Chapter 6 - THE CALL RUBY KEPT
“Disconnect the system,” Santiago said.
“Our technician already did. He’s preserving what’s left.”
“Can he recover it?”
“Some. We need someone who handles evidence.”
Santiago stared at the dark hallway.
His first instinct was to send men to Hale’s office.
His second was worse.
Then he looked through Sophia’s open door.
She was asleep with the lamp on.
“Call a lawyer,” he said.
Tomas sounded surprised.
“One outside the family.”
By morning, attorney Nora Ellis had arrived with a digital evidence specialist.
She listened without interruption.
Then she looked directly at Santiago.
“If you want this investigated, you don’t threaten witnesses, seize records, or send employees to interrogate anyone.”
“He’s erasing my sister’s history.”
“Then give investigators evidence they can use.”
Ruby sat beside the fireplace, clasping a mug she hadn’t touched.
Nora turned toward her.
“What do you have from your daughter’s case?”
“Denial letters. Some records. My complaint.”
“Anything you never submitted?”
Ruby’s face changed.
“There was a voicemail.”
Santiago looked at her.
“From who?”
“An overnight nurse. Marianne Cole.”
“Why didn’t you submit it?”
“I did. My lawyer said it raised questions but didn’t prove what happened. The nurse wouldn’t speak to him afterward.”
“Do you still have it?”
Ruby nodded.
She took out an old phone with a cracked case.
The recording was brief.
“Ms. Brennan, it’s Marianne. I need you to call me before you sign anything else. The medication page in Emma’s chart isn’t the page I saw during my shift.”
A pause.
Then a door closing in the background.
“Please use my personal number.”
Ruby pressed stop.
“I called twelve times. Her number was disconnected two days later.”
Nora asked permission to preserve the recording.
Ruby handed her the phone.
“I signed what they put in front of me that night,” she said. “They told me it confirmed what I’d given Emma at home. Later there was another section above my name.”
Her voice broke.
“I kept thinking I should have read harder. Stayed awake. Asked one more question.”
Santiago said nothing.
For once, he understood that silence could be kinder than an answer.
Nora wrote down the nurse’s name.
That afternoon, Ruby returned to her apartment for the paperwork.
Tomas drove her.
The apartment door was closed.
The lock had not been damaged.
May you like
But inside, every drawer stood open.
And Emma’s photograph lay facedown on the floor.
