Chapter 4 - THE BADGE WITH HER NAME ON IT
Callum had known Mara.
Not just known her.
He had authorized hospital access for her.
The card was three years old.
Why would the chief of surgery issue private access to the sister of a resident he had destroyed?
I photographed both badges.
Then I left the house at 6:00 the next morning while Callum was showering.
The address Mara sent me belonged to a small rehabilitation clinic forty minutes outside Chicago.
No Hawthorne Ridge logos.
No expensive lobby.
No donors’ wall.
A nurse led me to an office.
The woman inside stood when I entered.
Elise Vale.
I recognized her from residency photographs immediately.
She looked older.
Tired.
But nothing like the unstable physician described in Callum’s reports.
Mara sat beside her.
“You came,” she said.
I looked at Elise.
“Why didn’t you contact me yourself?”
“Because I didn’t know whether you were part of it.”
“Part of what?”
Elise opened a thick file.
“Northbridge.”
She explained that Hawthorne Ridge had entered a confidential partnership with Northbridge Surgical Technologies five years earlier.
The company wanted prestige.
The hospital wanted research money.
The surgical leadership wanted national recognition.
The V-17 trial was supposed to demonstrate that Northbridge’s robotic platform reduced complications.
Instead, early cases showed recurring mechanical alarms.
Temporary control freezes.
Sensor failures.
Most patients recovered.
Not all.
“I reported it,” Elise said.
“To Callum?”
“First.”
“What did he do?”
“He told me to wait.”
“For what?”
“For Northbridge engineers to review the devices.”
“That sounds reasonable.”
“It was.”
That answer surprised me.
Elise continued.
“At first, Callum agreed with me.”
I stared.
“What?”
“He wanted the trial paused.”
That changed something.
“So why did he threaten you?”
Elise looked toward Mara.
“Because three days later, the hospital CEO called him upstairs.”
“Who?”
“Julian Cross.”
I knew Julian.
He had attended our wedding.
He sent flowers when my mother died.
Elise continued.
“After that meeting, Callum changed.”
She showed me an email.
Callum to Northbridge:
Proceed with remaining cases. Internal concerns have been addressed.
“What happened in that meeting?”
“I don’t know.”
Mara answered.
“I do.”
She opened another file.
A photograph of Callum entering Julian Cross’s office.
Behind him was Northbridge’s CEO.
And a third man I recognized.
My husband’s older brother, Nathan Ashford.
I had not seen Nathan in nine years.
He and Callum supposedly stopped speaking after a family inheritance dispute.
“What was Nathan doing there?”
Mara’s expression hardened.
“Working for Northbridge.”
My chest tightened.
Nathan had never worked in medicine.
He was a corporate attorney.
Elise leaned forward.
“Callum didn’t bury the trial because he wanted a promotion.”
“What did he want?”
Mara answered:
“To protect his brother.”
I almost felt relief.
Then Elise said:
“That’s what I believed too.”
She slid another document toward me.
It was a Northbridge compensation schedule.
Recipient:
CALLUM ASHFORD CONSULTING LLC.
Total payments:
May you like
$2.4 million.
My husband had been taking money from the company whose surgical failures he helped hide.
