Chapter 7 - The Wrong Bracelet
Priya looked at my wrist.
Then she looked again.
“Emily, when did they replace your ID bracelet?”
I glanced down.
The white band showed my name and birth date.
“I don’t know. A nurse changed it after lunch because the first one was smudged.”
Priya scanned the barcode.
The computer beeped red.
She scanned it again.
“Take that off her.”
My pulse jumped. “Why?”
“That bracelet is linked to another patient.”
Grant stepped closer. “Who?”
Priya read the screen.
“Patient name: Hannah Hart.”
Nobody spoke.
I had never heard that name.
Grant had.
His face crumpled.
“Hannah was my sister.”
I turned toward him.
“You told me you were an only child.”
“I was, after I was twelve.”
Raymond’s voice sharpened. “What happened to her?”
Grant looked at the bracelet like it had crawled out of a grave.
“She died at St. Catherine.”
The room went cold.
“When?” I asked.
“Twenty-three years ago. She was seventeen.”
“What happened?”
Grant rubbed his jaw.
“They said she overdosed.”
“On what?”
“I don’t know. My mother refused to talk about it.”
Raymond was already on the phone.
“Denise, pull the archived record for Hannah Hart, date of birth…”
Grant gave it to him.
Priya removed the incorrect bracelet and sealed it.
I stared at the name.
Someone had deliberately attached a dead girl’s identity to a pregnant patient.
Why?
The answer arrived fifteen minutes later.
Denise came back carrying a scanned chart on a tablet.
“Hannah Hart was admitted here at seventeen after collapsing at home.”
Grant stepped beside her.
“Was it an overdose?”
Denise scrolled.
“The official discharge summary says accidental sedative toxicity.”
“Discharge?” I said.
“She died.”
“I know.” Denise swallowed. “That’s the problem. The final record was edited after her death.”
Raymond leaned over the screen.
“By whom?”
Denise enlarged the audit signature.
It was old enough to predate modern logins, but the name was clear.
Dr. Samuel Pierce.
Grant looked at Nolan Pierce through the glass wall across the hall.
“Nolan’s father?”
Denise nodded.
Then another line appeared in Hannah’s file.
Emergency contact: Evelyn Morton Hart.
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And beneath it, handwritten in fading ink:
MOTHER REFUSES POLICE NOTIFICATION.
