Chapter 4

By nine the next morning, I had wedged myself between a stroller and the clinic’s reception desk.

“Lock every chart under my licence number. No edits, no deletions, no new signatures.”

The receptionist kept one hand over her keyboard. Behind her, two staff members stopped sorting intake forms. Every chair was full, and three patients stood along the wall with clipboards against their chests.

Vanessa came through the staff door carrying a tray of labelled blood tubes. “You cannot block care because the Board contacted you.”

“You used my number on six hundred fourteen charts.” I took the tray from her and placed it inside the reception window, beyond the reach of a toddler pulling at his mother’s sleeve. “One patient died. Lock the records.”

A phone rose above the stroller. Its camera pointed at us.

Vanessa pulled a notice from beneath the counter and taped it beside reception. A photocopy of my white Board envelope filled the top half. The red certified-mail stripe crossed the page, and Daniel’s forwarding label sat under it in his slanted hand. Below it, bold type named me as the suspended signer.

“This woman is a disgruntled inactive nurse,” Vanessa told the lobby. “She is interfering with patient care.”

I reached across the counter and took the receptionist’s appointment clipboard. On the back, I wrote the time, the date, and the words REQUEST TO PRESERVE ALL RECORDS. I signed my name and held it toward the nearest staff member.

“Photograph this. Send it to every clinic account.”

The staff member looked at Vanessa instead.

“You are frightening sick people,” Vanessa said.

“No. You put my signature on their charts.” I faced the waiting patients and raised my voice. “If any of you received medication, treatment, or an assessment signed by Mara, ask for a complete copy before this clinic changes anything.”

More phones came up. A woman near the door lowered her clipboard and read my name from the notice.

Two security guards pushed through the crowd. I handed the clipboard to the woman before either guard reached me.

“Keep that in your video.”

One guard caught my elbow. I pulled free long enough to point at the reception computers. “Lock the audit logs. Preserve every login tied to my licence.”

They moved me through the door while Vanessa told the room appointments would continue. Outside, I planted my shoes against the curb until the guards released me. Through the glass, the woman still held my clipboard toward her camera.

Beside reception, the photocopied red stripe trembled in the clinic’s air-conditioning.