Chapter 43
AVA - HACKED
It started small.
A missing intake form.
A strange look from a client who didn’t return the next week.
A question that didn’t make sense.
“Why did the officer say you’d call back?”
What officer?
I didn’t think much of it the first time.
Or the second.
But by the third?
I knew.
Something was wrong.
February had settled in heavy this year, like a weight pressing down on the city.
Salt-streaked sidewalks. Gray skies that never really lightened.
A kind of damp cold that clung under your skin and left you raw.
People walked faster this time of year, heads ducked, breath clouding in short bursts, like everyone was just trying to make it through winter without freezing or falling apart.
Me included.
Valentine’s displays had exploded and just as quickly disappeared in every shop window red and pink hearts everywhere, an inescapable reminder of everything I’d lost. Every chocolate box, every couple walking hand-in-hand past the clinic, felt like a paper cut I couldn’t stop reopening.
I had never been so happy to be at the end of a month, to be away from a holiday.
I hadn’t seen Harlan since January.
Not once.
I’d made sure of it.
He still called sometimes, and I still ignored it.
When one of my patients had a follow-up at the precinct last week, I sent Remi instead. I couldn’t set foot in that building. Couldn’t risk turning a corner and seeing him standing there like nothing had shattered between us.
So, I worked.
Remi had her hands full with new patients and outreach follow-ups, so I handled the scheduling, the files, and the grant updates. The work was always heavy, but we liked it that way. Busy meant we were making a dent. Helping people.
Busy meant I wasn’t thinking about him.
But then the cracks started forming faster than I could patch them.
We got an email from the state board flagging one of our grant files for irregularities, one I’d submitted three weeks ago. Except… that wasn’t the version I submitted.
The dollar amounts were wrong. The language had changed. And there was a line item we never included: Private Transport & Discretionary Service Costs.
My stomach turned.
It wasn’t just a typo.
It was fucking sabotage.
“Remi?” I asked, holding the file in one hand, phone in the other. “You touch this grant application?”
She looked up from the couch, eyes rimmed with exhaustion. “No. Why?”
“Because someone did.”
Remi stood and crossed the room in two strides. I handed her the paper and watched her face as she read it.
“Holy fuck, Ava,” she whispered. “That’s not yours.”
“No. It’s not.”
She didn’t ask the next question.
Because we both knew exactly who would want to plant something like that.
It got worse.
That afternoon, one of our newer patients came in with bruises up her arms, eyes hollowed out from too many sleepless nights. She asked for Remi by name, but when I brought her into my office to check her in, she hesitated.
“Your security guard already asked me all this,” she said.
I froze. “What security?”
She frowned. “I don’t know. She said she worked with the clinic. Blonde. Uniform. Not one I’ve seen before. Said she was helping with security upgrades.”
I smiled. Thanked her. Filed the information away like I wasn’t panicking.
Remi and I spent the rest of the day cross-referencing files and records. The camera feed on the back lot had mysteriously cut out two nights ago. The last footage available showed Erin Voss walking past it, and then nothing.
Gone.
No recovery.
No backup.
No cloud sync.
“Check your folders,” Remi said suddenly. “Your caseload… go. One by one. Make sure they’re untouched.”
We went through the clinic’s entire digital directory. Colour-coded spreadsheets, appointment logs, case notes, and signed disclosures. One of the folders had a signature I didn’t recognize. Two more had been backdated by a week.
My hands shook as I scrolled. “We’ve been hacked,” I whispered. “Erin’s not just sniffing around anymore. She’s rewriting our history.”
Remi opened a locked file from her laptop, the confidential list of outreach victims we’d referred to third-party housing shelters.
It was empty. Completely wiped.
“Shit,” she muttered. “This isn’t oversight. This is premeditated.”
We opened our grants ledger next. One file had a random line inserted, a wire transfer we never initiated. Another had an updated tax ID number with three digits off.
“She’s not sloppy,” I said. “She’s smart. Smart enough to know that if we discover it, it’ll look like we’re trying to hide something. That we’re... cleaning up.”
Remi looked at me, eyes wide. “Fuck, Ava. We are cleaning up. That’s exactly what this looks like now. Like we’re scrambling.”
“I can feel it,” I said, sitting on the desk while Remi paced. “Whatever she’s doing… it’s building.”
“She’s not just watching us,” Remi said, voice low. “She’s going in for the kill…”
“She’s laying a foundation.”
“For what?”
I swallowed hard. “I don’t know. But it won’t be good.”
So, we started documenting. Every missing form. Every altered file. Every suspicious timestamp. We printed copies, locked them in the safe, and backed up the backups.
I emailed Jack a blind CC of the audit. Just in case.
We double-checked staff entries. We reset the camera credentials. We wrote out a literal checklist of what was changed and when. We stayed up too late and got up too early. It was more work than the two of us could manage.
But we didn’t have anyone else.
Which meant no one else could be blamed.
Or spared.
My phone rang two hours after I hit send on the email to Jack.
“Hey,” I answered, voice tight.
“You sound like you haven’t slept in days.”
“I haven’t.”
“Is everything okay? I got a weird email from you.”
I hesitated. “Define okay.”
He sighed. “I called Remi. She’s not answering. Again.”
“She’s busy. And she’s dropped the gloves.”
There was a pause. “That bad?”
“She’s ready to fight dirty if she has to.”
He waited. “Ava… what’s going on?”
I stared out the clinic window, watched a car drive by too slow, too deliberate.
“I don’t know exactly,” I said. “But I can feel it. Something’s coming. Like we’re being set up for a fall we won’t see until we’re already in freefall. I sent you everything we could find, Jack.”
Jack didn’t speak for a long moment.
Then, quietly: “What does Harlan say?”
I closed my eyes.
“Harlan’s part of the problem.”
The words burned coming out.
I hung up before I could say more.
Before I could admit how much it hurt to even think it.
I walked back into the clinic and looked around.
At the notes scattered on the desk. At the missing files. At the frayed nerves and broken system, we were trying to prop up with duct tape and sheer fucking willpower.
We weren’t just being watched.
We were being discredited.
Bit by bit.
Byte by byte.
And somewhere deep down, I knew Erin wasn’t finished.
She was just getting started.