CHAP 5 — THE DOCTOR WHO SIGNED THE DEATH CERTIFICATE
Dr. Adrian Reed woke under armed guard.
His first words were:
“Is Graham dead?”
Detective Ortiz did not answer.
Neither did Conrad.
They stood outside the hospital room behind one-way glass.
Reed looked twenty years older than the polished physician Conrad remembered.
His hair was gray at the temples. One eye was swollen. His hands shook uncontrollably.
“He’s afraid of Barrett,” Ortiz said.
Conrad’s jaw tightened.
“He should be afraid of me.”
Ortiz looked at him.
“That attitude gets you removed from my investigation.”
“Your investigation exists because my son spent eighteen months inside a wall.”
“And I intend to find everyone responsible. Don’t make that harder.”
Conrad said nothing.
Inside the room, Reed finally agreed to talk.
He demanded federal protection.
Ortiz turned on the recorder.
“Start with Oliver Sterling.”
Reed covered his face.
“The boy never died.”
Conrad felt the words even though he already knew.
“What happened after the crash?”
Reed looked toward him.
“Madeleine was alive when she arrived.”
“How alive?”
“Conscious.”
Conrad gripped the table.
“For how long?”
“Several hours.”
“And nobody called me?”
“Your security team controlled access.”
“Marcus.”
Reed nodded.
“Where was Vivian?”
“At the hospital.”
“And Graham?”
Reed hesitated.
“Dr. Reed.”
“He arrived forty minutes after Madeleine.”
Conrad leaned forward.
“What did they do?”
Reed looked ashamed.
“Madeleine had internal bleeding. She required surgery.”
“Did she receive it?”
“Yes.”
“Then how did she die?”
Reed’s eyes filled with tears.
“She survived surgery.”
Conrad stopped moving.
“What?”
“She survived.”
“You signed a report stating she died before she could be stabilized.”
“I know.”
“What happened?”
Reed whispered, “Someone changed her medication.”
Ortiz asked, “Who?”
“I never saw it happen.”
“Who had access?”
“Staff. Marcus. Vivian.”
“And you covered it up?”
Reed nodded.
“Graham had evidence that could destroy me.”
“What evidence?”
“Years earlier I had manipulated clinical trial data for Sterling Therapeutics.”
Conrad stared at him.
“You falsified trial results?”
“A small endpoint adjustment.”
“People could have died.”
“No one did.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
Reed looked away.
“Graham knew. He threatened to expose me.”
Ortiz leaned forward.
“And Oliver?”
“Oliver had seen Vivian near his mother’s room. He kept asking questions. Vivian said he was traumatized and needed sedation.”
“So you sedated a seven—”
“He was five then,” Reed interrupted.
The correction somehow made it worse.
Reed swallowed.
“They moved him before sunrise.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then why certify him dead?”
“Because Graham told me there would be a second body if I didn’t.”
Conrad stood.
Ortiz put a hand out.
He ignored her.
“Whose body?”
Reed looked directly at him.
“Yours.”
Conrad laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“You expect me to believe you did this to protect me?”
“No.”
Reed’s shoulders collapsed.
“I did it because I was a coward.”
That answer Conrad believed.
Ortiz asked about the sealed coffin.
Reed said he didn’t know.
Then Conrad asked the question that mattered.
“Why keep Oliver alive?”
Reed looked confused.
“I thought they were going to send him abroad.”
“They kept him at Sterling House.”
Shock appeared genuine.
“Then something changed.”
“What?”
“Graham originally wanted him gone. Vivian stopped him.”
Conrad stared.
“Why?”
“I heard them argue once.”
“About what?”
Reed closed his eyes.
“Madeleine left something behind. Something only Oliver knew how to find.”
Conrad thought of the recorder.
“Evidence?”
“Maybe.”
Reed shook his head.
“Vivian kept saying the boy knew where Madeleine hid ‘the ledger.’”
Ortiz wrote the word down.
“The ledger?”
“I don’t know what it was.”
Conrad did.
At least he knew what Madeleine used to call it.
Years earlier, when Sterling Global was small, Madeleine had created a private archive of every original investment, debt instrument and voting agreement.
She called it the Red Ledger.
It contained agreements that had never been digitized.
Contracts capable of proving who actually owned portions of Sterling Global.
Conrad had not seen it in fifteen years.
He had assumed it no longer existed.
The door opened.
A federal agent entered and whispered something to Ortiz.
She looked at Conrad.
“The cemetery opened Oliver’s coffin.”
Conrad could barely ask.
“What was inside?”
May you like
Ortiz answered quietly.
“Bricks.”
