Chapter Seventeen Jenn
Chapter Seventeen
Jenn
Friday afternoon
“So how did you leave it?” Gabe asks, echoing the same question he asked after Braithwaite first called me back home in New York.
“Well, I met her, and I did my best to earn her trust. Now it’s up to her.”
“I wonder how Kellogg and Braithwaite are going to feel if they brought you in and she doesn’t even agree to meet with you.”
I shrug to myself in the car. “Not my problem. She’s a grown woman; no one can force her to undergo treatment if she doesn’t want it. We don’t even know for sure that she needs it.”
“‘We’ who, exactly?”
“What do you mean?”
“Is ‘we’ you and Julian? Or you, Julian, and Kellogg? Or are you doing the ‘royal we’ now?”
“What are you getting at, Gabe?” I ask, starting to feel a little grumpy about the direction this conversation is headed. “Like it or not, it is me, and Julian, and Kellogg. That’s what I signed on for.”
I hear him sigh. “Point taken,” he agrees. “I’m just worried about you. Don’t want you getting too comfortable around those people. Leopards don’t change their spots, Jenn.”
I start to argue, then stop. Maybe he’s right. But if Julian Braithwaite hasn’t changed, I need to find out which way his spots still run.
“I’m headed out to meet Ruth for lunch,” I say, trying to get us back on neutral ground.
It works.
“Ruth! I love that woman. You tell her our guest room is waiting any time she wants to come up for another visit. And that I’d like a rematch on poker. She took three hundred bucks off me last time she was in town!”
I happen to know it was more like five but don’t press the point.
“I’ll extend the . . .” My thought is hijacked by an unexpected laugh.
“What?” my husband wants to know. “What’s so funny?”
I shake my head, grinning as I pull into the spot next to a gleaming black Lexus.
“Nothing—it’s Ruth’s car.”
“What about it? And how do you even know what she drives?”
“The license plate is R-U-T-H-L-S-S,” I explain and am treated to Gabe’s hearty guffaw.
I’m still chuckling after we exchange goodbyes, and I get out of the car.
Barely five feet tall and built like a hummingbird, attorney Ruth Wang earned the nickname for her ability to bring the most hardened, most badass of witnesses to tears over the course of a cross-examination.
After my sister Jess’s death, there was a carousel of personal-injury attorneys who cycled in and out our front door, each one slicker than the last. I hadn’t understood the meaning of the expression “dollar signs in their eyes” until then.
All these people could talk about was the money, the money, the money.
The punitive money, the compensatory money, the blood money.
Ruth showed up at our kitchen table, wiping tears from her eyes as Lita showed her pictures of my sister.
She became a part of our family, sharing our meals and sharing our grief.
And, in the end, no one fights harder for you than family.
Years later, when it became clear that no one at the hospital was going to help me, I knew I had to help myself. I knew I needed Ruth.
Administration moved fast—ten days from incident to disciplinary hearing.
Too fast. Ruth and I waited in the medical center lobby for the elevator.
It was my first time back since the night Cami died.
My badge was gone, replaced with a guest sticker that might as well have read pariah.
Colleagues glanced, whispered, turned away.
“I’m going to say this again,” Ruth said quietly. “You should have a health-care attorney. I do personal injury.”
“I trust you.”
That ended the discussion.
The hearing room was a windowless bunker in the basement, all fluorescent buzz and burnt-coffee smell.
A long white conference table dominated the space.
On one side sat the panel: Associate Dean Steve Cortez, ER Chief Dr. Nila Kumar, a pediatric psychiatry attending, and the hospital’s legal counsel—Joyce Danner.
Ten years ago she was every bit as composed and commanding as she is now—only younger, sleeker, her power newly minted instead of burnished by time. The effect was the same: control, confidence, perfection down to the smallest detail.
Across the table, Ruth was her opposite in every conceivable way—compact, kinetic, and radiating the kind of energy that made people lean back a little.
Joyce projected mastery through stillness; Ruth through motion.
One ruled the courtroom with a raised brow, the other with a raised voice.
And in that sterile little basement, I was suddenly grateful to have the louder one on my side.
Ruth began, calm but lethal. “We request a postponement. Ten days isn’t due process—it’s ambush.”
Cortez didn’t even look up. “You can appeal later.”
And that set the tone.
They read out the charges. I gave my account—precise, restrained, stripped of emotion. From the moment I was paged to when Kellogg threw me out, I stuck to the facts.
When I finished, Dr. Kumar slid a chart across the table: Cami Miller’s intake form. My handwriting filled the top half. But farther down was a section that should have been blank—and wasn’t.
Patient discharged with instructions to follow up with the outpatient psychiatric clinic in the morning for further evaluation.
The handwriting wasn’t mine. Neither was the signature.
“Is this your handwriting?” Dr. Kumar asked.
“The top portion. Not the treatment plan or the signature.”
Joyce’s pen didn’t pause. “So you’re alleging falsification of a medical record?”
“I’m saying I didn’t write it,” I replied evenly.
There was a long pause. The only sounds were pens scratching and paper rustling.
The temperature seemed to rise several degrees.
They picked at my answers for the next two hours—word by word, breath by breath—until Dr. Kumar finally said, “Let’s break for lunch.”
Ruth didn’t miss a beat. “Is that when Dr. Braithwaite will join us?”
Cortez took off his glasses and cleaned them with slow, deliberate care. “My understanding is that Dr. Braithwaite has declined to participate.”
I felt the blood drain from my face.
“Declined?” Ruth snapped.
He nodded. “No written statement either,” he added. “His choice entirely.”
That choice hit harder than any accusation. Julian’s silence said more than his words ever could.
When the panel filed out, I opened my mouth to speak, but my attorney shook her head sharply, gesturing toward the still-running recorder on the table.
“Holy hell,” she muttered once the recorder was off. “These people aren’t even pretending to play fair!”
“It’s over,” I whispered, as if they might be lurking in the hallway, ears pressed to the door. “Julian’s absence says everything they need to hear.”
“Stop.” Her voice cracked like a whip. “They expect you to fold. Don’t do it.”
“Ruth, if they find me negligent, my career’s done. Appeal or not, it sticks.”
My attorney leaned forward, eyes sharp. “Now I understand why you felt like you needed me to handle this and not another attorney. You don’t need a defense—you need an offense.”
That steadied me. “Okay. So what’s the move?”
“We find something that puts Kellogg on the defensive. He’s not clean—no one is. Fraud, misconduct, a lie in the paperwork—something.”
I picked up the photocopied chart again, scanning each line once again from the top. Patient name, address, insurance . . .
“What?” Ruth asked, noticing my expression. “What do you see, Jenn?”
I shook my head slowly. “Nothing here. But . . . I don’t know . . . I have a hunch . . .”
“Hunches are your subconscious’s way of telegraphing you a message. What is it trying to tell you?”
I closed my eyes and shook my head.
“I can’t.”
“You can’t what?” she demanded. “Your life is on the line here! What can’t you do?”
My eyes snapped open.
“I can’t call them.”
“Can’t call who?”
“The Millers. Cami’s parents. If what I think might have happened happened, it’s got to come from them. From their paperwork.”
Her lips curved, feral and pleased. “Then that’s where we start.”
I hesitated. “I can’t call them, Ruth. Not after the funeral. Not after what they’ve lost.”
Her expression softened for half a beat before she reached into her bag for her phone. “Then good thing I can.”
And she did.
The smell hits me the instant I push open the café door—strong coffee, buttered bread, frying plantains.
And there she is at the counter, slight and sharp as ever, her narrow shoulders squared, her smooth dark hair shot through with a single elegant streak of silver.
She moves with that hummingbird snap—fast, focused, impossible to ignore—rattling off instructions to a barista who looks like he’d rather face a firing squad.
She spots me before I can wave, smiling and shaking her head.
“What’s that look for?” I ask as we embrace.
“You always said you’d have to be out of your mind to come back to Miami,” she says, pushing me back to arm’s length so she can get a good look at me. Like I might be an imposter. “And yet—here you are. You look pretty grounded to me.”
“Just for the weekend.”
“Weekend, week, lifetime—it starts the same way.” She thanks the man who slides a tray with two cortaditos and a pair of foil-wrapped Cubanos across the counter, then nods toward the corner. “Come on. Sit. You look like you could use caffeine and carbs.”
We carry our food to a booth with cracked red leather seats and a window view of the street.
The café hums around us—spoons clinking, conversations overlapping, the steady hiss of the sandwich press.
It feels weirdly comforting, like stepping back into a past life. A simpler one without all the baggage.
Ruth’s already halfway through her coffee by the time I unwrap my sandwich. The smell hits me first—roasted pork, melted Swiss, pickles, mustard, and that buttery pressed bread that could make a believer out of anyone.
“God, I missed these,” I murmur, taking a bite. The crunch echoes through the café. “I’m going to eat as many of these as I can while I’m here.”
Ruth gives me a look. “Don’t tell me you can’t get a Cuban sandwich in Manhattan.”
“Not one that tastes like this,” I say with a grin.
She stirs the sugar at the bottom of her cup and eyes me over the rim. “So. How is it? Being back at Miami Killian after all this time?”
I take another bite to buy a few seconds before answering. “Surreal,” I admit finally. “The building’s been redone, but the ghosts stayed. Some faces changed; others should’ve.”
“Meaning?”
“Julian’s still there. Still walking around like he invented compassion.”
“And Kellogg?”
“Still an arrogant son of a bitch. Only now he’s the boss.”
Her brows shoot up. “Of course he is. That man could trip upstairs and call it a promotion.”
I laugh. “You’re not wrong.”
She takes a slow sip of coffee, eyes narrowing in thought. “You can’t tell me details, I know. But what kind of case brings you back there after all these years? You could’ve said no.”
“Could’ve,” I say, wiping my fingers on a napkin. “Didn’t. It’s . . . complicated.”
“Complicated how?”
“High profile. Sensitive. Someone in trouble who reminds me a little too much of who I used to be.” I toy with the edge of my sandwich wrapper. “Let’s just say I’m in a unique position to help—and unique enough that those bastards actually asked me to come back.”
She tilts her head, reading between the lines. “So not just any patient.”
“No. Not just anyone.”
“Well,” she says, sitting back with a little grin, “good. Let them choke on their own hypocrisy for once. You’re exactly the kind of ghost that place deserves.”
I smirk. “You’re the only one who thinks that. Gabe and Stef both tried to talk me out of it. Said I was asking for trouble.”
“That’s because they think trouble’s a bad thing.
” She waves a hand. “I say it’s about damn time.
You spent years letting that hospital—and those men—write your story.
This is you taking it back.” She leans in, eyes bright.
“You can’t rewrite what happened, but you can add an epilogue.
The ‘happily ever after, you sons of bitches’ chapter.
You’re not there to relive it—you’re there to reclaim it. ”
I smile despite myself. “You always did know how to weaponize optimism.”
“Not optimism,” she corrects. “Ownership.”
We fall into easier conversation after that, catching up on everything from her brother’s new law firm to her latest batch of high-maintenance clients.
“A hedge-fund manager sued a golf resort because the caddy handed him the wrong club and cost him a charity tournament,” she says, dabbing at her mouth with a napkin. “That one settled for seven figures.”
She takes another sip of her cortadito, eyes gleaming. “And a politician’s wife sued her plastic surgeon for making her too symmetrical. Said it ruined her relatability.”
I laugh so hard I nearly choke on my sandwich. “Please tell me you didn’t actually take that one.”
“I did better than that,” Ruth says. “I won.”
I shake my head, grinning. “Still Ruthless.”
“Always,” she replies, lifting her coffee in a toast. “But only for the greater good—and the greater payout.”
I wipe my fingers, still smiling. “Speaking of payouts . . . Gabe says to tell you our guest room’s waiting if you ever make it up to New York again. He’s anxious to win back his three hundred.”
Ruth snorts into her coffee. “Three hundred? Please. It was five—and I’d love to see him try.”
“Between the two of you, I’ll have to start charging admission.”
She chuckles, then fixes me with that shrewd lawyer’s gaze again.
“Have you been by the cemetery?”
I pause, still chewing. “I drove by.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“It’s as close as I can get for now.”
“You sure about that?” she asks, her tone softening. “You keep skirting around it, like maybe distance will make it disappear. It won’t. The only way out is through.”
I trace a fingertip through a smear of mustard on my plate. “Maybe someday.”
“Someday’s a start,” she says, letting it go.
My phone buzzes on the table. I glance down, expecting Gabe—or maybe Stef—but it’s neither.
Mary is ready to see you.—DK
I don’t recognize the number with the 301 area code, but I only know one person with those initials. David Kellogg.
Ruth watches me. “Work?”
“Something like that,” I reply even as I’m typing back.
Give me twenty minutes.
Then I hit send before I can overthink it.
Ruth tilts her head, reading my expression. “Trouble?”
“Maybe,” I say, gathering my things. I take the last bites of my sandwich, unwilling to leave a single crumb behind. “But at least this time, it’s not mine.”
She gives me that lawyer’s smile—the one that’s half encouragement, half warning. “Let’s hope it stays that way.”
I drop a few bills on the table and grab my bag. “Yeah. But sometimes helping someone else find their way out is the only way to prove you still can.”
And with that, I step back into the Miami heat—toward another woman’s ghosts, and maybe a chance to make peace with my own.