Chapter 1

The harsh fluorescent lights of the ER waiting room hummed, a sound I knew too well. But tonight, I wasn't the one wearing the paramedic uniform. I was just a guy in a hoodie, staring at my phone. The game was simple, a mindless block-stacking puzzle, but it was all I could focus on.

Jennifer, my fiancée, was in the back. A hit-and-run, they said. Severe head trauma. The words floated around me, but they didn't land. They couldn't.

A nurse with a tired, stern face marched up to me, her shoes squeaking on the linoleum.

"Mr. Wright? Andrew Wright?"

I looked up from my screen, not bothering to pause the game. "That's me."

Her eyes narrowed, flicking from my impassive face to the phone in my hands. "Your fiancée, Jennifer Chadwick, is in critical condition. She needs emergency surgery to relieve the pressure on her brain. Without it, we're looking at permanent, severe brain damage. If she even survives."

I just nodded slowly. "Okay."

The nurse's frustration was palpable. "Okay? Mr. Wright, this is a very expensive, life-saving procedure. The hospital requires payment upfront before we can proceed."

I didn't say anything. I just let the blocks continue to fall on my screen. This was the moment. The opening scene of a play I'd already seen.

Suddenly, a wail cut through the waiting room's tense quiet. Two figures, a man and a woman dressed in worn-out jeans and flannel shirts that screamed "humble farmer," rushed toward me. They were Mark and Susan, the actors Jennifer had hired. Tonight, they were playing the role of her parents.

"Andrew!" the woman cried, her face a mask of practiced grief. She fell to her knees in front of my chair, a move that was a little too dramatic, a little too perfect. "Please, you have to save our Jenny! You have to!"

Her "husband" joined her, his voice choked with fake sobs. "She was only out in that storm because of you, son. She was bringing you your lunch. You forgot it, and she knew you had a long shift. She was just trying to take care of you."

I looked down at them, then slowly pulled out my phone again, closing the game and opening my banking app. I turned the screen so they, and the now-gawking nurse, could see it clearly.

"$17.42."

I said it flatly. "I can't help. I was wiped out. A sophisticated online scam, it targeted a bunch of us first responders. They got everything."

The nurse scoffed. "A paramedic who runs a popular social media channel about avoiding scams got scammed? How convenient."

The actors looked at each other, their performance faltering for a split second. This wasn't in their script.