The drive to Ridgeway took thirty-eight minutes on average. I knew every light, every lane change, every moment when traffic would slow or open up. I had a playlist for the morning commute—Cardi B, Megan Thee Stallion, some Beyoncé when I needed to feel unstoppable.
By the time I pulled into my assigned spot in the employee garage, I’d already run through several songs and scenarios.
Best case: the Hart family was just looking for answers. We could provide them with transparency and compassion.
Worst case: the family was looking for someone to blame, and the hospital was already deciding who that someone would be.
Dr. Cole Vaughn’s face flashed in my head like a blinking cursor.
I breezed through the employee entrance, taking the stairs to the fourth floor. The elevator was faster, but I liked the stairs. I got my steps in and it gave me time to shift from Harper-at-home to Harper-at-work.
Rowan was at their desk outside my office, short fade freshly lined, their usual uniform black button-down shirt and black slacks crisp against reddish brown skin. A silver wedding band caught the light as their fingers moved quickly across the low-profile keyboard.
They glanced up when I stepped out, already tracking me. A file folder was centered on the desk.
“Morning,” they said, standing to hand me the file. “This is as complete as I can get it. An electronic copy is already in your inbox so you can bring it up on your iPad.”
I took the folder and walked into my office, smiling over my shoulder when I noticed the mug of coffee waiting.
“You’ve got to stop spoiling me. Got me smiling in the morning and shit.” I dropped my bag, then slid into my chair. “Anything pertinent since we talked earlier?”
“The patient’s name was Earl Thomas Greene,” Rowan read from the summary page. “Mr. Greene was a long-term resident at Brookside Assisted Living. The facility called 911 when they found him collapsed in his room. ER ran the protocol, did an ultrasound, found an aneurysm, and transferred to surgery. Next of kin is listed as Diane, his granddaughter. She’s married to a Hart?—”
“So he’s not wealthy, but his granddaughter’s husband is?”
“Correct.”
“Brookside isn’t where I’d put my grandfather,” I mused. “Families don’t take care of each other like they used to, do they?So Diane is saying we moved on her behalf without her consent? How long until she was informed of his death?”
“The facility says they called her when they found Mr. Greene in his room. She’d been out of town and was hard to reach. Then RMC notified her to call the ER when he was transferred to surgery, then again upon his passing, but it was four hours before anyone spoke with her.”
“Four hours? She’s throwing a fit and it took her four hours to call someone back?”
In a hospital, that could be a lifetime or an eye blink depending on the patient, the injury, the intervention. And whether someone was pushing for aggressive treatment or letting nature take its course.
I tabbed through the file. Mr. Greene had been seen at the ER quite a few times in the past few months. “His history sounds like he was at end of life. He was in his eighties. So she’s saying what, exactly?”
“That nobody gave her a chance to be involved with his care, that her grandfather died alone because the hospital was in a hurry to cut somebody open.”
“Now what kind of ridiculous bullsh?—”
I paused, biting my tongue. My opinion had no place here. But I was frustrated because that narrative would drive everything from this point forward.
Hart family money meant the cause of Earl’s death would be attributed to everything but him being an old man that died when his body gave out. They would dig deep, looking for medical error or malpractice or abandonment.
These kinds of claims made juries angry and hospital boards panic.
“What’s the documentation look like?” I asked.
“It passed post mortem review.”
“Hmm. Well, that’s good.” I scrolled through the file, flipping through the color-coded flags Rowan had already applied: yellow for missing information, orange for vague language. Red for timeline gaps that could raise questions.
“So, why is this case my problem?” I asked.
“Officially, because you’re the best at what you do.” Rowan stopped to smirk. “Unofficially? Probably because Diane Hart is Black and so is the surgeon.”
My eyes rolled at that. I suppressed a heavy sigh. “When being a competent Black woman bites you in the ass,” I said, reaching for the mug of coffee. “Let me read through this. I need you to rearrange my morning. Nothing new unless it’s urgent. This is going to be a…well, you know.”
