Page 82 of Override

"It would've been..." She frowns to herself. "...maybe eight weeks ago." She shakes her head immediately. "I don't know why I said that."

"You didn't." I give her my best Wheels smile. The one he says makes all the ladies forgive anything he has done.

She exhales quietly. "And..." Another pause. "...if she came back..." She closes her eyes for a second. "...I'd guess it was about two weeks ago."

Silence settles between us. She already knows she's said too much.

I already know she's said exactly enough. "Thank you."

She doesn't answer. Just watches me walk out the door.

The truck is still cool from the air conditioning when I climb inside, but it doesn't do a damn thing to slow the heat crawling beneath my skin.

I set the laptop on the passenger seat and stare through the windshield for a long moment.

Eight weeks ago. Then again two weeks ago. Same clinic. No name. Just two dates. A receptionist trying to protect a patient had just handed me the only breadcrumbs I needed.

"Let's see what you've been hiding."

The hospital's patient portal isn't the problem. It's the health information exchange sitting quietly behind it. Every visit. Every imaging study. Every discharge summary. Every provider note. Built to let physicians see the whole picture when a patient couldn't tell it themselves.

Unfortunately for the people protecting Maeve...The system assumes everyone accessing it belongs there.

My fingers move across the keyboard. One login becomes another. A forgotten administrator account. An outdated authentication token. The exchange opens without so much as asking permission.

Good.

I don't search for Maeve. I search the only thing I know.

Mary Collins.

Hundreds of results populate the screen. Different women. Different birthdays. Different states. I narrow it.

Illinois. Female. First encounter eight weeks ago. Follow-up encounter two weeks ago.

The list drops from hundreds...to seventeen.

Still too many. I keep refining. Approximate age. Height. Cash pay. No primary care physician attached.

The cursor spins. Then stops. One patient. One chart.

I click it. The driver's license photo loads first.

Maeve.

A slow breath leaves my lungs before I even realize I've been holding it.

"...Jesus."

I open the chart. The first encounter. Forearm contusion. Patient states she slipped while carrying laundry. No fracture. Discharged home. The next visit. Scalp laceration. Four staples. Patient reports striking head on an open cabinet door. The physician notes she'd avoided eye contact throughout the exam. Something in my jaw locks. Next chart. Rib pain. Negative for displaced fracture. Patient states she fell down exterior steps. Provider documents bruising in multiple stages of healing. Next. Sprained wrist. Kitchen accident. Next. Facial swelling. Walked into a door. Next. Shoulder injury. Lost her footing in the garage.

The excuses change. The injuries don't. Every provider accepts the explanation. Every visit stands alone. No one realizes they're looking at the same woman because every record sits under a different county. Different clinics. Different identities.

One victim.

I lean back against the seat, staring at the screen while something cold and violent settles into the center of my chest. This wasn't carelessness. It wasn't bad luck. It was methodical.

Someone had spent months making sure no one physician ever saw enough of the truth to ask the right questions.