Chapter 6 - The First Witness.
.The federal agents did not raise their voices, and that made everyone else quieter.
Special Agent Daniel Ross introduced himself first.
Beside him stood NCIS Special Agent Mara Chen and a digital forensics technician named Paul Ivers.
Victoria’s attorneys immediately began objecting to questions no one had asked yet.
Ross ignored them.
He looked at Emma.
“Ms. Hale, do you want your mother present while we speak?”
“Yes.”
“Do you feel safe in this room?”
Emma looked at Victoria.
“No.”
That one answer changed the room.
Ross asked hospital security to remove Victoria, Crowe, and both attorneys from the patient-care area until administrators clarified who had lawful access.
Dr. Reeve did not argue this time.
Victoria did.
“You cannot remove me from a wing my foundation paid for.”
Ross gave her a calm look.
“A donation does not purchase custody of patients.”
Victoria’s face went rigid.
As security escorted her away, she turned to Emma.
“This can still be fixed.”
Emma recoiled.
Rebecca stepped into Victoria’s line of sight.
“No more private messages.”
Once the door closed, Agent Chen photographed the specimen cup containing the dark pills.
Lena Ortiz explained exactly where each pill had fallen and who had collected them.
Chen sealed the cup inside an evidence bag.
“You understand these results may not be immediate,” she told Emma.
Emma nodded.
Rebecca asked the question that had been bothering her.
“What about the phone?”
Ross had already seen Crowe carrying it through the hallway camera feed.
Hospital security was searching for him.
But Crowe had disappeared into a restricted service corridor.
“He knows this building,” Rebecca said.
Dr. Reeve looked embarrassed.
“He used to oversee executive security for the Mercer Foundation.”
“Used to?”
“He still consults here.”
Rebecca stared at him.
“Then he has access credentials.”
Reeve said nothing.
The answer was obvious.
Paul Ivers asked Emma whether the phone had biometric security.
“Yes.”
“Any chance Julian knows your passcode?”
Emma hesitated.
“He did.”
“Did you change it?”
“Two weeks ago.”
Ivers nodded.
“That helps.”
Then Lena quietly interrupted.
“There is someone you should talk to.”
Everyone turned toward her.
“A night nurse named Kayla Benton.”
Lena explained that Kayla had complained about unauthorized medication being brought to Emma’s room after midnight.
This morning, Kayla’s schedule had suddenly been changed.
“To what shift?” Chen asked.
Lena looked at the floor.
“None.”
“She was fired?”
“That’s what we were told.”
Dr. Reeve’s expression hardened.
“I did not authorize that.”
Lena pulled her own phone from her pocket.
“I messaged her before you arrived.”
A reply had just come in.
Kayla was sitting in her car two blocks from the hospital.
She was afraid to come inside.
Ross sent an agent to meet her.
Twenty minutes later, Kayla entered through a side door.
She was twenty-seven, exhausted, and holding a folded sheet of paper with both hands.
She looked at Emma first.
“I’m sorry.”
Emma frowned.
“For what?”
“I should have called someone sooner.”
Kayla unfolded the paper.
It was a medication administration record she had printed before her account was disabled.
Three entries had been added under her employee ID.
Kayla pointed at them.
“I never gave these.”
Agent Chen read the names of the medications.
One was a sedative.
One was an anti-anxiety medication.
The third was not listed by name.
It was marked only as COMPOUND M-17.
Rebecca looked at Emma.
May you like
Emma had gone completely still.
“That’s what Victoria called the pills,” she whispered.
