CHAPTER 26
Malcolm
Radiology ceilings are designed by people who hate the conscious.
White tile. White light. White vent. Another tile with a gray smear near the corner that my injured brain immediately tries to turn into a door.
I refuse.
Not everything is a door.
Some things are water damage and poor funding.
The orderly rolls my stretcher down the hall while Officer Soto walks beside me with his radio at his shoulder and one eye on every suit within twenty feet.
Dr. Imada has already threatened three people, one administrator, and possibly the concept of liability.
My right hand is wrapped. My shoulder is strapped tight enough that breathing feels like it needs permission.
Gauze pulls at my hairline each time the stretcher bumps over a floor seam.
Pain has become an inefficient office with too many departments.
Head.
Shoulder.
Palm.
Ribs.
Then the one nobody charts: Clara standing in a diner kitchen with Laurel’s name on a canister and my voice being carved into a weapon by people who edit grief for breakfast.
“Mr. Reed,” the orderly says, “we’re going to transfer you for the CT.”
“Is there a version where I stay here and develop telepathy?”
Soto looks down at me. “To reach who?”
“Nobody.”
“Subtle.”
“I’m injured.”
“That doesn’t make you subtle.”
The orderly locks the wheels near the imaging room. “You’ll need to hold still.”
I almost laugh.
Holding still has become the theme of the morning, and I have been failing it in several locations.
Dr. Imada appears at the end of the hall with a tablet in hand. She looks at Soto, then at me, then at the ceiling like the building has personally contributed to her workload.
“Good news,” she says. “You are not currently famous enough to skip medical procedures.”
“I was hoping for a downgrade.”
“You have one. Patient.”
“That feels punitive.”
“It is diagnostic.”
Soto’s radio crackles before I can answer.
“Hospital security reports Red Vale counsel requesting access to Malcolm Reed under material witness protection filing. Counsel claims imminent threat from Clara Vane.”
The hallway goes cold around my ears.
Not from air conditioning.
From wording.
Imminent threat.
Clara’s name placed beside danger like she is the thing entering the room with a weapon.
I try to sit up.
The shoulder strap and Dr. Imada’s hand both stop me.
“No,” she says.
This time I do not correct her.
This no belongs to a doctor keeping a patient from re-injuring himself, not to a man trying to control a woman from a bed.
Still hate it.
Still obey.
“Officer Soto,” I say, keeping my voice even because if I let it rise, I give the hallway another symptom, “I do not request protection from Clara Vane. I do not consent to studio counsel making that claim for me.”
Soto lifts his radio. “Copy. I’ll relay.”
“No. Record it.”
Dr. Imada narrows her eyes. “You are not turning my radiology hallway into a deposition.”
“I need one sentence.”
“You people keep saying one sentence and then giving me legal weather.”
“One sentence,” I say.
She holds up one finger. “One.”
Soto starts recording on his department phone.
My mouth is dry.
The hallway smells like disinfectant, warmed plastic, and the burnt coffee from a nurses’ station somewhere behind us. My tongue tastes like medication and old blood.
“I, Malcolm Reed, have not asked for protection from Clara Vane,” I say. “I do not believe she is a threat to me, and any claim that she is should be treated as coming from studio counsel, not from me.”
Soto stops the recording.
Dr. Imada says, “That was technically one sentence, if commas have no laws.”
“They have guidelines.”
“Don’t flirt with grammar while concussed.”
“I wouldn’t dare.”
Her face suggests I would absolutely dare and she would absolutely sedate me if needed.
The orderly transfers me to the imaging table with the cheerful incompetence of gravity. My shoulder lights up white behind my eyes. My fingers on the unburned hand clutch the sheet before I can stop them.
“Pain?” Dr. Imada asks.
“No, I’m making a lifestyle choice.”
“Scale.”
“Nine.”
“Better.”
Not better.
Honest.
The machine swallows me under a ring of cold plastic and mechanical hum. The ceiling inside is worse. Closer. A white curve inches above my face, too clean, too near, smelling faintly of dust and sanitizer.
I close my eyes.
Bad idea.
Red light from the shuttle booth returns first. Then Clara through glass, choosing Avery. Laurel’s lighter. Gavin’s hand in my hair. My own voice through the mic.
You gave Laurel the lighter.
Because I gave it to you first.
A truth offered late is still a blade if someone else controls the cut.
The scanner hums.
A tech’s voice tells me not to move.
I don’t.
Not because I’m calm.
Because moving would blur the image, and I have done enough damage by making truth easier to blur.
When they pull me out, Soto is waiting with a woman beside him I do not recognize.
Late thirties, maybe. Black pantsuit, sensible shoes, hair clipped back, no jewelry except small silver hoops. She carries a leather folder and a paper coffee cup she has not opened. Her expression says she has seen rich people panic in five legal systems and found all of them boring.
“Malcolm Reed?” she asks.
“Yes.”
“I’m Janet Kim. Gideon Park called me. I represent you for now, if you consent. I do not represent Clara Vane. I am not here to soothe you, reunite you, or carry romantic subtext through hospital security.”
Soto looks at the floor.
Dr. Imada, who has appeared again as if summoned by competence, says, “I like her.”
I look at Janet Kim.
“I consent.”
“Good. First question. Did Clara Vane threaten you?”
“No.”
“Did she harm you?”
“No.”
“Did she ask anyone to restrict your statement, movement, or contact?”
“No.”
“Do you want contact from her?”
The question enters under the ribs and finds the softest place.
Want is not safe language.
Want is not the same as need.
Want is not evidence.
I see Clara in Marla’s kitchen, standing near the canister with wet shoes and too many people trying to turn her anger into a weapon.
“I want her protected from my situation being used against her,” I say.
Janet watches me for half a second.
“Good recovery. Not an answer.”
“It’s the only answer that doesn’t make her carry me.”
“Interesting. Annoying, but interesting.”
Dr. Imada says, “His file should say that.”
Janet opens her folder. “I am filing an objection to studio counsel’s claim.
I will also notify hospital administration that Red Vale has no standing to control your access, discharge, or witness communication.
Law enforcement can restrict access. Medical staff can restrict access. Red Vale can restrict itself to hell.”
I blink.
Soto looks up.
Dr. Imada says, “Careful. I’m close to admiration.”
Janet finally opens her coffee, smells it, and immediately closes the lid. “Hospital coffee. Criminal.”
“It’s worse at Marla’s,” I say.
“I’ve been told that by three separate people today, which makes it culturally significant.”
The hallway almost becomes normal.
Almost.
Then Soto’s radio cracks.
“Alvarez to Soto. Canister recovered, sealed, transported under camera. Gavin Rook in custody. Vane remains at Marla’s. Media pushing Laurel-West-names-Vane angle.”
My palm throbs under the bandage.
Laurel names Clara.
A sentence can be a trap before anyone hears it. The public is already imagining the shape: accusation, confession, secret. Clara as guilty archive. Clara as unstable keeper of dead women.
“What exactly leaked?” Janet asks.
Soto repeats the question over radio.
Static.
Then Alvarez: “No confirmed file from evidence. Entertainment Wire claims source says recording names Vane. No transcript published yet.”
Janet looks at me. “Do you know whether Laurel had reason to accuse Clara?”
“No.”
“No, you don’t know? Or no, she didn’t?”
I force myself not to answer too fast.
Lawyer questions have hinges.
“No, I don’t believe Laurel would accuse Clara of harming her. But Laurel may have said Clara’s name in connection with the door, the lighter, Marla’s, or the first copy.”
Janet nods once. “Better.”
“I hate that better now means emotionally worse.”
“It usually does.”
Dr. Imada checks my pupils again. “He needs rest.”
“He needs not to be framed by proxy,” Janet says.
“Rest first. Proxy later.”
Soto’s phone buzzes. He looks at the screen and grimaces.
“Entertainment Wire clip,” he says.
Every part of me that can still tense does.
“No,” Janet says.
“I wasn’t going to play it for entertainment.”
“For evidence either, not in a hallway.”
But the hallway has a television near the nurses’ station, and someone out there has already turned the volume up.
The anchor’s voice slides under the hospital noise.
“—newly surfaced audio allegedly from Laurel West’s final private recording may complicate the narrative around Clara Vane’s involvement—”
Janet moves toward the hallway. Dr. Imada says my name like a warning.
I cannot get up.
That fact becomes its own injury.
The TV audio continues, muffled but clear enough.
A younger voice.
Laurel.
Not in character. Not screaming. Breathing too hard, trying to sound annoyed because fear embarrassed her.
“Clara knows—”
Cut.
A burst of static.
Then Laurel again.
“—she knew before the last take.”
Cut.
Anchor voice.
“Sources say investigators are now examining whether Vane possessed prior knowledge of on-set danger before West’s fatal scene.”
I stare at the fluorescent light above me until the bulb doubles, then corrects.
They cut her between breaths.
I heard it.
Not as a man in love with Clara. Not as a man trying to redeem himself. As a man who spent years around playback, set audio, production edits, bad splices made good by people who know where listeners blink.
“That was cut,” I say.
Janet looks back. “You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“Explain.”