On Monday, I started the week by checking my email for the ticket number from the Processes Department. It arrived as a minimal promise: "Received. Estimated response time: 5–7 business days." Five to seven days that, in hospital logic, could turn into a month. I saved the message, closed my eyes for a moment, and repeated to myself: I requested the reopening of Arturo's case; without evidence, just with the duty that someone—anyone—take another look. Nothing more and nothing less.
In the SGD, the status was always the same: "Under review." I learned to hate those two words.
I had lunch looking out at the interior garden, pretending to chew on something more than air. Several times I opened Claudia's chat to tell her that everything was still the same, but I didn't want to sound obsessive. At some point, silence is also a fact: no one responds, no one decides, no one wants to touch the hot potato.
The next day passed with that bureaucratic monotony that loosens the seams: a group of interns dragging carts, minutes, indicators, reports. No Processes. No Arturo. I thought of Tomás. Of his way of looking without looking, of saying just enough as if every word were taxed. Could I trust him? Or was he just another piece on a board that I still didn't understand? I remembered the exchange with Veronica in the nursing station, that complicity that I didn't know how to read. It bothered me to discover that the discomfort was jealousy; I took a deep breath and refocused: it's not about him, it's about Arturo, it's about the truth. Even so, the tension remained stuck to my skin, like the smell of disinfectant.
Just as I was resigning myself to another fruitless day, my phone vibrated. It was a number I didn't have saved.
Tomás: "I need to see you. Maintenance terrace of the old building, 7:30 p.m. Don't go alone."
I read it twice. Don't go alone. The phrase stuck in my mind like a splinter. I texted Claudia: "Are you there?" Seen and silence. I called a colleague from the department to ask her to accompany me "to check a technical issue in the old building"; she was in the field, impossible. I sent a message to another friend: she replied late. The afternoon wore on and I was still without company.
I stood still, staring at my reflection in the window. I thought about my conversation with Claudia the night before, about her insistence that my decisions are my own and that prudence is not cowardice. I also thought about the other thing: courage is not recklessness. But no one was available, and if Tomás had written "I need," it was because something was weighing on him.
I grabbed my coat, put my cell phone in my pocket, and went outside.
The wind carried the smell of dampness and metal. The terrace was a dark rectangle with high railings, a place where rarely anyone other than maintenance staff went. A couple of emergency lights cast long shadows; in the distance, the helipad was just a flashing red line.
Tomás was already there, his back to the railing, the hood of his sweatshirt pulled up and his uniform hidden under a jacket without logos. When he saw me, he looked down at my hands, as if checking that I had come alone.
"I told you not to come alone," he said bluntly.
"I tried," I replied. "No one was available."
He nodded, as if that confirmed a recurring theory: when the system locks you up, it leaves you alone. He didn't move toward me, maintaining a distance that I both appreciated and hated at the same time.
"I have something," he finally said. "I can't keep it anymore."
"What is it?"
He looked toward the door I had entered, as if expecting someone to push it back open at any moment, then took a thin envelope from the inside pocket of his jacket. It had no stamp or markings.
"They're photos," he said in a low, restrained voice. "I took them with my phone. Screens, records, a couple of documents someone left open. I haven't shown them to anyone."
"Why me?" I asked, knowing that the answer could break the strange balance we were maintaining.
He took a breath, like someone deciding to cross a guarded hallway.
"Because you asked to reopen the case without having anything." He held my gaze. "That makes you dangerous and, at the same time, the only person who might not sell it to the highest bidder."
The word dangerous resonated. I held out my hand, and he placed the envelope in my palm. It was light, but its symbolic weight weighed heavily on my shoulder. The moment he withdrew his hand, our fingers brushed, sending an electric shock through me that left me speechless.
"Before you open it, Alma," he added, "don't ever come alone again if I ask you to do something like this."
This is not a game.
"I know," I managed to say after recovering from the shock.
"You don't know," he shook his head slightly. "I'm serious: tell someone, even if it's just by text.
"You tell someone too," I blurted out, more defensively than I had intended. "If this goes wrong, you're not going to get off scot-free.
He didn't reply, but he took a step—just one—and I knew he was also fighting inside, caught between watching and acting.
"I'm going to keep watching, for now," he said. "Don't ask me for more than I can give."
"I'm not asking you for anything," I lied.
"Yes, you are." He looked down at the envelope. "For me to choose, to get involved... but not yet."
The air was cold; the red light in the distance repeated its own alarm. I wanted to tell him that I didn't know if I could trust him either. I wanted to tell him that seeing him with Veronica had hurt me in a place that shouldn't hurt. I said nothing.
"Thank you," I managed. "For... this."
"Take care of it," he replied. "And take care of yourself."
We went down different staircases. He disappeared toward wing C. I walked toward the parking lot, feeling the envelope beating against my palm, as if it had a pulse of its own.
That night, in my apartment, I left the envelope on the table with the calculated distance that soldiers place a suspicious package. I poured myself some water. I opened the curtains. I closed them again. I turned on the living room light. Ridiculous, open it, I ordered myself.
Inside were four printed photographs and a microSD card in a transparent case.
Nowadays, almost everything is digital, yes, but sometimes paper has the virtue of leaving no trace on auditable servers.
The first photo was a screenshot: access history to a file. On the right, times; on the left, users. Three entries on the night of Arturo's strike, at times when the system should have been blocked for editing. I felt cold in my wrists.
The second: the resuscitation record. At the bottom, the signature and name of the signing physician. It wasn't a matter of handwriting: the name was that of another doctor, different from the one that appears on the other documents from that night. The date and time matched; what didn't fit was who had signed Arturo's death. It wasn't conclusive evidence, but it was suspicion made real.
The third: a photograph taken from the hallway of an office screen. Drug inventory: opiates for invasive procedures were missing, with an adjustment made three days later. Mistake? Accounting discrepancy? Something someone tried to correct by covering up one hole with another?
The fourth: a blurry image of the digital clock in Ward 3 and, in the foreground, a sheet of paper lying on its side. I managed to read "transfer postponed" and the initials of a patient who was not Arturo. A small chaos that, in hospitals, is often an underground river that no one maps.
I arranged the photos next to each other, as if feeding an altar. I left the microSD card to one side, still without downloading it to the computer. I didn't need any more noise that night.
I called Claudia.
"Any news on the case?" she asked straight away, as if she had been waiting for it.
"Unofficial news," I said. "Processes isn't responding. But... Tomás asked to see me."
"What do you mean, he asked to see you? Why?"
"To give me photos: access histories, records, inventory... and a record where the signature is from a different doctor than the one who appears on the other documents." I swallowed. "He asked me not to go alone. I went anyway."
A brief silence, her analysis on the other end.
"First: I would always accompany you; I didn't see the message today. Second: don't put yourself at risk." Third: if he takes that step, he's also putting something on the line.
—He's... restrained. He's neither a hero nor a villain; I don't know what he is.
—He doesn't need to be either. And you don't need to choose him for anything. You can collaborate and take care of yourself. Autonomy, remember? You're not anyone's girlfriend, you're not anyone's enemy: you're a professional asking to review a death under suspicious circumstances.
I exhaled. I need that compass of yours.
"Clau... there's something else. I saw him with Veronica, and I was struck by a silly lightning bolt.
"Jealousy," she said, without judgment. "Feeling it doesn't make you a monster. The question is what you do with it: whether it distracts you or tells you something about yourself.
"It tells me that there's an edge to me that's activated by him."
"Then be careful with that edge. Don't suppress it, but don't let it control you either. You can feel desire and set boundaries at the same time. Don't turn Tomás into a project."
I nodded to myself, in front of the photos.
"What would you do?"
"I wouldn't go alone next time. And I'd keep the conversation clear: 'Thanks for this; don't ask me for loyalties I can't give you.' And about desire..." I heard her smile, "you know what I think: you can have sex without feelings, but only if you're okay with that and you don't use it to punish yourself or distract yourself from what's essential."
"I'm not up for that, Clau."
"I know. And that's okay. Desire can also wait a week, like work."
We laughed, tired. We hung up.
The next morning, the coffee was bitter and the mail was blank. I uploaded the photos to an encrypted folder, without syncing it to any corporate cloud. The microSD card was left in a separate envelope, inside a book that no one opens. Paranoia, here, is not a flaw; it's a bulletproof vest.
I deliberately crossed the nursing station. Tomás wasn't there; he must have handed over his shift to Verónica this morning. She was checking a monitor with two technicians. She saw me and gave me a friendly wave, the kind that reveals nothing and suggests everything. Don't read novels with checklists, I told myself. Not every gesture is a trap.
The last working day arrived with a notification from the SGD: "Status updated: under review." It wasn't an answer, but it was a clue. That system changes status when someone, in some office, decides to lift a finger.
In the afternoon, Tomás wrote: "Everything okay?" I hesitated to respond. I chose the healthy option.
Me: "Yes. I saved them. Thank you. Next time, I'll look for company."
Tomás: "Do it. And don't text me on this number unless I do it first."
Over the weekend, Claudia took me out for a walk to "clear my head." I agreed, but my mind kept returning to the same thing: signatures, after-hours access, inventory. She reminded me, like a wake-up call, that investigating doesn't mean sacrificing everything: it's also about setting limits on how much the case consumes you.
That night, before going to sleep, I opened the photo of the record again: the signing doctor was someone else. I couldn't prove it yet, but something didn't add up; documents from the same night should have the same shift supervisor listed. I promised myself that if Processes rejected the reopening, I would insist, patiently, not impulsively.
When the following week finally began, I went in with my gown and ID badge, the usual ritual. Nothing in the mail. In the SGD, the same phrase: "under review." In the mirror, my face looks a little more tired.
I poured myself some coffee. As I brought the cup to my mouth, my phone vibrated. It wasn't the answer. It was Tomás:
"There could be something else. I'll let you know. Don't go alone."
I smiled with an irony that was already mine. Yes, of course. I'm not going alone... but in the meantime, I walk. I wait. The hospital breathes slowly, like an old animal that doesn't run, but doesn't stop either. And I, in the center of that lung, repeated inwardly—in case the building was listening—that someone should look at Arturo again.