Chương 6
“Don’t enjoy it.”
“I wasn’t.”
Maria handed them another document.
St. Vincent had responded to the preservation notice through outside counsel. The letter was careful and neutral. The hospital stated that it took historical patient concerns seriously and was conducting an internal search.
Rachel laughed once.
“There it is.”
“What?” Ethan asked.
“The sentence.”
“What sentence?”
“‘We take concerns seriously.’ Every institution owns one.”
Maria did not smile.
“They’ve asked what specific categories of records we seek.”
“Everything,” Rachel said.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because ‘everything’ is how you spend six months fighting over scope.”
Ethan read the hospital letter.
A name at the bottom caught his attention.
Thomas Keene.
He knew it.
Not personally.
Keene had been general counsel for a healthcare network Ethan’s consulting firm had advised three years earlier.
His stomach tightened.
“I know their lawyer.”
Rachel’s head turned.
“How?”
“Professional overlap.”
“How much?”
“Not much.”
“How much, Ethan?”
“I was on a technology modernization project. Keene sat in two steering meetings.”
“Did you ever discuss St. Vincent?”
“No.”
“Did you discuss patient records?”
“Not these records.”
“That is not what I asked.”
Maria intervened.
“What was the project?”
“Data migration. Billing, scheduling, archived clinical systems.”
Rachel stared at him.
“You worked on their records?”
“Not St. Vincent specifically.”
“The same network?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Three years ago.”
“You never told me?”
“Our daughter had been dead for eight years.”
Rachel recoiled slightly.
Ethan heard the sentence after he said it.
Maria looked down at her legal pad.
“Poor phrasing,” Ethan said.
Rachel stood.
“Rachel.”
“I’m getting air.”
“Stay.”
“No.”
She left.
Ethan rubbed both hands over his face.
Maria waited.
Finally she said, “You two have a remarkable ability to injure each other using accurate information.”
“I’m aware.”
“Were you personally involved in archival deletion decisions?”
“No.”
“Retention policy?”
“Only technical implementation. We migrated what legal and compliance designated.”
“Could your team have moved legacy St. Vincent data?”
“Possibly.”
“Could you identify systems or vendors used at the time?”
“Yes.”
Maria wrote something.
Ethan stared at the closed door.
“I didn’t know.”
“I didn’t accuse you.”
“She will.”
“Maybe.”
“She should.”
Maria put down her pen.
“Why?”
“Because she spent years asking whether records were missing, and I later worked for the organization that may have had them.”
“Did you know that when you accepted the engagement?”
“No.”
“Did you hide anything from her?”
“No.”
“Then guilt is not evidence either.”
He looked at Maria.
“That sounds like something you say often.”
“It pays the rent.”
Rachel returned five minutes later.
She sat without removing her coat.
Ethan said, “I can help identify where older records might have gone.”
“I figured.”
“I’m not asking you to be grateful.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
Maria cleared her throat.
“Good. We’re all emotionally prepared.”
The first genuine break came nine days later.
A former St. Vincent database administrator named Samuel Ortiz agreed to speak with Maria.
He remembered the 2015 neonatal transfer incident because Judith Vance had submitted an unusual request to reopen two patient identity records after one had already been marked deceased.
Samuel had refused.
“I told her identity merges were permanent enough that I wanted written approval,” he said during a video call.
Ethan and Rachel sat beside Maria, out of frame.
Samuel was sixty-two and appeared more irritated by old software than by old wrongdoing.
“She sent approval,” Maria said.
“She sent something.”
“What do you mean?”
“An email from Reeve. Said it was a duplicate registration.”
“Was it?”
“System said no.”
“What happened?”
“I locked both accounts pending compliance review.”
“And then?”
“I came in Monday and the lock was gone.”
“Who could remove it?”
“Security admin.”
“Who?”
“Back then? Me, two guys in IT, compliance director.”
“Judith Vance?”
“She had emergency override authority.”
Rachel’s fingernails pressed into her palm.
Maria asked, “Did you preserve logs?”
“System did.”
“Where are they?”
Samuel shrugged.
“Eleven years later? Ask God.”
Ethan spoke before Maria could stop him.
“Were those logs included in the Atlas migration?”
Samuel peered at the screen.
“Who said that?”
Ethan leaned into view.
“Ethan Walker.”
Samuel stared at him.
“Walker?”
“Yes.”
A long silence followed.
Samuel removed his glasses.
“You’re that Walker?”
Rachel’s breathing changed.
Maria said, “Mr. Ortiz, what do you mean?”
Samuel looked uncomfortable.
“I thought that name sounded familiar.”
“From what?”
“Judith’s request.”
“You said the patient records were under infant identifiers.”
“They were.”
“Then why Walker?”
Samuel looked offscreen.
“I need to find something.”
He disappeared for nearly two minutes.
When he returned, he held an old spiral notebook.
“I kept work notes. Bad habit. Saved my career twice.”
He flipped through pages.
“February sixteen, 2015.”
Ethan’s hands were cold.
Samuel read.
“Vance says father signed acknowledgment. No notification needed.”
Rachel slowly turned toward Ethan.
He did not move.
Maria said, “Acknowledgment of what?”
Samuel shook his head.
“Doesn’t say.”
Rachel stood so fast her chair rolled backward.
“What did you sign?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do.”
“I signed several things.”
“You signed something they used to decide not to tell us.”
“I didn’t know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because I didn’t.”
Maria muted the call.
“Both of you stop.”
Rachel ignored her.
“You signed a statement after the transfer.”
“A witness statement.”
“How do you know?”
“Because that is what they told me it was.”
“And you never read it?”
“I read what was in front of me.”
“Then what did it say?”
“That I did not observe anybody deliberately remove an identification band.”
“Anything else?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Try harder.”
“I had a dead child.”
“So did I.”
The words cut through the room.
Ethan went silent.
Rachel’s eyes filled, but she did not cry.
“So did I,” she repeated quietly. “Except apparently maybe I didn’t, and you signed something while I was sedated that helped people decide I didn’t need to know.”
Ethan stood.
“I am not defending that.”
May you like
“You are always defending it. You defend first and apologize later.”
“What do you want me to do?”
