Chương 3
“At your brother?”
“Yes.”
“Finger on the trigger?”
“No.”
“You’re certain?”
“Yes.”
Ortiz wrote again.
Nate almost asked whether he was in trouble.
The question felt childish.
Instead he said, “My son said Marcus was looking for something my wife hid.”
“I heard.”
“You were outside?”
“A hospital employee told me.”
“He said Marcus was here earlier.”
“I heard that too.”
“Celia saw him change the IV.”
“Nate.”
The use of his first name stopped him.
“We are going to investigate what she reported.”
“You think she’s lying?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Marcus says she is.”
“I’m not investigating what Marcus says happened instead of what Celia says happened. I’m investigating what happened.”
Nate looked away.
A tissue box sat on the table.
He hated tissue boxes in rooms like this. They were an admission that the room had been designed for bad news.
Ortiz tapped her pen once.
“Did your wife ever express fear of Marcus?”
“No.”
The answer came too fast.
Ortiz waited.
Nate felt the muscles in his jaw tighten.
“She didn’t say she was afraid.”
“What did she say?”
He closed his eyes.
A week earlier, Leah had been standing at the kitchen counter scraping burned cheese from a baking sheet.
Marcus keeps calling me about the Northline files.
Nate had been opening mail.
So stop taking his calls.
You don’t think it’s weird?
Everything Marcus does is weird.
I’m serious.
So am I.
No, you’re deflecting.
He had laughed.
She had not.
Now, in the consultation room, Nate opened his eyes.
“She said he kept calling her.”
“About what?”
“Work.”
“What kind of work?”
“My wife was a financial compliance analyst.”
“For?”
“A defense contractor oversight office.”
Ortiz’s pen stopped.
“And your brother?”
“Logistics command.”
“Did their work overlap?”
“I don’t know.”
That was not true.
Nate saw Ortiz notice.
He corrected himself.
“I didn’t want to know.”
“That’s different.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Leah thought Marcus had pushed a contract through that didn’t make sense.”
“What contract?”
“Northline Response.”
“What do they do?”
“Emergency transportation. Equipment. Temporary facilities. Whatever the government pays them to do.”
“Your wife believed your brother did something illegal?”
“She never used that word.”
“What word did she use?”
Nate heard Leah again.
Rotten.
“She said it was rotten.”
Ortiz wrote the word down.
“What did you say?”
“That she was probably looking at one piece of something bigger.”
“Why?”
“Because Marcus told me that.”
The detective stopped writing.
For the first time, Nate wished she would.
Ben remained asleep through the afternoon.
Doctors would not tell Nate whether the extra medication in his system came from ordinary emergency treatment, a mistake, or something deliberate until they had records and laboratory results. They corrected what they could correct. They watched what needed watching.
Nate sat beside his son without touching the IV.
Every machine had become suspicious.
Every tube seemed like something a person could use for harm.
He hated that Marcus had done that to the room even before Nate knew whether Marcus had actually done anything.
At four fifteen, a hospital administrator told Nate that Celia Hart had been placed on administrative leave pending review.
Nate stared at the woman.
“She saved my son.”
“We don’t know that yet.”
“She reported someone tampering with his medication.”
“She also struck a visitor and armed herself with an emergency axe.”
“He shoved her.”
“That allegation is being reviewed.”
Nate laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
The administrator’s shoulders tightened.
“I understand you’re under extraordinary stress.”
“Don’t.”
She stopped.
He rubbed his eyes.
“Sorry.”
She nodded, though he could tell she had not forgiven him. He liked her better for it.
“What happens to her?”
“That depends on the investigation.”
“Can I speak to her?”
“Not right now.”
He looked through the glass at Ben.
“What about Marcus?”
“The police asked him to remain available.”
“Meaning?”
“He left.”
Nate turned around.
“He what?”
“He was not under arrest.”
The floor seemed to move beneath him again.
Ortiz answered on the second ring.
“He left the hospital?”
“Yes.”
“You let him leave?”
“We had no lawful basis to hold him.”
“He was standing over my son with—”
“With what?”
Nate stopped.
A nurse’s statement.
A bag not yet tested.
A boy’s half-conscious words.
Fear in Marcus’s face.
A lifetime of trust breaking so loudly that Nate mistook the sound for proof.
Ortiz’s voice softened, but not much.
“Do not go looking for him.”
“He’s my brother.”
“That is exactly why I said it.”
“He could go to my house.”
“Is there something there he wants?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then don’t go home.”
“My wife said he was calling her about files.”
“I have that in my notes.”
“My son said she hid something.”
“I have that too.”
“Then get a warrant.”
“That is not how this works.”
“I know how warrants work.”
“Then you know you don’t get one because a grieving husband tells a detective to get one.”
Nate stood beside the bed, looking at his sleeping son.
“I’m not just a grieving husband.”
“Today you are.”
He hated her for saying it.
Twenty minutes later, he admitted she was right.
Nate spent that night in a vinyl chair beside Ben.
He slept for eleven minutes at a time.
At 2:07 a.m., a nurse replaced an IV bag.
Nate stood up.
She glanced at him.
He sat back down.
At 3:18, Ben murmured something about a blue whale.
At 4:03, Nate went to the bathroom and discovered dried blood on the cuff of his uniform.
He did not know whose it was.
He washed the fabric in the sink with hand soap until the blue wool turned nearly black.
At 5:30, a nurse brought coffee.
He drank it cold at seven.
Ordinary life kept finding ways into the room.
A custodian complained quietly that somebody had stolen his good mop bucket again.
May you like
A pediatric resident sneezed six times in a row and apologized after each one.
A little girl in yellow socks walked past the open door dragging an IV pole decorated with stickers.
