t lift a spoon yesterday swung his legs off the bed and walked briskly to the closet.
No hesitation. No weakness.
He unzipped his duffel bag and pulled out a burner phone. And a bag of beef jerky.
Jerky.
He tore it open and started chewing like someone who hadn’t been “too nauseous to eat” all week.
Then he dialed.
“Hey,” he said casually, voice strong and clear. “Yeah, she just left. It’s working perfectly. The doctor’s an idiot—thinks the test results are degraded—but he’s buying the symptoms because I’m really selling it.”
My hand clamped over my mouth to keep from screaming.
“Yeah,” he laughed. Laughed. “The GoFundMe’s at $80,000. The early life insurance payout hits next week. Once the money clears into the offshore account, ‘Eric’ dies. Then we meet in Mexico. Just relax, babe.”
My world didn’t crack.
It detonated.
There was no cancer. No tragic ending. No heroic fight.
There was a script.
He had been faking everything—inducing vomiting, starving himself, probably taking something to look pale. All to steal money from our friends, our families… and me.
To disappear with another woman.
I didn’t go back to his room.
I went to the police.
