Chapter 7 - The People in the Walls
Marta Alvarez met them in the basement of a church because she did not trust offices with windows.
She was fifty, broad-shouldered, and wore lavender sneakers beneath her gray scrubs. She carried a paper Bible in one hand and a folder in the other.
“I don’t pray,” Noah said, glancing at the Bible.
“Neither do I,” Marta replied. “It’s a disguise.”
Helena liked her immediately.
Marta sat across from Celia. “I should have helped you sooner.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because Adrian was the medical director, and Margot controlled payroll. I have two children in college and a husband who cannot work.”
“That doesn’t make it right.”
“No. It makes it explainable.”
The honesty settled between them.
Marta opened the folder. Inside were copies of incident reports, handwritten notes, and one photograph of a red rubber sole.
“What is that?” Celia asked.
“A device from the GentleStart pilot.”
“It looks like a shoe.”
“It is a removable pressure pad modeled on a rehabilitation sole. The program used it to stabilize patients during late-pregnancy imaging.”
Priya, who had joined them by video, leaned closer to the screen.
“I’ve never seen that in a standard protocol.”
“It wasn’t standard,” Marta said. “Adrian called it a positioning aid. It was supposed to reduce movement during scans.”
“Did it work?” Helena asked.
“It left marks.”
Marta showed them the incident reports. Several patients had complained of bruises on the hip, thigh, and lower back. Each report had been coded as contact irritation or self-inflicted pressure injury.
“That is disgusting,” Celia said.
“I objected,” Marta replied. “Adrian told me the pressure pad could not cause harm if used correctly.”
“And was it used correctly?”
“Sometimes.”
“What about me?”
Marta looked at her for a long moment. “You were enrolled in the pilot without being told the full protocol.”
The room seemed to tilt.
“When?” Celia asked.
“At your twenty-one-week scan.”
“I remember the scan.”
“You complained that the table hurt your hip.”
“Adrian said I was tense.”
Marta lowered her eyes. “He used the pad after the scan. He said he needed to test pressure tolerance.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Because your data was valuable. Your placenta was positioned in a way the program considered difficult.”
Helena’s hands curled into fists.
“You watched him hurt her.”
Marta did not defend herself. “I watched him tell me it was safe. I believed the person with the degree instead of the patient who said stop.”
“Did you document it?” Celia asked.
“I wrote an incident report.”
“Where is it?”
“Gone from the system. But I kept a copy.”
Noah scanned the report. At the bottom was a signature from Margot Vale authorizing an internal review.
“Margot knew,” he said.
“She knew there were complaints,” Marta said. “I don’t know what she knew about Adrian.”
Another witness joined the meeting: Dr. Ethan Brooks, a former anesthesiologist who had resigned from Vale Women’s Health the previous year.
“Adrian did not only alter records,” Ethan said. “He pressured doctors to delay transfers. If a patient needed a hospital outside the network, he called it a failure of confidence.”
“Did anyone die?” Celia asked.
Ethan’s silence answered first.
“Two infants,” he said. “One mother nearly died. The outcomes were recorded as complications unrelated to the program.”
Helena felt the true size of the case opening before them.
“Will you testify?”
Ethan looked at Celia. “Yes.”
Marta nodded. “So will I.”
The church lights flickered.
Noah checked his phone.
“Someone just accessed the witness list.”
“From where?” Lila asked.
May you like
He stared at the screen.
“From inside the safe apartment’s security system.”
