Novels by Dessy Ana

A letter arrived at nine fourteen the next morning; it was not through Crestfield's communications director. It was from a firm I had not heard of before; my assistant brought it to me between my first and second patient. She set it on my desk without a word and left quickly as I finished my notes from the first patient before I picked it up.The letter was four pages, with aggressive and precise wording; every sentence was built to close a door, and every paragraph was designed to make the reader feel that every exit had already been considered and blocked before they thought to look for it.The foundation had entered a preliminary partnership process with Crestfield Institute. The preliminary partnership process constituted an agreement, and an agreement carried obligations. The foundation's dissolution notice represented a unilateral withdrawal without cause from those obligations. This withdrawal constituted a breach. Crestfield was reserving the right to pursue all available lega

I walked back to my office and closed the door behind me. I stood by the window for a long moment looking at the world outside; after a while, I sat down and opened my laptop.The documents from weeks ago are still there; I have not yet finished some of them. I opened a new file with the title "Terms of Dissolution" and started typing. “The Crestfield Institute submitted a partnership proposal to the Samuel Wesley Foundation on…” I stopped, deleted the line, and started again.“Crestfield approached the foundation under the representation of a shared pediatric healthcare mission.” This sounded better, so I kept going. I built it carefully, line by line. Finally, when I got to the twelfth page, I wrote, “Robert Hale served as senior vice president of Asian market development at Harfield Pharmaceuticals for twenty years.” I wrote about the governance review, the Southeast Asia hospitals, the patient data extraction, the managed departure, Crestfield, and clause fourteen.I placed the w

I called my lawyer while Adrian was still sitting across from me; she answered on the third ring.“Harfield Pharmaceuticals,” I said immediately. “I need everything on their Asian market strategy, pediatric research pipeline, governance reviews, leadership disputes, and anything connected to Robert Hale in the last five years.”I continued, "and pull the Crestfield counterproposal again, clause fourteen specifically. I want you reading it with Harfield in mind now.”My lawyer was quiet for some seconds. "How fast do you need this?” she asked finally“Yesterday,” I replied as I ended the call.Adrian hadn’t moved; he was still sitting across from me, his hands flat against the desk with Robert Hale’s circled name between us. He looked like a man who had been still for so long that movement itself had started to feel optional.“Adrian.” He looked up.“We are not sitting with this,” I said. “We are moving.”“Where do we start?” he asked.“The submission.” I stood, already gathering paper

“I don’t like this,” I said quietly. Adrian looked up from the page. “which part?” he asked He exhaled loudly. “Harfield,” he said, calling the name slower. “Yes.” I replied. Adrian was quiet for a while; I could see he was thinking “They are trying to build a pipeline" he said finally “With our patients,” I replied, watching as he tightened his jaw as he pulled the chair across from my desk toward him and took his seat. “I gave them the architecture,” he said, looking at the papers with Robert Hale’s name circled at the center like a target. “I gave them access to how everything worked.” His voice was flatter now. “Donor structures, intake flow, research sequencing, and expansion modeling." “I thought I was ahead of them," he laughed once. “They were studying us the entire time.” he said I said nothing as I watched him lean back slightly, then forward again almost immediately; he was restless, and I had never seen him this restless before. “No,” he said suddenly, more to hims

The last file was almost done; I had been at my desk since eight in the morning, and the sun is now up, the only reason I was still on this one task was because I wanted to see this one case till the very end before moving to the next; I received a call that there was an emergency I turned to the east wing, and Adrian was already there; he was in shirtsleeves,; he was not wearing a jacket, and he had a folder in his hand. “You are here." he said “Yes, I am," I replied as we both walked to the door; we met the registrar.“His name is Kofi,” the registrar said, already moving. "He is eight years old with respiratory distress on intake… we’ve stabilized him, but it’s not holding the way it should and there are neurological indicators that don’t… match.”I took the chart, and Adrian took the secondary data. “I don’t like this pattern,” I said, already scanning the chart.“Secondary data’s off,” Adrian replied. "Look at the neurological indicators.”“I see it.” I siad to him“It doesn’t

I made coffee at 5:43am. I was not able to sleep, and by 5:43am I gave up on sleep and decided to make some coffee. I sat at the kitchen table with my laptop open and Robert Hale’s document in front of me.I started cross-referencing and annotating line by line, and by 6:30, I had three pages of notes and a cup of coffee I hadn’t finished, with a little more clarity and context on Robert Hale, although the exhaustion was still there. I showered and got dressed for the day, glancing at the mirror one last time before picking up my bag and heading to the car. When I got to the foundation, I made three calls from the car park.I called my lawyer first. “Investigate the name Robert Hale,” I told her. “I need everything you can find, his board memberships, financials, litigation, and connections, in the next forty-eight hours.”“I’ll start this morning,” she repliedI called Dr. Warren next. “I need your honest assessment of a name,” I said. “Robert Hale.”“I know that name," he replied.“