Chapter 42: The Warning

 

The word requested kept changing shape in Elara's mind.

Requested a treatment. Requested an experiment. Requested that somebody stop.

Across the hospital corridor, Rhys held out his hand for her phone.

“Let me speak to Priya.”

Elara passed it over.

“Do we have the document,” he asked, “or only its title?”

“An index entry,” Priya said. “Brandt let me see a photograph of the recovered directory. The underlying file is encrypted.”

“Then we don't know what my mother signed,” Elara said.

“No,” Priya replied. “We don't even know whether she signed anything.”

Relief tried to rise in Elara's chest. She refused it. An accusation without evidence was not proof of innocence either.

“Find the original request,” she said. “Through Brandt. I don't want another photograph arriving from a stranger.”

When the call ended, Rhys remained beside her.

“You don't have to defend her to me.”

“I'm not defending her.” Elara looked at the intensive care doors. “I'm trying to learn what she did.”

He nodded once, as if he understood how much effort the distinction cost her.

 

By morning, the hospital café smelled of burnt espresso and wet wool. Elara had slept for twenty minutes with her head against Rhys's shoulder. She knew because he had marked the time when she woke and asked.

“You should have moved,” she told him.

“You looked comfortable.”

“Your arm must be numb.”

“It is.”

She almost smiled.

Then a news alert appeared on the television above the counter.

CALLOWAY HEIR LINKED TO FIRE AT PRIVATE MEDICAL ARCHIVE.

The footage showed Rhys outside Saint-Claire, his face rigid beneath the rain. An anonymous source alleged he had ordered the destruction of records connected to a family medical scandal.

Rhys's phone began ringing.

He silenced it.

“Someone is getting ahead of the investigation,” Elara said.

“Someone knows what the police recovered.”

“Or is afraid of what they might recover.”

He studied the screen. “The board will demand an explanation.”

“Give them one. Tell them you were searching for your medical records.”

“And let them ask why?”

“Then let them ask.”

He looked at her for a long moment. “You make honesty sound inexpensive.”

“No. I know exactly what it can cost.”

Her marriage to Julian had taught her that.

Rhys reached across the table but stopped short of touching her. Elara saw the hesitation and placed her hand over his. His fingers were cold. They stayed like that while the television repeated the accusation, her thumb resting against the scar across his knuckle. There was nothing she could do for the boy in the clinic. She could, at least, refuse to let the man face this alone.

 

Brandt arrived carrying a flat cardboard evidence folder. He waited until they were in an empty consultation room before opening it.

“The original application didn't survive the archive fire,” he said. “But one page was microfilmed off-site. We obtained a certified copy this morning.”

He placed it between them.

Elara's mother's name stood at the top: Lucille Quinn, consulting perfumer.

Below it was the heading that had appeared in the index.

REQUEST FOR INITIAL TREATMENT REVIEW.

Elara read it twice.

“Review,” she said. “Not treatment.”

Brandt nodded. “The directory shortened the heading.”

A small error. One missing word. Enough to turn a mother into a monster.

But farther down, Lucille had written in firm blue ink:

Patient exhibits sensory disturbance following administration of Compound V-17. Suspend further dosing pending independent analysis.

Rhys bent over the page.

“It predates my admission. How could that be me?”

“The patient identifier is redacted on this copy,” Brandt said. “We're petitioning for release of the complete record.”

Elara touched the corner of the paper.

“Why would someone ignore a warning like this?”

“Because stopping would mean admitting what they'd already done,” Rhys answered.

Brandt turned the page. “There's another problem. According to the hospital register, the review was marked resolved the next day.”

“Who resolved it?” Elara asked.

“The attending physician. Sebastian Vale.”

Rhys stood abruptly. His chair scraped across the floor.

“Then he knew.”

“He certainly received the warning,” Brandt said. “What he did with it is what I intend to establish.”

Elara examined the handwritten note again. In the margin, Lucille had drawn a tiny iris and three words.

Ask the mother.

“Sylvie Laurent,” Elara said.

Brandt looked up. “Who?”

“Gabriel's mother. If she was there, she might know which child Lucille was trying to save.”

Brandt's phone vibrated. He glanced at it, then went still.

“We've just located Sylvie Laurent,” he said.

“Where?” Rhys asked.

Brandt turned the screen toward them.

A recent security photograph showed a woman stepping out of a black car outside the hospital.

Behind her, holding the door, stood Julian Hart.