CHAPTER ELEVEN: THE LOST SCHEDULE
Vanessa arranged an interview with a former scheduling coordinator from the rehabilitation center.
Her name was Pilar Mendoza, and she had resigned three months after the transfer accident.
We met in Vanessa’s office with an independent investigator present.
Pilar said she had prepared the staffing schedule on the day the patient was injured.
The schedule showed that the center had assigned one assistant to a transfer requiring two trained staff members.
I remembered objecting to that assignment before the transfer began.
Pilar said my objection had been entered into the shift notes.
She had printed a copy for the operations manager because the electronic system was experiencing problems.
The printed schedule was supposed to travel to the regional office in a sealed administrative packet.
Pilar had given the packet to the courier desk.
I asked whether she remembered who collected it.
She said the driver had signed a receipt using a dispatch code instead of a personal name.
The receipt had later disappeared from her shared folder.
Vanessa asked whether Pilar could identify the courier company.
Pilar said it was the same company whose vans had serviced the center for years.
I felt the temptation to tell her about Owen.
Vanessa shook her head slightly, and I stayed quiet.
Pilar continued without prompting.
She said the operations manager had later told her the packet never arrived.
Two days after that conversation, someone had asked her to replace the staffing schedule with a revised version.
She refused because the revision listed a second assistant who had not been on duty.
A week later, she was moved to overnight shifts.
She resigned when the pressure continued.
I asked why she had not contacted the licensing board earlier.
She looked at me with exhausted eyes.
She said she had assumed the board already had the original schedule.
I realized that every person involved had believed somebody else was protecting the truth.
CHAPTER TWELVE: A DIFFERENT KIND OF FIRE
Owen’s second video appeared the following Friday.
He stood in front of my damaged mailbox and claimed that I was spreading accusations against innocent residents.
He said the fire had been an unfortunate misunderstanding.
He also said I had used the incident to distract attention from my professional record.
The video included a photograph of my former workplace and an image of the licensing board’s public notice.
It did not mention the new hearing.
I did not respond online.
Instead, I sent the link to Vanessa and returned to the board’s evidence request.
We had less than three weeks to identify the missing records.
That afternoon, Sophie called and said Caleb wanted to speak.
We met at a café near his college.
Caleb was nineteen and looked younger when he removed his work cap.
He told me Owen had instructed him to transport sealed administrative packets without scanning them into the usual tracking system.
Caleb said he had refused the most recent request because the destination was a private storage office rather than a medical facility.
Owen had accused him of insubordination and threatened his tuition support.
I asked whether Caleb had handled a packet from my former workplace.
He said he remembered a delivery with a yellow routing sticker because the dispatch address had been changed twice.
He did not know what was inside.
He said the packet had been returned to the dispatch office after the driver questioned the destination.
I asked whether the office retained unclaimed packets.
Caleb said they were supposed to be returned to the sender after a holding period.
He did not know whether the rule had been followed.
I told him not to search the office or take anything without authorization.
He said he had already decided to speak with the investigator.
I watched him leave the café and understood why Miriam had been so easy to frighten.
Owen had threatened the one thing she believed could give her grandson a better future.
