A child's nose reveals a deadly hospital plot, tying a doctor's present crime to her father's past death at Ascension Medical.
My feet knew the rhythm of the hospital halls now. It was a dance I performed almost daily, a silent vigil. I had the journal, the annotated consent form. But I needed more. I needed official proof, something that couldn’t be dismissed as a grieving child’s fantasy or a sick man’s paranoia.
My chance came one afternoon. I was ostensibly helping Mom clean the waiting room on the research wing – the same wing where Dr. Finch had his office. I knew Dr. Reed often took her lunch break around then, sometimes walking through this area.
I saw her leave the staff cafeteria, a sandwich in one hand, a small medical chart in the other. I walked briskly towards the corridor she was heading down, timing it just right.
“Oh! Excuse me, Dr. Reed,” I said, pretending to stumble slightly as I rounded the corner.
She stopped, a concerned look on her face. “Anya? Are you alright?”
“Yes, just… lost in thought,” I said, trying to sound a little shy, a little distracted. “I was just wondering if… you ever get to see the old patient records. My dad’s, I mean.” I kept my voice low, glancing around.
Dr. Reed’s eyes, usually so kind, held a flicker of caution. “Those are usually handled by administration, Anya. Especially older ones.” She didn’t dismiss me entirely, though. Instead, she paused, considering her words. “You know, sometimes, in hospitals this big, certain details can get… overlooked.”
She leaned in slightly, her voice dropping. “It takes a very particular kind of person to notice those details. Someone diligent. Someone who isn’t afraid to ask, even if the person they’re asking seems… busy.” She straightened, took a bite of her sandwich, and then, almost as an afterthought, added, “Nurse Patel, for instance. She’s been on this research wing for years. Seen a lot. Sometimes she’s in the records office, late afternoon.”
A silent message passed between us. *Nurse Patel*. A hidden connection. Dr. Reed couldn’t say more, but she had given me a name, a direction.
“Thank you, Dr. Reed,” I said, a genuine smile touching my lips. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
Her gaze held mine for a moment longer, a faint, sad smile on her face. “Be careful, Anya,” she murmured, then continued on her way.
Nurse Maya Patel. I knew her. Young, always seemed a little nervous, rarely met anyone’s eyes. She was one of the nurses on Dr. Finch’s team, the one who looked like she carried the weight of the world on her shoulders.
I spent the next two days observing Nurse Patel. She was diligent, efficient, but always seemed to be rushing, looking over her shoulder. She seemed perpetually on the verge of exhaustion, or perhaps, fear.
On the third afternoon, I found her alone in a quiet alcove, filling out some paperwork. It was indeed late afternoon, as Dr. Reed had hinted.
I approached slowly, clutching my backpack straps. “Nurse Patel?”
She jumped, nearly dropping her pen. Her eyes, wide and apprehensive, fixed on me. “Anya! Oh, you startled me. What are you doing here?”
“I… I need to ask you something,” I began, my voice barely a whisper. I pulled out my father’s journal, just enough for her to see his handwriting, his notes. “It’s about my dad. Ivan Valerius. He was a patient here, with Dr. Finch.”
Her face paled. She glanced around nervously. “Anya, I… I can’t talk about patient cases. It’s against protocol.”
“I know,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. “But my dad… he wrote things. In his journal. About feeling more sedated than he should be. About Dr. Finch asking strange questions about his genes.” I pushed the journal a little closer. “And when I try to get his medical records from the patient portal, they say ‘archived research’ and ‘high-level clearance required’.”
She swallowed hard, her gaze darting from the journal to my face, then to the empty corridor. Her hands twisted together. “Anya, Dr. Finch… he’s very strict. He doesn’t like anyone asking questions about his research patients.”
“But my dad died,” I said, the words catching in my throat. “And now there’s another patient, Eleanor Caldwell. She smells like the same medicine that kept my dad asleep. And Dr. Finch was giving it to her.”
The unspoken accusation hung heavy in the air. Nurse Patel flinched. Her shoulders slumped. A long moment of silence passed, broken only by the distant beeping of a machine.
“I… I can’t get you his full records,” she finally said, her voice barely audible. “Not without clearance. But there’s… there’s a system. For internal review. It’s usually for audit, for specific departments.” She paused, her eyes filled with conflict. “It shows redacted versions. Just… enough for a department head to know what happened without seeing everything.”
“Could you… could you get me those?” I asked, my voice filled with a desperate hope. “Just to see if… if my dad was right? If something was wrong?”
She chewed on her lip, her gaze fixed on the journal. She saw the concern in my father’s notes, the faint desperation that still clung to the pages. The ethical conflict warring with her fear was clear on her face.
Finally, she nodded, a quick, almost imperceptible movement. “Okay. But you have to be very, very careful. And if anyone asks, you were just visiting your mom. You saw nothing.”
“I understand,” I whispered, my heart soaring.
She led me to a small, cramped office, mostly filled with filing cabinets. She motioned for me to sit on a rickety chair while she logged into a computer. Her fingers flew across the keyboard, entering a series of codes and passwords.
A new screen appeared, filled with what looked like medical charts. She typed my father’s name. A list of files popped up, many labeled “RESEARCH PROTOCOL IVAN V.”
“These are heavily redacted, Anya,” she warned, scrolling through. “You won’t see any doctor’s notes, no personal details beyond the basics. Most of Finch’s directives are blacked out. It’s just… the technical information.”
I nodded, my eyes glued to the screen. Even a glimpse, even a censored one, felt like a lifeline. She clicked open a file labeled “CONSENT FOR EXPERIMENTAL SEDATION PROTOCOL.”
Page after page scrolled by, riddled with black bars. Names, dates, specific dosages, diagnostic details – all gone, replaced by impenetrable black rectangles. It was infuriating, a deliberate attempt to hide information in plain sight.
But even through the heavy censorship, I could see the framework, the structure of the document. And I had my father’s personal copy. I knew what to look for. And I knew, in my gut, that the truth was in those hidden details.
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