Chapter 13 - TWENTY-FIVE MINUTESHis name was Dr. Malcolm Reed.
He had been one of the most respected cardiac surgeons in Chicago.
He retired eighteen months after Claire died.
Then disappeared from public medicine.
I remembered liking him.
That bothered me.
People expect betrayal to announce itself.
Usually it shakes your hand first.
Emily read every page we could legally obtain.
Dr. Reed had performed Claire’s operation.
But the twenty-five-minute period before her death had been overseen by a fellow named Dr. Sara Lin.
We found her in Oregon.
She was now an emergency physician.
Brooks contacted her.
Lin refused to speak.
That lasted twelve hours.
Then she called Emily directly.
“Are you alone?” she asked.
Emily put the phone on speaker only after receiving permission.
“No.”
“Is Marcus there?”
“Yes.”
Long silence.
“I always wondered if he knew.”
My pulse changed.
“Knew what?”
Sara Lin exhaled.
“Claire was unstable before surgery.”
Emily and I exchanged a glance.
“How unstable?” Emily asked.
“More than the operative note suggested.”
I leaned toward the phone.
“Why wasn’t I told?”
“You were told she was high-risk.”
“That is not what I asked.”
Emily touched my arm.
I forced my voice lower.
Sara continued.
“Her labs worsened that evening.”
“The troponin?”
Silence.
“You found it.”
“Yes.”
“Then you know.”
“No,” Emily said. “We know a number. Tell us what happened.”
Sara’s voice became quieter.
“The surgery had been scheduled for the following morning.”
I remembered.
Claire had gone into the operating room at 10:20 p.m.
I had always believed the team accelerated surgery because her rhythm deteriorated suddenly.
Sara said:
“It wasn’t sudden.”
My skin went cold.
“Then why did they wait?”
“They were waiting for Reed.”
“What do you mean?”
“Dr. Reed wasn’t in the hospital.”
I stood.
Emily gave me a warning look.
I sat again.
“Where was he?”
“I don’t know.”
“He was the surgeon.”
“Yes.”
“Claire was deteriorating.”
“Yes.”
“And nobody called another surgeon?”
“We did.”
“Who?”
“The on-call attending.”
“What happened?”
Sara stopped speaking.
Brooks leaned closer.
“Sara.”
“He was told Reed was on his way.”
“How long?”
“Almost two hours.”
The room went silent.
My wife had been getting worse while a hospital waited for one specific man.
“Why?”
“Because Claire was high-profile.”
I almost laughed.
It came out wrong.
“They delayed emergency care because I was rich?”
“Because Reed was the hospital’s star surgeon. He had personally promised you he would handle the case.”
I remembered that promise.
I had liked it.
Demanded it, probably.
The best.
Always the best.
Emily asked, “When did Reed arrive?”
“9:58.”
Twenty-two minutes before surgery.
“And Claire?”
“By then she was much worse.”
My hands went numb.
“Would earlier intervention have saved her?”
Sara answered carefully.
“I cannot tell you that.”
“Could it have?”
“Possibly.”
Possibly.
I hated that word again.
Sara continued.
“But that isn’t why I refused to speak.”
Emily’s expression sharpened.
“What is?”
“Claire woke briefly after surgery.”
I stopped breathing.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“I was there.”
“Not for this.”
My memory fought back.
Machines.
Alarms.
Someone telling me to wait in the hall.
Seven minutes.
Maybe eight.
“What happened?”
Sara’s voice cracked.
“She asked for you.”
My chest hurt.
“Why wasn’t I brought in?”
“Because Reed was talking to her.”
“What did she say?”
“I couldn’t hear everything.”
“Tell me what you heard.”
Sara hesitated.
Then:
“She told him, ‘Don’t let Marcus destroy that nurse.’”
Emily looked at me.
Brooks became very still.
“What nurse?”
“I didn’t know then.”
“And now?”
Sara whispered:
“Her name was Evelyn Hart.”
The name meant nothing to me.
But Brooks was already typing.
Thirty seconds later, she looked up.
“Evelyn Hart was disciplined the night Claire died.”
“For what?”
“Unauthorized escalation of care.”
Emily frowned.
“That doesn’t make sense.”
It did to Brooks.
“She called another surgeon.”
Sara Lin started crying.
“She was the one who tried to get Claire into surgery earlier.”
May you like
And suddenly we had our first person who might have tried to save my wife.
A nurse the hospital had punished for doing it.
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