Chapter 3

I played the recording again. Then a third time.

Irina’s voice filled the safe room while rain hammered the roof. She listed dates, patient initials, Medicaid codes. She said Paul had a second billing ledger hidden in the clinic’s blue-tile surgical suite. She said he had forged her consent once before.

“He told me I was crazy,” Irina said. “Then he scheduled Emil for tomorrow. I found the card in his coat. I hid this recorder in Lina’s doll. Please, Nadia. Don’t let him cut our boy.”

Ben stood with his arms crossed, jaw tight. “Your sister was murdered.”

“I know,” I said.

Emil pulled the blanket up to his chin. “The blue-tile room has a table with straps. Daddy said I was bad for telling Mommy about the metal. He put a needle in my arm. When I woke up, my leg hurt.”

Lina nodded. “A nurse cried. She had yellow hair and a sticker that said Sarah. She gave me a juice box and told me to be brave.”

I looked at Ben. “I need into that clinic.”

Ben rubbed his face. “My sister works for the FBI in Portland. She’s not dirty. She’s been waiting for something solid on Kessler for two years. But if I call her now, we lose the evidence unless we already have it.”

“Then we get it tonight,” I said.

“You’re talking about breaking into a surgical pavilion,” Ben said. “If Paul catches you, you’re not just a felon with a record. You’re a kidnapper.”

“He killed my sister,” I said. “He cut open her son. I’m not asking permission.”

I called a dock contact who owed me from a salvage job in Warrenton. He ran night security at North Coast Surgical Pavilion. He didn’t ask why I needed the back door. He just said the camera loop was twelve minutes long.

At 8:00 p.m., I stood in the rain behind the clinic with a crowbar and my sister’s voice in my head.