Chapter 3 - The Witness
The morning shift change was our window. At 7:00 a.m., the floor would be chaotic, the handover of patients providing the perfect cover.
I had one more person to find: Maya Collins.
Maya was an administrator, and in this hospital, administrators were usually insulated from the ward floor. I found her personal contact information in the HR database—a dangerous breach of my own, but necessary. I stepped into the stairwell, the heavy fire door clicking shut behind me, and dialed the number.
The phone rang three times before a sleepy voice answered. "Hello?"
"Maya? This is Rachel from Postpartum. I’m sorry to wake you, but I need to ask you something. You’re on vacation, right?"
"Rachel? Yeah, I'm in Cabo. Why?"
"There is a consent form in our system, signed yesterday, witnessed by you. You didn't witness it, did you?"
Silence. A long, heavy silence that spoke volumes.
"I... I didn't," Maya whispered, her voice trembling. "Rachel, last month, Mark Dawson came to my office. He told me he was doing a philanthropic project for the hospital, a digital upgrade. He asked for my login credentials to 'streamline' some administrative processes. He said it was approved by the board."
"Did you give them to him?"
"He said it was fine, that he’d handle the paperwork. I thought he was just a wealthy donor helping out. Oh my god, did he use my account for something illegal?"
"He used it to sign a forced sterilization," I said, the words tasting like copper in my mouth.
"I'm coming back," Maya said, her voice turning from fear to cold fury. "I'm calling the ethics board. And I’m calling the police."
"Not yet," I warned. "If he knows we're on to him, he’ll destroy the records. We need to get Claire out of here first. He’s planning to move her to a private clinic in an hour."
I hung up and rushed back to 418. Claire was dressed, her clothes hiding the surgical incision, her face pale but resolute.
"He’s in the lobby," Claire said, pointing to the window overlooking the drop-off zone. A black sedan was idling by the entrance.
"We don't go through the lobby," I said. "We go through the loading dock. I’ve alerted the ambulance transfer team. They think you're being moved to a specialist center for a complication. It’s a forged transfer order, but it’ll get us past security."
May you like
"And if he stops us?"
"Then we tell him," I said. "We tell him we have the logs, the witness, and the proof of his fraud. We let him know the choice is between letting us walk out or facing a criminal investigation that will end his career."
