Chương 7
That bothered her more than if he had reacted.
“You knew that was possible,” she said.
“I knew someone was interested in it.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“No,” Alan said quietly. “It isn’t.”
Mara stood and walked toward the counter.
“Who else knows?”
“About the document?”
“About me.”
Alan exhaled.
“That depends on what you mean.”
She almost laughed.
It was the kind of answer that sounded careful enough to be responsible but vague enough to avoid blame.
“Alan.”
“I’m trying to help you.”
“I know.”
The words came out softer than she intended.
That was the problem with Alan. He was not easy to hate.
He had been the person who found inconsistencies in the hospital records. He had been the person who warned her that the changes were not simple mistakes. He had also been the person who knew more than he admitted.
Trust was complicated when someone helped you while still keeping part of the truth locked away.
“There’s something else,” Alan said.
Mara closed her eyes.
She already knew she was going to regret hearing it.
“What?”
“The access request wasn’t random.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I saw the log.”
“You said you didn’t have access.”
“I said I wasn’t supposed to have access.”
She looked at the phone.
“That’s not better.”
“No,” he admitted.
His honesty irritated her more than an excuse would have.
“Alan, what exactly have you been doing?”
A long silence followed.
Then:
“Trying to find out who changed your records before they could change something else.”
Mara walked back to the table.
The answer should have comforted her.
It didn’t.
Because hidden inside it was the question she had avoided.
What else had already been changed?
That afternoon, Mara returned to the hospital.
She almost turned around twice before entering the building.
The lobby looked exactly the same. Patients sat in chairs near the elevators. A child dragged a stuffed animal across the floor. A man argued quietly into his phone near the entrance.
Normal life continued around her.
That was the strangest part.
A person could discover that someone had rewritten a piece of their history, and the world would still expect them to stand in line, answer emails, and remember to pay bills.
The records department was quieter than she expected.
The employee who answered the phone recognized her immediately.
“You’re Mara Voss.”
It was not a question.
Mara stopped.
“Yes.”
The woman glanced toward the hallway.
“I’m Nina.”
“Should I be worried that you know my name?”
Nina looked uncomfortable.
“No.”
The answer came too quickly.
Mara noticed.
“So why did you say it like that?”
Nina folded her arms.
“Because people have been asking about you.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s not believable.”
Nina looked down.
For a moment, Mara saw something she had not expected.
Fear.
Not guilt.
Fear.
“Look,” Nina said, lowering her voice. “I shouldn’t be talking about this.”
“Then why are you?”
Nina looked toward the empty hallway.
“Because whoever did this is making everyone act like nothing happened.”
Mara waited.
Nina continued.
“Three weeks ago, a request came through for your file. It had the right authorization codes.”
“Whose?”
“I don’t know.”
“You just said it was authorized.”
“It was.”
“That means someone signed it.”
Nina swallowed.
“That’s the problem.”
She opened a drawer beneath the counter and pulled out a printed page.
“I shouldn’t have this.”
Mara did not take it immediately.
“What is it?”
“The request.”
“Why are you giving it to me?”
Nina looked embarrassed.
“Because I was the person who processed it.”
Mara picked up the paper.
The signature at the bottom was familiar.
Not because she recognized the handwriting.
Because she recognized the name.
Alan Pierce.
For several seconds, nothing moved.
The hallway noise faded into the background.
“No,” Mara said.
Nina looked at her.
“I figured you knew.”
Mara stared at the signature.
“I didn’t.”
The sentence felt strange coming out.
Not because it was false.
Because it was true.
Alan had not only known about the document.
He had accessed it.
The question was why.
Her phone rang before she could process the thought.
Alan.
She answered.
“Tell me you didn’t request my file.”
Silence.
Not confusion.
Not surprise.
Silence.
Mara’s grip tightened.
“Alan.”
“I can explain.”
She looked at the signature again.
“That is usually what people say when they already know they did something wrong.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“From what?”
Another pause.
Then Alan said the one thing that made the room feel smaller.
“From the person who originally changed it.”
Mara stopped breathing for a moment.
“Who?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“That’s not good enough.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
Her voice cracked slightly, and she hated that he heard it.
“You don’t get to secretly open my records and then tell me it was for my own good.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying that.”
This time, Alan was quiet.
Mara looked at Nina across the counter.
The employee had turned away, pretending to organize papers.
Giving her privacy.
Or pretending to.
“Where are you?” Mara asked.
Alan hesitated.
“At the hospital.”
Her stomach dropped.
“Why?”
“Because I found something.”
“What?”
“I found the missing page from your original record.”
Mara’s anger paused.
A missing page.
The one thing everyone had been circling around.
The piece that could explain what happened years ago.
“Where?”
Alan’s voice became lower.
“Not in archives.”
Mara waited.
“Someone placed it inside another patient’s file.”
The answer was worse than she expected.
“Whose?”
Alan did not respond immediately.
Then he said a name Mara had spent years trying not to hear.
Her family’s name.
And before she could ask what that meant, the hospital lights flickered once above her, and every computer screen in the records department went black.
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