Chapter 7 - The Dead Doctor's Signature)
Noah spent the night at the hospital.
Doctors found bruising but no fractures or internal injuries.
Ethan sat beside the small hospital bed until sunrise.
Noah slept with one hand wrapped around Ethan's finger.
Rebecca arrived at six forty.
She did not ask how Ethan was.
She looked at Noah.
"Is he all right?"
"He will be."
"Beatrice?"
"Police questioned her."
"Arrested?"
"Not yet. The security camera only caught part of what happened."
"Nora witnessed it."
"Yes."
Rebecca sat beside him.
"What did Beatrice say about Olivia?"
Ethan told her.
Rebecca's expression changed.
"That's impossible."
"Why?"
"Olivia's procedure was investigated."
"By the hospital?"
"Yes."
"That isn't what I asked."
Rebecca understood.
She took out her phone.
"What was the doctor's name?"
"She didn't say."
Ethan looked toward Noah.
"I need Olivia's full medical file."
"We can request it."
"No. I need it now."
Rebecca studied him.
Then she nodded.
By noon, they had a copy.
Most of the pages looked ordinary to Ethan.
Rebecca called Dr. Hannah Price, a retired physician who had been Charles's longtime friend.
Hannah came to Rebecca's office that evening.
She read the file for nearly an hour.
Then she stopped at one page.
"There."
Ethan leaned over.
"Medication adjustment authorized by Dr. Peter Lowell."
Hannah looked at him.
"Peter Lowell died the previous year."
Ethan felt the room shrink.
"So Beatrice was telling the truth."
"About the signature, apparently."
"What medication was changed?"
"A blood thinner was continued when it should have been suspended."
"And that contributed to Olivia's rupture?"
"It could have."
"Could have?"
"I'm not going to give you certainty where there isn't any."
Ethan forced himself to breathe.
"Who entered the order?"
Hannah pointed to a staff identification code.
"Someone using this login."
Rebecca wrote it down.
"Can we identify the account?"
"The hospital can."
Ethan's phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered.
A man's voice spoke.
"Mr. Langley?"
"Yes."
"My name is Aaron Voss. I worked at St. Matthew's Hospital when your wife died."
Ethan stood.
"How did you get my number?"
"Your mother gave it to me."
Rebecca looked sharply at Ethan.
"Why?"
"Because she said if anything happened to her, you would start asking questions."
Ethan's skin went cold.
"What do you know?"
The man hesitated.
"I know the medication order in your wife's chart was altered."
"By whom?"
"I can't say over the phone."
"Then meet me."
Another pause.
"There is a diner on Route Nine near Kingston. Midnight."
"Why midnight?"
"Because I don't want anyone seeing us."
"Who are you afraid of?"
Aaron's answer was immediate.
"The same person Charles Langley was afraid of."
The call ended.
Rebecca shook her head.
"You are not going alone."
"I'm going."
"Then police go with you."
"If he sees police, he may disappear."
"Ethan."
"Rebecca, my wife may have been killed."
Across the office, Hannah quietly closed Olivia's medical file.
"No," she said.
Ethan looked at her.
Hannah's face was pale.
"What?"
She turned back several pages.
"I missed something."
She pointed to another entry.
The timestamp was 2:13 a.m.
Eight hours before Olivia's procedure.
An authorization had been entered removing a safety flag from her chart.
The user account belonged to a hospital administrator.
Aaron Voss.
Ethan stared at the name.
The same man who had just called him.
Rebecca whispered, "Don't meet him."
Ethan looked at his phone.
May you like
For the first time, he wondered whether Aaron Voss wanted to confess.
Or finish what Beatrice had started.
