Chapter 9 - Someone at the Records Door
Security stopped Caroline before she passed the restricted entrance.
She claimed she was picking up documents that had been left for her years earlier.
The officer asked her to wait while her identity and authorization were checked.
She left before anyone reached her.
No documents were reported missing.
I listened to the report without interrupting.
"Do we have her on camera?" Daniel asked.
"Yes," the officer replied.
"Preserve the footage and the visitor log," I said.
"Do not confront her through my family."
Minutes later, Caroline called me again.
This time I answered with Daniel present and informed her that he was listening.
"Natalie, there's been a misunderstanding," she began.
"Then you can explain it to our counsel," I said.
Her tone sharpened.
"You're making enemies you can't afford."
Daniel took the phone.
"Please direct future communications to me."
She hung up.
I looked at the table for a long time after the call ended.
The girl who had once sorted patient files was now being threatened over the doors to those files.
Teresa interrupted my thoughts with a different kind of crisis.
Two nursing teams were running low on meals and overnight transport options.
The snow had worsened, and several employees could not safely drive home.
We activated lodging arrangements and extra food deliveries.
For the next hour I worked beside the same people who had been carrying boxes all week.
An exhausted records clerk named Jasmine handed me a pen.
"You used to do this job?" she asked.
"Every day for my first four years," I replied.
She smiled faintly.
"Then you know why I keep labeling everything twice."
"I do."
Her simple pride steadied me.
Later Erin texted that our mother had demanded a meeting with Matthew and a lawyer Victor recommended.
Matthew had refused.
Paula responded by threatening to tell the whole family he was ungrateful.
I read the exchange twice.
Then an unfamiliar number sent me a photograph.
It showed my father sitting across from Victor Hale in a restaurant.
May you like
The caption said, "Ask him what he signed."
