Chapter 4 - Hidden Records
I reached over and snatched Graham's phone from his lap before he could press another button.
"Hey!" he snapped, turning toward me. "Claire, give that back."
I swiped the screen, looking at the queued commands. He hadn't just tried to pause the incident log; he was running a remote wipe protocol on the side-door security camera footage and attempting to flag the financial records associated with the green-roofed cabin for immediate archiving.
"You're trying to erase the paper trail," I said, setting the phone into my locked jacket pocket alongside my own. "While she is lying unconscious in the back of this vehicle."
"I'm trying to protect the resort, Claire!" Graham yelled over the engine roar. "If the state board of tourism or our equity investors see an unlogged, non-compliant residential setup on commercial timber land tied to corporate funds, it triggers a federal audit. We could lose the operational permit for the entire southern face of the mountain. Do you have any idea what that does to our valuation? It destroys everything we built!"
"We didn't build it together," I said, keeping my eyes fixed on the white out conditions ahead. "You built a front, and I maintained it."
We reached the upper garage of the lodge ten minutes later. Marta was waiting at the private service entrance with two senior medical technicians from Dr. Vance's private clinic. They moved with quiet efficiency, transferring Anna onto a mobile gurney, covering her with thermal wrap, and rolling her through the private elevator directly up to the restricted residential suite on the top floor.
Dr. Vance himself was standing in the corridor when we stepped out of the elevator. He was a tall man in his late fifties, wearing a tailored wool coat over medical scrubs. His face was unreadable as he looked at Graham, then at me.
"Claire," Vance said smoothly. "Graham called me earlier. We have everything under control. Anna's condition is stable; her blood pressure is returning to baseline, and we've administered intravenous fluids. This appears to be an accidental overdose of her anti-psychotic regimen combined with severe environmental exposure."
"An accidental overdose," I said. "Or her body built up tolerance while she was isolated in a cabin without electricity."
"We are running full blood panels now," Vance replied, his voice dropping into a professional, comforting tone. "I strongly advise that we keep this matter within our private medical network. Filing an external child welfare report tonight will bring county deputies up the mountain in a storm that has already closed state highways. It puts unnecessary stress on the children."
I looked down the hall. Suite 104's door was slightly open. Inside, I could see Marta sitting on the carpet with Lily, Ben, and Rose. Lily was carefully coloring a drawing of a horse with a box of crayons Marta had brought up from the gift shop. She looked peaceful, warm, and entirely unaware of the administrative war brewing fifty feet away.
"Dr. Vance," I said, walking toward him until I was standing inches away. "Did you write the prescription for the medication found on her nightstand?"
Vance hesitated for a fraction of a second. "I supervise her psychiatric care as a private consultant."
"Are you listed as her primary care physician on state medical records?"
"That is a complex regulatory question given her unique circumstances—"
"It's a simple yes or no," I interrupted. "Because if you are prescribing controlled substances off-grid to a woman living illegally on commercial property without submitting regular compliance checks to the regional board, you aren't practicing medicine, Dr. Vance. You are helping my husband cover up a secret family."
Vance's expression locked up. He looked at Graham, expecting a defense, but Graham remained silent, standing by the frosted window, staring out at the blizzard.
"I am going into my office," I announced. "I am pulling every financial transfer, every invoice, and every log associated with that cabin from the past five years. If anyone tries to access my server account or tamper with the security archives, the system is set to automatically mirror the entire database to our external legal counsel in Chicago."
"Claire, stop," Graham said, turning away from the window. "Let's talk about this privately in our quarters. Just the two of us."
May you like
"We are past private talks, Graham," I said. "You asked me to trust your business decisions for eight years while you built a ghost house three miles from our bedroom. Tonight, the ghosts came to the door."
I turned on my heel and walked toward the central administrative office, leaving Graham and Dr. Vance standing under the soft halogen lights of the empty corridor.
