Chapter 4 - The Midnight Audit
The third floor of the courthouse was dead silent at 1:15 AM. The only sound was the rhythmic, hollow slosh of Darlene’s mop against the green linoleum of the main corridor.
Claire stayed three paces behind the cleaning cart, wearing a pair of oversized gray scrubs Darlene had smuggled out of the county hospital supply room. Her heart was beating so loudly she was certain the security cameras at the end of the hall could hear it.
"Camera's on a four-minute sweep," Darlene whispered, her voice low and regular. "When it turns toward the elevator bank, we have ninety seconds before it rotates back toward the door of Room 304."
Room 304 was the small, windowless office used by Apex Medical Holdings for their municipal tax filings and corporate compliance records. It was a secondary location, chosen precisely because it didn't attract the attention of the state medical board.
Click.
The security camera at the far end of the hall groaned as its internal motor shifted its lens toward the elevators.
"Go," Darlene muttered.
She slid a brass master key into the lock of Room 304. The mechanism turned with a heavy, metallic thunk. Claire slipped through the narrow opening immediately, her back pressing against the wall as Darlene pulled the door shut behind her, remaining outside in the corridor with her mop to act as a lookout.
The office was cold and smelled of ozone from a small laser printer in the corner. There were no certificates on the wall, no anatomical models of the human brain, no signs of the high-tech neurology equipment Mark claimed was saving his life. There was only a metal desk, a filing cabinet, and a single desktop computer with a glowing blue power button.
Claire hurried to the desk. She didn't turn on the overhead lights; she used the small penlight she had brought from the library archive.
The computer screen was locked, requiring a password. Claire didn't waste time trying to guess it. She knew Mark’s habits too well—he used the same six-digit code for his voicemail, his locker at the old garage, and his original library card. It was his high school football jersey number combined with the year he graduated: 121996.
She typed the numbers into the prompt.
The screen blinked, and the desktop appeared. It was cluttered with PDF files and Excel spreadsheets. Claire inserted her thumb drive and began dragging files into the root folder with an urgency that made her fingers twitch against the mouse.
Northgate_Patient_Ledger_2025.xlsx Apex_Distribution_Logs_Q3.pdf Ridgeview_Capital_Collateral_List.csv
As the progress bar for the transfer crawled across the screen, Claire opened the ledger file to verify the contents. Her breath caught in her throat.
There were only three names listed under the patient registry for the entire year. One was an elderly man from the next town over who had died six months ago. The second was a fictitious name with a social security number that returned a zero-balance error.
The third name was Mark Bennett.
But under the column marked "Treatment Delivered," there were no entries for interferon, no steroid infusions, no neurological consultations. There was only a recurring monthly line item labeled: Partner Draw - Corporate Relocation Account.
Beside each entry was a confirmation number for a wire transfer to a bank in San Jose, Costa Rica.
Mark wasn't just stealing the loan money; he was hiding it off-shore, building a financial reservoir for a new life that didn't include a paralyzed mother or a wife who smelled of old paper and library paste.
A sudden, sharp knock rattled the glass pane of the office door.
Three short taps, then one long one. Darlene’s signal.
Claire looked at the computer screen. The transfer bar was at ninety-four percent. Ninety-five. Ninety-six.
"Come on," she whispered, her eyes burning from the blue light.
The sound of heavy boots echoed from the corridor outside, accompanied by the low rumble of a security guard’s walkie-talkie.
"Hey, Darlene," a male voice said through the door. "You’re late on this floor tonight. Everything okay?"
"Just clearing out the dust from the tax office, Greg," Darlene’s voice replied, loud and cheerful. "You know how those clerks leave their paper scraps. It’s a fire hazard."
Ninety-nine. One hundred.
Claire yanked the thumb drive from the USB port, shut down the monitor, and dropped down behind the metal desk just as the door handle began to jiggle from the outside.
"Is somebody in there?" the guard asked, his key chain rattling. "The light on the floor terminal just dipped."
"Probably just the automatic backup," Darlene said, her mop bucket squeaking loudly as she moved it directly in front of the door frame. "They run those scripts at midnight every Tuesday. Nearly gives me a fright every time the fans start up."
The handle stopped moving. "Alright. Well, don't stay up here too long. The storm's coming in from the valley, and the power grid’s been twitchy."
May you like
Claire waited until the sound of the boots faded down the stairs. When she finally climbed out from behind the desk, her face was white, but her hand was clenched tightly around the small plastic drive in her pocket.
She had the books. Now she needed the body.
