Flesh and Bone

Chapter 10: Talking And Working Between The Lines

The department had become a cage of suspicion. Ezwa had thus far spent the better part of the next two days after the incident trying to find out what had happened to Cecile's blood samples. Security allowed him, due to his high position in the department as well as the hospital, to look at surveillance footage. The last time the blood had been accessed was days ago, and every single double-check since that time had recorded all samples safe and sound. This check was done routinely every six or so hours, sometimes less with more volatile cases.

But during those six hours, no one had come out of the lab with anything larger than one of the test tubes, and each one of those had been signed out in triplicate by the carrier as well as an attendee. Every little drop of blood had been spoken for with precision except for four remaining vials taken from Cecile on her last few days, along with the little tray they'd been stationed on.

It was driving the Doctor up the wall. He'd played the footage again and again, and he'd interrogated everyone who had been in the room for the past day and a half. Rany, Maela, and several other nurses and authorized personnel— all of them under his authority— were asked to tell him again and again what they'd remembered. And again, all of them said they were innocent, that the samples were there last time they'd looked at them, and that there was no one else with them at any time.

So now here he was, sitting in the back of the lecture hall where Yoruth was finishing up a whole seminar on prion diseases to a crowd of young doctors-to-be. Ezwa kept to himself, tucking his hands into his pockets and avoiding any passing glances until the lesson was over. It was a mortifying feeling, having turned those few seconds of goodwill they'd had just a while ago into a debacle like this. It was like he was a student again himself, sitting way in the back to soften the blow of an inevitable punishment for tardiness or poor work.

With the last word said and the sound of about a hundred people getting packed and out the two sets of doors on the top of the hall, Ezwa hurried his way down to usher Yoruth out the door usually designated for lecturers. Thankfully the older former doctor saw the urgency in his stride and wasted no time following him, making it easier for Ezwa to catch him up to speed as they walked.

"They're gone?!" Yoruth whispered, sounding just as flummoxed as Ezwa felt.

Looking around them to make sure they weren't being eavesdropped upon, the bearer of bad news continued to deliver. "And we have no idea who did it. I have placed my full confidence in my people, and the footage shows no unauthorized personnel entering or leaving the storage room at any time."

Giving him a sideways look, Yoruth then gravely placed both of his hands on Ezwa's shoulders. "Are you sure that you can trust everyone, every single person that you've got on record going in there?"

"Yes. Implicitly. They have nothing to gain from trying to hide anything from me, and what's more none of them could have done it, unless nurses' scrubs have suddenly started coming with an emergency hatch that could hide a tray and four vials."

Hearing him out, Yoruth then moved cautiously on to his next assertion. "Then I have to ask; do you have anyone out there that you think would want to sabotage you? Any of the doctors you reached out to regarding this case before you came to me?"

That took the doctor off-guard at first. "Sabotage? You mean you believe someone's trying to stop me, to stop us from beating this case?"

"Yes. Career sabotage, professional wrecking, call it what you like— it's happened plenty of times amongst doctors and other members of the medical community. And if it's not them, then I must suggest a second option, one that is potentially worse than the first: that it wasn't one of us. Rather, it was outside intervention meant to stop us dead in our tracks."