My index finger remained glued to the bottom right corner of the paper. I flattened the thick medical report against the steering wheel of my sedan. The dashboard dial cast a faint amber glow over the black ink.
Nine digits.
I traced each one, matching it against the patient ID I had recited to nurses for three weeks. The final number stared back at me. A seven.
Mine ended in an eight.
This wasn't my diagnosis.
I tossed the paper onto the passenger seat. Someone had gone through a lot of trouble to hand me a death sentence.
I shifted the car into drive and pulled out of the hospital parking lot. Three blocks down, the traffic light flared crimson. I hit the brakes, grabbed my phone from the console, and tapped a hidden folder icon.
A passcode prompt popped up. I typed the sequence and opened the gallery.
Four folders. Four names.
I tapped the first. A blonde girl named Chloe. She had accused me of skimming corporate funds two years ago. The next image was my counterstrike: a screenshot of her own bank routing numbers funneling cash to a shell company. I had printed it out and left it directly on her desk. She resigned by noon.
I swiped left. Number two. A brunette who claimed she was carrying Theo’s child. The adjacent photo showed the clinic receipt where I booked her a mandatory, supervised blood test. She vanished the next day without a forwarding address.
Swipe again. Number three wanted a payout to keep quiet about a hotel key card. My lawyer’s cease-and-desist letter sat right next to her tearful selfie.
Number four tried to leverage her bed sessions into a VP title. The final image in her folder was a signed HR transfer, shipping her to a freezing outpost in North Dakota.
I backed out to the main gallery and stared at the newest folder.
Sienna.
Five women. Four years.
The screen vibrated, replacing Sienna’s name with an incoming call from Priya. I pressed accept and put her on speaker.
"I got into the corporate lab system," Priya said, her voice dropping to a harsh whisper. "The sample transfer logs are right in front of me. Do you want me to run the query now?"
I glanced out the driver's side window. The glass reflected the neon blue letters of the Calloway building towering over the downtown skyline.
"Hold off," I told her.
"Hold off?" Priya repeated, the static crackling. "Lena, someone swapped your biopsy results. You’re holding a fake cancer diagnosis."
"I know."
"Then why are we waiting?"
"Because a dying person shouldn't be in more of a hurry than the person trying to kill her," I said.
Priya exhaled sharply through the speaker. "You're too calm. This is criminal fraud. Theo is trying to push you out so he can move Sienna in."
"Sienna is just a pawn," I replied, tapping my thumb against the steering wheel. "Theo doesn't have the clearance to alter oncology records at Memorial Hospital. He needs the board's approval for a bathroom break."
"So who pulled the strings?"
"Someone who thinks I'm an easy target," I answered.
"I just saw Margaret and Sienna at the hospital," I added.
"Margaret went to the oncology ward?" Priya asked, her tone spiking. "Why?"
"To announce my barrenness to the waiting room," I said. "And to demand I vacate the house for her new grandchild."
"She did that in public?"
"Margaret loves an audience."
"What did you do?"
"I gave Sienna my hot cocoa and told her to keep Theo."
Priya laughed, a sharp, metallic sound through the phone speaker. "You didn't."
"I did. They wanted a screaming match. I gave them apathy."
"Theo is going to lose his mind when he hears that."
"Theo is already losing his mind," I corrected. "He forged my signature on the lake-view apartment deed."
"He what?"
"One point eight million," I said. "Sienna practically bragged about it."
"Lena, you need to bring that report to the police right now."
"A police report gives them time to hire lawyers and obscure the trail," I said. "I want the source."
"Are you looking at the file?" Priya asked.
"I'm looking at my gallery," I said. "The encrypted one."
"The graveyard," Priya muttered. "Did you add Sienna?"
"She's folder number five."
"Remind me why you don't just leave him?"
"Leave him?" I asked. "And let him keep my clinical projects? Let him keep the company I built from the ground up?"
"You could start over."
"I shouldn't have to," I stated. "I gave four years to the Calloway family. I bled for those seventeen projects. Theo took the credit, and now he wants to take my assets. I'm not walking away empty-handed."
"You really think you can beat them at their own game?"
"I already have," I said. "Chloe thought she could steal funds and frame me. I left her banking details on her desk. The brunette demanded a million dollars. I booked her a blood test, and she ran."
"Right, and the fourth got shipped to North Dakota," Priya finished. "But Sienna is different, Lena. Margaret is backing her."
"Margaret backs anyone who tells her what she wants to hear," I said.
"Margaret hates you."
"The feeling is mutual."
"Sienna isn't backing down," Priya noted. "She posted a picture of a crib on her social media ten minutes ago."
"Let her buy furniture," I said. "It gives her something to do while we pull the real data."
"So what's the plan?"
"First, we find out who swapped my medical records," I said.
"Are you sure you don't want me to hit enter?" Priya asked. "I have the search parameters set. I just need to press one button, and we see exactly who authorized the sample swap."
The traffic light clicked from red to green. I kept my foot firmly on the brake pedal.
The sedan idling behind me laid on its horn.
"Run it," I said.
"Okay, scanning the authorization codes," Priya murmured.
I watched a pedestrian cross the street, his coat pulled tight against the wind. The horn behind me blared again, a long, aggressive sound. A man in the driver's seat waved his arms, shouting something I couldn't hear through the glass.
I didn't move.
"Anything?" I asked.
"The system is buffering," Priya said. "Give it a second."
"I have time."
Then, absolute silence on the line.
"Priya?" I asked.
The typing stopped completely. One second passed. Then two.
"Lena," Priya said, her voice entirely stripped of its previous urgency. "The person who pulled the records is Theo's mother."
I gripped the leather wheel.
"She walked into the lab half an hour ago," Priya finished.
