Watson was a warm weight against my hip. Morning light filtered through the curtains, soft and golden. I should have been asleep. Exhausted, after everything. The meeting with Sloane, the news about Captain Hendricks, and the sense that the case had finally shifted.
Instead, my mind went where it had no business going.
Brian.
About the way he'd nodded when I said I'd find my own place.Makes sense. Once everything settles down.
No argument. No protest. Just acceptance.
I’d wanted him to say something else. The realization surfaced before I could stop it. I'd said I would leave, and some treacherous part of me had been waiting for him to ask me to stay.
He hadn't.
And that was fine. That was the arrangement. We'd found this apartment together for safety. Neutral ground. A fresh start away from my vandalized place. I didn't need anyone.
I never had.
I built my life brick by brick, and I guarded it fiercely, and I never, ever let myself want something I couldn't control.
Except I did want it. I wanted mornings with his coffee already waiting. I wanted Watson weaving between both our legs. I wanted the sound of his key in the lock, the way his face lit up when he saw me, the steady certainty of him in every corner of the apartment we’d made ours.
I wanted to stay. With him.
The Medical Board hearing room was smaller than I'd expected.
Which somehow made it worse.
Wood-paneled walls, a long table where three board members sat with folders open in front of them, a smaller table for me and Lawrence Webb. The air smelled like old paper and furniture polish—the scent of institutions that had existed for decades, grinding through lives with bureaucratic indifference.
Webb had prepped me for this.Stay calm. Answer only what's asked. Don't volunteer information. Let me handle the rest.
He was good—my father's firm didn't employ anyone who wasn't—but sitting here, facing the people who held my career in their hands, the familiar cold spread through me. Settled low. The complaint was fraudulent. We had evidence.
It should have been simple.
Nothing involving the Langs had been simple.
"Dr. Rothwell." The woman in the center, Dr. Patricia Huang, according to her nameplate, folded her hands on the table. "You understand why you're here today."
"Yes."
"A complaint was filed alleging that you acted outside the scope of mandated reporting statutes by disclosing statements made by Kevin Lang during his treatment in your emergency room." She glanced at her notes. "Specifically, that you mischaracterized delirious ramblings as a credible confession to justify a report to law enforcement, and that your actions constituted a breach of professional ethics."
"I reported a suspicious injury under New York State mandates," I said. "The patient made repetitive, unprompted statements regarding a specific unsolved vehicular homicide—the death of Derek Edwards. Under the law, physicians are permitted to report information related to criminal acts?—"
Webb touched my arm.
"If I may," he said smoothly. "We've submitted documentation demonstrating that Dr. Rothwell's actions were fully compliant with New York State mandated reporting statutes. The patient in question made specific, repeated statements about a hit-and-run homicide while in a post-Narcan recovery state. Dr. Rothwell followed proper protocol by reporting this to law enforcement—not only her legal right, but her ethical obligation."
Dr. Huang's expression didn't change. "We've reviewed your documentation, Mr. Webb."
"Then you've also seen the evidence regarding the complaint's origin." Webb slid a folder across the table. "The complaint was filed by an individual named Robert Graves. Mr. Graves is employed by Crescent Holdings, LLC—a shell company with documented financial ties to Councilman Richard Lang, Kevin Lang's father. The complaint was filed within forty-eight hours of Kevin Lang's arrest on vehicular manslaughter charges."
The board member on the left—a man with gray hair and wire-rimmed glasses—frowned as he flipped through the folder.
"You're alleging the complaint is retaliatory," he said.
"I'm not alleging anything," Webb replied. "I'm presenting facts. Robert Graves has no connection to Dr. Rothwell, the hospital, or any legitimate grievance to file a complaint against her—except that his employer has a vested interest in discrediting the witness whose report led to his boss's son being charged with vehicular manslaughter."
