Chapter 5
Christian swiped his badge again.
Nothing.
He frowned. The scanner blinked red.
"Here."
A hand reached past him. Another badge. A green light.
Dr. Morita gestured politely as the doors unlocked.
"Reader's been finicky all week."
"Thanks," Christian said.
Morita stepped through. Christian followed—but slowed.
Something about Morita felt horribly off.
The picture.
It came back sharp and uninvited. The red X. The apartment wall. The crossed-out face.
"You coming?"
The voice snapped him back.
Morita stood in the elevator, hand holding the door.
"Yeah," Christian said. "Sorry."
The doors closed.
The elevator rose.
Christian stared at Morita's reflection in the steel wall, pulse steady but wrong, unable to shake the image of that photograph.
A few nights earlier:
Christian sat alone in his apartment, files spread across the coffee table.
Patient charts. Surgical notes. Billing summaries.
Coverage statements.
Out-of-pocket breakdowns.
He traced the numbers with his finger. Patients paying tens of thousands they hadn't expected.
Deductibles. Copays. Secondary classifications.
No denials. No appeals.
On paper, every surgery was "fully covered."
Christian leaned back slowly.
Rask's voice surfaced, unbidden:
Insurance doesn't deny the surgeries. They can't.
Christian exhaled.
It wasn't a loophole.
It was the system.
"There's a man waiting in the lobby," the receptionist said. "Quick comment. Short interview."
Christian walked past without slowing. "Not today."
The man hadn't left.
Christian realized it as he crossed the parking structure at dusk. The man stepped out from between two cars, unhurried.
"I thought I said no interviews today," Christian said.
The man nodded, as if that confirmed something.
"Then this isn't an interview."
He held out an envelope. No name. No return address.
Christian hesitated.
Then took it.
The apartment building was older than it looked—and that was saying something.
Paint peeled in sheets. The stairwell smelled like damp paper and old electricity.
The door was unlocked.
Inside, the walls were bare except for four photographs taped in a precise grid.
Three had red Xs slashed across the faces. Thick. Violent.
Doctors. Administrators. Names Christian recognized.
The fourth sat untouched.
His own face stared back at him.
Christian stepped closer, breath catching as his eyes moved to the crossed-out images.
One of them—
Dr. Morita.
Back in the elevator:
Christian watched Morita's reflection.
The doors opened. Morita stepped out without a word.
Christian didn't move immediately.
For the first time since the badge reader failed, the feeling snapped into focus.
Morita hadn't been out of place.
He'd been perfectly placed.