Chapter 6 - The Man in Scrubs
Security caught the man before he reached Ben’s room.
He ran when challenged.
That made everything worse.
A legitimate employee could have explained himself.
A confused visitor might have stopped.
The man dropped the syringe in a stairwell and reached the parking structure before two officers tackled him beside a delivery van.
His name was Eric Voss.
Forty-one.
Former licensed practical nurse.
License revoked two years earlier after falsifying medication records at a private rehabilitation center.
James had never heard of him.
Ben had.
When Detective Ross showed him a photograph the next morning, Ben immediately looked away.
“That’s Mr. Eric.”
James gripped the arm of his chair.
“Where do you know him from?”
Ben picked at the blanket.
“He came to the house.”
“When?”
“When my arm got big.”
Elena stood near the foot of the bed.
“Before or after the cast?”
“Before.”
“What did he do?”
Ben touched the upper edge of his surgical dressing with his left hand.
“He brought the red stuff.”
James understood.
The fiberglass.
“He made your cast?”
Ben nodded.
“He told Victoria it was broken and I needed a hospital.”
Ross leaned forward.
“What did Victoria say?”
“She said she knew.”
A strange silence followed.
Eric Voss had advised medical care.
Victoria had refused.
That mattered.
“Did he put the cord around your arm?” Elena asked.
Ben frowned.
“No.”
“Who did?”
“Victoria.”
James stood so abruptly the chair scraped backward.
Maya looked at him.
James immediately walked to the far side of the room.
Ben watched him.
Not frightened.
But monitoring.
James hated that.
Ross continued gently.
“Did Mr. Eric see her do that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did he come back?”
“Two times.”
“Why?”
“He gave her little bottles.”
James turned.
“What bottles?”
Ben shook his head.
Ross stopped the questioning.
Enough.
Later, she told the adults what investigators knew.
Eric had purchased medical supplies using Northstar Family Strategies accounts.
Casting material.
Antibiotics.
Sedatives.
Disposable syringes.
“He says he was hired for private home nursing,” Ross said.
“By Victoria?” James asked.
“He isn’t talking yet.”
“Then why come here?”
Ross glanced at Elena.
The syringe had contained midazolam, a sedative used legitimately in hospitals but dangerous outside proper monitoring.
Eric had no legal reason to possess it.
James went pale.
“He was going to drug Ben?”
“We don’t know his intended target.”
Elena had a different question.
“How did he know Ben’s room?”
Ross’s silence answered.
Someone inside the hospital had told him.
Or someone with access.
The Carter Foundation donor relationship suddenly mattered.
Victoria knew administrators.
Contractors.
Board members.
Security routines.
Not enough to control the hospital.
Enough to understand its weaknesses.
James rubbed both hands over his face.
“This keeps getting bigger.”
Ross looked directly at him.
“Then stop thinking of it as one incident.”
He lowered his hands.
“What?”
“The cast wasn’t the beginning.”
She laid out the evidence chronology.
Rachel’s blocked communication started almost three years earlier.
Ben’s therapy records contained reports of “manipulation,” “dishonesty,” and “attention-seeking behavior.”
Yet Dr. Allan Feldman, the therapist supposedly responsible for those assessments, had never treated Ben.
There was an Allan Feldman.
He practiced in Madison.
He had never met the Carters.
Victoria had fabricated summaries using his name.
School emails showed Ben’s teachers repeatedly asked for meetings.
Victoria attended most alone.
James had attended none during the previous school year.
“I was traveling,” he said.
Ross did not accuse him.
That made it worse.
“She built a story around Ben,” Ross said. “A story where anything he told you could be dismissed before he said it.”
James remembered conversations.
Ben stole.
Ben lied.
Ben resented the marriage.
Ben invented illnesses.
Ben manipulated teachers.
Each incident had seemed small.
Together they formed a cage.
Ross continued.
“If he ever accused her of something, what would you have thought?”
James answered honestly.
“That he was acting out.”
The admission hurt.
“Yes.”
Ross closed the file.
“That may have been the point.”
Across town, Victoria sat in an interview room with her attorney, Charles Redmond.
She had regained control.
Redmond was sixty-two, expensive and careful.
“You cannot contact James, Ben or anyone connected to the investigation.”
“I understand.”
“Apparently you don’t.”
Victoria stared at him.
“Eric panicked.”
Redmond stopped writing.
“That sentence was a mistake.”
She smiled faintly.
“I didn’t say I sent him.”
“You implied prior knowledge.”
“I know Eric because he worked private events for the foundation.”
Redmond leaned back.
“Police have your financial records.”
“Foundation records prove nothing.”
“They have a hidden room.”
“An old wine cellar.”
“With a child’s bed.”
“Ben liked hiding there.”
“Victoria.”
For the first time, Redmond’s voice sharpened.
“You are not speaking to a board member. You are speaking to the man trying to keep you out of prison.”
Her eyes cooled.
“Then do your job.”
Redmond studied her.
“What exactly is in that box?”
Victoria did not answer.
He leaned forward.
“You need to tell me before they do.”
Still nothing.
“What were you moving money for?”
Victoria finally spoke.
“I wasn’t moving money.”
“Then what?”
“I was protecting something James was too weak to protect.”
Redmond frowned.
“What?”
She looked toward the dark observation glass.
“The life he built after Claire died.”
Redmond waited.
Victoria’s expression became almost tender.
May you like
“Claire never left that house.”
And for the first time, her attorney understood that the money might not be the real motive at all.
