Dr. Adrian Miller knew something was wrong when three nurses at St. David’s Hospital suddenly got pregnant after taking care of the same guy who was in a coma. But what he learned was worse than he could have ever imagined.
Dr. Adrian Miller worked at St. David’s Hospital in Chicago for almost fifteen years. People trusted him as a doctor because he was calm, exact, and very moral. But Patient 208—Marcus Langford, a guy who had been in a coma for almost ten years following a reported vehicle accident—was the most puzzling thing about his job.
At first, Marcus looked too healthy. His heart was beating hard, his muscles were strong, and his skin had color. After just a few months, most coma patients lost a lot of muscle. But Marcus’s body looked like someone who worked out a lot.
Adrian told Nurse Lila Thompson, one of the three nurses who were in charge of Marcus’s care, about this. He added in a low voice, “He doesn’t look like someone who’s been out of it for ten years.” Lila gave a feeble smile. “Some people are just… different, doctor,” she said without looking him in the eye.
The hospital’s gossip spread like wildfire a few weeks later: Lila was having a baby. There was also Nurse Emily Rhodes, who had looked after Marcus before her. And before Emily, Nurse Valerie Cook resigned her job for the identical reasons: she was also pregnant.
Three nurses. One patient.
Adrian’s gut told him that something was really wrong. When he called about the issue, the hospital director told him to “focus on his duties” and “stay out of unnecessary scandals.” Adrian, on the other hand, couldn’t stop thinking about it. Adrian started to watch the surveillance footage from the ward, but he noticed that the camera in Room 208 had been broken for months without anybody saying why.
Adrian discreetly walked into Room 208 that night after everyone else had left. The patient lay still with their eyes closed and their chest rising and falling in a consistent pattern. Adrian got closer. Marcus’s face looked calm, maybe too calm. Adrian put his fingers on Marcus’s wrist to see if he had a pulse.
It was strong and quick, like the hand of a man who was awake and aware.
“Marcus,” he murmured in a quiet voice. “Can you hear me?”
No one answered. Adrian let out a sigh and was about to go when he heard a soft sound behind him. It seemed like someone was breathing differently, as if they had just pretended to fall asleep.
He stopped. He slowly turned around. Marcus’s lips moved a little bit.
Adrian’s blood froze. He said, “Oh my God…”
Adrian couldn’t quit thinking about what he had seen the next morning. He didn’t tell anyone, not even the chief nurse. Instead, he put a hidden camera under the medical equipment in Room 208.
He watched the video again two days later, and what he saw almost made him drop his laptop.
At 2:13 a.m., when there weren’t many night staff members on duty, Marcus suddenly woke up, sat up, and pulled out his IV. A few minutes later, Nurse Lila came into the room. She didn’t lose her mind. She grinned. Marcus grinned back.
They talked and acted like they had known each other for a long time. Then she gave him a plate of food and urged him not to worry. No one has any ideas.
Adrian’s heart raced when he saw Marcus eat, stretch his arms, and even do push-ups next to the bed before sliding back under the sheets and pretending to be asleep.
Adrian and Lila talked alone the next day. He asked, “How long has Marcus been awake?”
Her face turned white. “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
He flung a packet of printed pictures from the DVD onto the desk. “Then explain this.”
Lila started to cry. “You don’t understand,” she said. “That wasn’t meant to wake him up…” He was supposed to go.
She cried as she told him the terrible truth. Marcus had not been in a car accident; ten years earlier, he hit and killed a child and then ran away. Marcus and his identical twin brother, Ethan, made up Marcus’s coma so they wouldn’t have to go to jail. They hired a small private clinic to say he was brain-dead, and then they brought him to St. David’s under a fake identity. The nurses Lila, Emily, and Valerie kept the joke going for money and, in the end, because they were involved.
But the strategy didn’t work. The twins had been switching places, with one of them lying in bed as the “coma patient” and the other doing their unlawful business outside. One of the boys fell in love with all of the nurses that helped them.
Adrian couldn’t say a word. It all sounded like a nightmare. “Do you know what you’ve done?” He talked in a gentle voice.
A voice emerged from the door before Lila could say anything.
Marcus was standing.
They didn’t say anything for a long time. Marcus looked strong but exhausted. He said in a low voice, “Doctor, you weren’t supposed to find out.” “But I guess you’re just too good at what you do.”
Adrian made fists. “You lied to this hospital and to the whole system. You let people think you were in a coma while other people took care of you, which hurt the lives of three women.
Marcus’s face became less tense. “I didn’t break them.” They knew what they were doing. “Everyone makes mistakes.”
“Please, Adrian, don’t call the police,” Lila implored in a low voice, shaking. The babies are not to blame.
But Adrian had already made his choice. “This ends tonight.”
He called his brother Thomas Miller, who is a lawyer who helps people who have been accused of crimes, and within an hour, the police were all over the hospital. Marcus and Ethan were both accused of fraud, obstructing justice, and hiding a murder.
Lila and the other nurses told the whole story weeks later. They maintained that shame and dread had made them part of the plot. When Adrian testified as a witness, his life changed forever.
Months went by. The hospital got better, and the news stopped talking about the issue. Lila wrote Adrian a note one night. There was a note and a photo of three newborns inside:
“These are the names of the men who changed our lives, for better or for worse.” Thank you for letting them grow up without any problems.
Adrian put the letter down and thought, “Telling the truth can hurt, but it can also save lives.”
That night, he gazed out the hospital window and saw the city lights blinking like stars. He breathed in deeply. Room 208 would always be with him to teach him that evil may look like good and that doing the right thing is not always easy but always necessary.