Chapter 5 - Patient Zero
Cynthia remembered the name because it had bothered her.
Seven corrupted orders had appeared in the medication system, but one patient number did not match the hospital’s standard format.
She had assumed it was a testing account.
Now she knew better.
“The name was Marianne Quinn.”
Ethan stared at his sister.
“That was Mom.”
Carter’s entire body went still.
Cynthia and Ethan’s mother had died twelve years earlier.
Officially, Marianne Quinn had been killed in a highway accident after finishing a night shift at another Boston hospital.
Cynthia had been eighteen.
Ethan had been four.
“She was a nurse too,” Cynthia whispered.
Carter looked at Luca.
“Find everything.”
Within an hour, the first pieces emerged.
Marianne Quinn had worked in the emergency department on the night Carter’s father, Anthony Moretti, died twenty-one years earlier.
She had been twenty-six.
She had treated Carter too.
Carter stared at the old staffing record.
A memory surfaced.
A woman holding pressure against his shoulder.
Soft brown hair.
A voice telling a terrified thirteen-year-old boy to count backward from one hundred.
Ninety-nine.
Ninety-eight.
Ninety-seven.
Carter looked at Cynthia.
“Your mother saved me.”
Cynthia swallowed.
“And nine years later she died.”
The room suddenly felt colder.
Luca uncovered more.
Marianne had filed a confidential report three days after Anthony Moretti’s death. The report concerned inconsistencies in the bullet wounds and an unidentified man who had entered the trauma bay pretending to be a physician.
The report disappeared.
Years later, Marianne began contacting a state investigator.
Then her brakes failed on Interstate 93.
Cynthia covered her mouth.
“My mother’s accident…”
“May not have been an accident,” Carter said.
Ethan stood so quickly his chair fell.
“No.”
“Ethan—”
“No!”
He backed toward the wall.
“All these years, Cynthia blamed herself.”
Carter looked at her.
Cynthia closed her eyes.
That night twelve years ago, Marianne had been scheduled to leave at seven.
Cynthia had called at 6:40 because Ethan had a fever.
Marianne stayed twenty minutes longer to arrange coverage before driving home.
For twelve years Cynthia had believed those twenty minutes put her mother on the highway at the wrong moment.
Now perhaps there had never been a wrong moment.
Someone had been waiting.
Ethan left the room.
Cynthia tried to follow.
Pain stopped her.
Carter caught her shoulder.
“Let him go.”
“He’s sixteen.”
“He’s angry.”
“He needs me.”
“He needs five minutes when nobody needs anything from him.”
Cynthia looked at Carter.
It was the first time she wondered what kind of boy Carter had been after his father died.
“Who raised you?”
“My uncle Salvatore.”
“Was he good to you?”
Carter looked away.
“He kept me alive.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
“No.”
Silence stretched between them.
Then Carter’s phone rang.
Luca.
He answered.
“What?”
Luca spoke for nearly a minute.
Carter’s face changed.
“Are you sure?”
He disconnected.
“What happened?” Cynthia asked.
“Vance wasn’t working alone.”
“That seems obvious.”
“No.”
Carter looked at her.
“I mean he wasn’t the person controlling the medication system.”
“Who was?”
“We don’t know yet. But the intrusion originated from an administrative terminal.”
“Which department?”
“The executive floor.”
Cynthia’s stomach tightened.
Only a handful of people had access.
Hospital president Malcolm Reed.
Chief medical officer Patricia Lowell.
Chief technology officer Evan Pike.
And one person Cynthia had trusted for six years.
Director of Nursing Helen Ward.
Helen had hired Cynthia.
Helen knew about Ethan.
Helen had personally arranged Cynthia’s schedule around his dialysis appointments.
“No,” Cynthia whispered.
Carter noticed.
“Who?”
“Helen.”
“Ward?”
“She wouldn’t.”
“Maybe she didn’t.”
Cynthia wanted desperately to believe that.
Then she remembered something.
The morning of the shooting, Helen had asked whether Cynthia kept copies of medication reports.
Cynthia had answered yes.
At the time it seemed like praise for thorough documentation.
Now it sounded different.
Carter saw understanding cross her face.
“What?”
“She knew.”
Before Cynthia could explain, Ethan rushed back into the room.
His face was white.
“My dialysis center called.”
“What happened?”
“They said my insurance authorization was canceled.”
Cynthia stared.
“That’s impossible.”
“It gets worse.”
He handed Carter his phone.
An email had arrived from an unknown account.
One sentence.
Stop looking into Marianne Quinn, or next time Ethan misses dialysis permanently.
Carter read it.
Something cold entered his eyes.
Cynthia reached for Ethan’s hand.
“No one touches him.”
Carter looked at her.
She expected rage.
Instead, he was terrifyingly calm.
“No one will.”
“How can you promise that?”
“Because from this moment forward, Ethan does not take a single step without people I trust.”
“I don’t want your criminal friends babysitting my brother.”
“Neither do I.”
That surprised her.
“Then what?”
“I have legitimate security.”
“Of course you do.”
“I also have a house outside the city.”
“I’m not hiding in your house.”
“They know where Ethan receives dialysis.”
Cynthia stopped.
Carter leaned closer.
“This is not about controlling you. It’s about keeping him alive long enough for us to understand what your mother discovered.”
Cynthia looked at Ethan.
He was trying to appear brave.
He looked sixteen.
Finally, she nodded.
“Temporary.”
“Temporary.”
“And I choose my own room.”
Carter blinked.
“What?”
“If I’m staying in some ridiculous mafia mansion, I choose my room.”
For the second time since the shooting, he smiled.
“Deal.”
The smile vanished when Luca entered.
“Boss.”
“What?”
“We found Vance.”
“Alive?”
Luca shook his head.
“Boston Harbor.”
Cynthia closed her eyes.
Carter asked the question she was afraid to ask.
May you like
“And Helen Ward?”
“Missing.”
