CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The prison rose out of the fields of farmland like a machine built to grind names into numbers.
Alice Quinn watched it through the windshield until the razor wire blurred in the drizzle, then killed the engine and sat with both hands locked around the steering wheel.
Her wedding ring pressed a pale crescent into her finger.
Three men waited inside: her husband, Michael; Sean Quinn; and Michael’s father, Thomas Quinn. Three convictions. Insurance fraud. Medicare fraud. Wire fraud. Conspiracy. Money laundering. Crimes the government had named and crimes it had only hinted at.
Alice had not seen all three men in one place since the sentencing, when each had looked back at her as if she were the only door left unlocked.
She entered beneath white lights and cameras, surrendered her purse, removed her shoes, and answered questions in a voice that sounded borrowed. The officer compared her face to her identification twice.
“You’re approved for all three inmates?” he asked.
“Family,” Alice said.
The word tasted metallic. He stamped her wrist with invisible ink and pointed toward the detector. When she passed through, it gave a single soft chirp. Every officer in the room looked up.
“Again,” one said. Alice stepped back, removed a hairpin, and tried once more. Silence.
“Lucky,” the officer murmured.
The visiting room was too bright for secrets.
Plastic chairs sat in rigid rows beneath smoked domes.
Children whispered over vending-machine snacks.
Guards watched from behind glass. Michael came first, thinner than Alice remembered, his prison khakis hanging from his shoulders.
He hugged her briefly, within the rules, and his mouth brushed her ear.
“Don’t say Med-Tech.” Alice pulled back.
“Hello to you, too.”
“Smile,” he said. “They record what they can’t hear.” She smiled. It hurt.
They sat across from each other at a scarred table.
“Abigail and Samantha are dead,” Alice said quietly. Michael’s gaze stayed on her face, but a pulse moved in his jaw. “Elevator accident. That’s what the papers called it.”
“And what do you call it?”
“A warning.” Michael leaned back and glanced toward the nearest camera.
“Then listen to it.”
“I’ve been listening for three weeks. Every time the office elevator opens, I expect to find someone standing there.”
“Did anyone contact you?”
“Not directly.”
“That isn’t an answer.” Alice rubbed her thumb over the edge of her ring.
“A hospital administrator asked why old patient records were being queried at two in the morning. A doctor in Plano says his software vendor found a phantom maintenance account. Yesterday, a package arrived at my apartment.”
“What was in it?”
“A photograph of Abigail and Samantha in the elevator.” Michael’s expression did not change.
“Before?”
“After.” For the first time, he looked away.
“You brought it here?”
“I burned it.”
“Good.”
“No, Michael. Not good. I could smell the toner while it burned. Whoever sent it had printed it less than an hour before delivery.” Michael lowered his voice.
“You need to shut everything down.”
“If I shut it down abruptly, every hospital sees the missing traffic. Every claim we rerouted becomes a trail.”
“Then erase the trail.”
“With what? Abigail wrote the masking routines. Samantha controlled the shell accounts. They’re corpses, Michael.” His eyes hardened.
“Use Everest.” Alice stared at him.
“Everest Marshall hates me.”
“She hates Med-Tech. She doesn’t know Med-Tech is you.”
“She suspected enough to give up easily when fired or at least leave peacefully when she was fired.”
“Then give her a reason to come back.”
“You mean lie to her.”
“I mean survive.”
A guard tapped Michael’s shoulder. His time was over. As he stood, he fixed Alice with the look he had used in boardrooms when a decision had already been made.
“There’s a backup mode under the old claims server,” he said. “Ask Everest to rebuild the audit layer. Tell her it’s for a compliance review.”
“And if she finds what’s underneath?”
“Make sure she doesn’t.” Michael walked away without touching her again. At the far wall, another inmate waited to enter. Sean Quinn smiled as though he had been listening.
Sean had aged elegantly in prison. His silver hair was combed back, his posture straight, his eyes amused.
“Your husband was always too blunt,” he said after they sat.
“And you were always too pleased with yourself.”
“Confidence is a courtesy. Panic makes everyone uncomfortable.”
“Abigail and Samantha are dead.”
“Yes.”
“You don’t seem surprised.”
“At my age, death is rarely surprising. Timing, however, can be interesting.” Alice leaned closer.
“Did you order it?” Sean laughed once, softly.
“If I had ordered it, dear Alice, there would be no photograph.”
“Someone knows,” she said.
“Someone always knows. The useful question is how much.”
“A phantom maintenance account was found.”
“Expected.”
“A photograph was delivered to my home.”
“Less expected.” Sean folded his hands. “Has anyone used the name LEGACY?” Alice felt the room narrow around her.
“No.”
“Seen it written?”
“No.”
“Heard it in a call, perhaps beneath another voice?”
“What is it?” Sean’s smile disappeared.
“An old promise kept by dangerous men.”
“Are they after me?”
“If LEGACY were after you, we would not be having this conversation.”
“Then who killed Abigail and Samantha?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I expect you to understand the value of ignorance.” He lowered his voice. “Your cohorts became liabilities. Someone removed them. That someone may believe you are next or may believe you are protected. Either possibility buys time.”
“Protected by whom?”
“Men who do not introduce themselves.”
“Why would they protect me?” Sean studied her with sudden tenderness.
“Because your father-in-law is still a dangerous man, even behind bars. Because Michael made an agreement before his trial with several unsavory fellow prisoners. Because I asked. Choose whichever answer lets you sleep. Just know that we have friends on the outside that owe us.”
Alice’s fingernails dug into her palm.
“Michael wants Everest to rebuild the audit layer.” Sean nodded.
“That would expose the hidden mode.”
“He said to keep Everest from seeing it.”
“Michael still believes software obeys intention. It does not. Software obeys structure, and your structure is rotten.”
“Then what do I do?”
“Give Everest a clean fragment. Let her repair the visible system while you move the buried records.”
“Move them where?”
“Nowhere connected.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It is the only safe one.”
Sean’s gaze slid past her shoulder. A man in a dark suit stood beyond the visiting-room glass, speaking with the officer at the desk. He was not a guard, not an attorney, not family. His tie was black, his shirt white, his face forgettable in the deliberate way of a disguise.
“Do not turn around,” said Sean. Alice kept her eyes on him.
“Who is that?”
“A reason to leave calmly.” The suited man looked through the glass. Alice felt the weight of his attention without meeting it.
“When you return to Med-Tech, do not use your usual entrance,” said Sean.
“Why?”
“Because someone placed a camera above the main doors this morning.”
“How could you know that?” Sean’s mouth curved.
“I make friends.”
“You’re in federal prison.”
“So are many useful people.” A guard called time and Sean stood. “One more thing. If Everest agrees too quickly, walk away.”
“And if she refuses?”
“Convince her.” Alice opened her mouth, but Sean was already moving toward the exit. The suited man had vanished.
Thomas Quinn entered last. He was broad despite the years, his white hair clipped close, his hands spotted with age. Unlike Michael and Sean, he did not smile. He sat and looked at Alice for a long moment.
“They’ve frightened you.”
“Your son says erase everything. Sean says move it.”
“They are both wrong.”
“That’s comforting.” Thomas leaned forward.
“You cannot erase a crime spread across hospital systems, billing vendors, insurers, and government databases. You cannot move it without leaving another map. You can only decide who finds it first.”
“Who do you want to find it?” Alice asked.
“Everest Marshall.” She recoiled.
“Michael wants her blind. Sean wants her contained.”
“My son protects the scheme. My brother protects himself. I am trying to protect you.”
“By handing the evidence to an ex-employee who despises the company?”
“By giving an honest woman enough truth to recognize when you are in danger. She’ll believe she’s protecting you and help you either hide it or turn it over to the feds.”
“Honest people call the FBI.”
“Sometimes. Sometimes they call the woman they think they can save.” Alice shook her head.
“You don’t know Everest.”
“I know she discovered irregular queries six months before the indictments and questioned them.” Alice wasn’t sure what to say. She had no clue that Everest had known what happened at Kartage.
A bell sounded. Thomas rose slowly.
“Call Everest from a public place, a public phone if you can find one. Tell her you found a flaw in the software she once warned you about or that you need her help with something. No names. No patient data.”
Outside, rain swept across the parking lot in silver sheets.
Alice reached her car and stopped wanting to turn around and go back in, begging for more guidance, more information.
She’d known what kind of family she was marrying into, she just didn’t know that within a few short years she would be the only one outside of bars.
At seven, Alice called Everest from a grocery-store pay phone in a neighborhood where nobody knew her. No one answered, probably because it was coming up ‘unknown caller’. Instead, she began the long drive back home.
Thirty minutes later, her phone rang and it was Everest.
“Hello?” said the voice.
“Alice. It’s Everest.”
“Everest! I’ve been wanting to call you. So much has happened here you’re not going to believe it.”
“Oh, really?” said Everest. “I mean, I’d love to catch up but we both know it doesn’t matter for me any longer.”
“Are you okay? Do you need anything?” she asked.
“I’m fine,” she said calmly. “I’ve got enough to be okay for a while.”
“Well, maybe you’d be interested in doing some off-the-books work for us.”
“Off-the-books? I don’t know. What about Samantha and Abigail?”
“They don’t matter anymore. I’ll explain later but for now, no one is really in charge.”
“Wow. No one in charge? That’s crazy,” said Everest. “You guys must be frantic over there.”
“Oh, we are, we are. It’s why I need you to do some work off the books. There’s no one like you.”
“I’m happy to talk to you more. When can we meet?” she asked.
“I’m, uh, I’m out of town right now. Visiting family. I’ll be back in a few days and I’ll call you.”
“Sounds great. I’ll talk to you then.”