And the rot inside this place wasn’t hiding anymore.
It wasspreading.
CHAPTER 43
AVA - HACKED
It started small.
A missing intake form.
A strange look from a client who didn’t return the next week.
A question that didn’t make sense.
“Why did the officer say you’d call back?”
What officer?
I didn’t think much of it the first time.
Or the second.
But by the third?
I knew.
Something was wrong.
February had settled in heavy this year, like a weight pressing down on the city. Salt-streaked sidewalks. Gray skies that never really lightened. A kind of damp cold that clung under your skin and left you raw. People walked faster this time of year, heads ducked, breath clouding in short bursts, like everyone was just trying to make it through winter without freezing or falling apart.
Me included.
Valentine’s displays had exploded and just as quickly disappeared in every shop window red and pink hearts everywhere, an inescapable reminder of everything I’d lost. Every chocolate box, every couple walking hand-in-hand past the clinic, felt like a paper cut I couldn’t stop reopening.
I had never been so happy to be at the end of a month, to be away from a holiday.
I hadn’t seen Harlan since January.
Not once.
I’d made sure of it.
He still called sometimes, and I still ignored it.
When one of my patients had a follow-up at the precinct last week, I sent Remi instead. I couldn’t set foot in that building. Couldn’t risk turning a corner and seeing him standing there like nothing had shattered between us.
So, I worked.
Remi had her hands full with new patients and outreach follow-ups, so I handled the scheduling, the files, and the grant updates. The work was always heavy, but we liked it that way. Busy meant we were making a dent. Helping people.
Busy meant I wasn’t thinking about him.
But then the cracks started forming faster than I could patch them.
We got an email from the state board flagging one of our grant files for irregularities, one I’d submitted three weeks ago. Except… that wasn’t the version I submitted.
The dollar amounts were wrong. The language had changed. And there was a line item we never included:Private Transport & Discretionary Service Costs.
