Belmont Springs

Sunday, 3:00 PM

Goddammed parasites. How the hell did they get that photo?

Ethan spent the entire T ride to Belmont racking his brains for an answer. It felt like Callie was being stalked by paparazzi ghosts. The English garden was nowhere near any public road. Had they used a drone? Some crazy satellite technology?

Doubtful, given the angle of the picture. Someone must have taken it from ground level. What about the nurses who’d been following them from a distance? It would have been easy enough to sneak a few cell phone shots.

That made sense. Maybe it was the same insider who’d leaked confidential information about Callie. Then there was Sara Jansen, but that seemed like way too risky a move. Poodle Girl would never do anything to jeopardize her med school career.

Ethan picked up his pace. Even from a distance, he could tell Belmont Springs had beefed up its security. The wrought iron gate was closed, and a security guard manned the usually empty booth. Beyond the entrance, a golf cart with two more guards patrolled the gravel driveway leading to Concord House.  

Too late, he thought bitterly. The damage is already done.

What shocked him most was the photo itself. Did he really hold Callie’s hand or had the image been photoshopped? He tried to visualize their walk through the garden. They’d been sitting on a bench when he told her about Abbie. She’d put her hand on his knee to comfort him. How could he forget that moment when his skin still tingled from the memory?

But then he’d pulled away. They hadn’t touched again… until later, in her room. Shit. What if Prime Dirt got their hands on that video feed too?

“No visitors on Sunday.”

He looked up at the stone-faced guard who had just spoken in a thick Southie accent. The guy looked like someone who would break his arm just for kicks.

“I’m a med student here this month.” He held up his ID badge. “I’m supposed to check in with my team today.”

The guard grunted and snatched up the ID. A few seconds later, recognition flickered in his eyes.  

“I bet you ah.” He reached into the guard house to open the gate, then handed back the ID with a smirk. “Have a nice day, Doc.”

When Ethan reached Callie’s floor, he did a double take. The place looked abandoned. The nurse’s station was empty, the telemetry monitors chirping their data like a chorus of crickets. He’d been in many hospital wards on a Sunday, and skeleton crews were typical. But no one?

A high-pitched scream echoed down the corridor, making him flinch. The shrill sound broke up into guttural sobs, like something out of a horror movie. Footsteps pounded down the hall, accompanied by the urgent beeping of an alarm.

Ethan caught a glimpse of Sophie Choi’s head sticking out of a room.

Callie’s room.

No. It can’t be her.

Choi shouted orders at the swarm of doctors and support staff. “Get those restraints on! And I need an IV push of Ativan stat!”

The inhuman shrieking picked up again, tearing at his eardrums. Heart pounding, he raced toward Callie’s room, barreling past two security guards and through the open door.

A wall of nurses and guards blocked his view, but he could hear her tortured screams. They reached a crescendo and fell like coyote wails, interspersed with gasps and sobs. He watched helplessly as she kicked and groaned.

“Get away from me! Help! Murderers! Get away from me! Heeelp!”

The voice sounded wrong. Raspy and tremulous, like she’d aged a hundred years.

One of the security guards struggled with a thrashing arm, desperately trying to secure it with a strap, and her hospital gown fell back to reveal pale, withered skin. Choi moved to inject something into the IV port, finally giving Ethan a glimpse of the crazed patient.

He saw bloodshot eyes sunken into a skeletal face. White, matted hair. A gaping, toothless mouth. Arms that looked like the gnarled branches of an ancient tree. He heaved a sigh of relief. Unless he’d just stepped into a Stephen King novel, the poor soul in front of him was definitely not Callie.

The elderly woman slumped back into her cot, like a mannequin with strings that had just been cut. The team settled into a less frenzied rhythm.

“You’ve got this, Dave,” Choi told a young resident in scrubs. “Get a tox screen, CBC with diff, CMP and urinalysis, then up her risperidone. Call if you need anything.”

Ethan tried to back away but then Choi turned abruptly, almost bumping into him.

“You.” Her eyes narrowed. “What are you doing here?”

“I –” he stammered. “What can I do to help?”

“Nothing.” She pulled off her gloves and flicked them into the trash. “You’ve done enough.”

“Where’s Callie?”

“Like I said, you’ve done enough.”

She brushed past him and stormed out of the room.

“Doctor Choi…”

She kept walking down the hallway. After a moment’s hesitation, he rushed after her.

“Sophie, please!”

“What!” She spun around, utter exhaustion in her eyes. “What. Do. You. Want?”

“What happened to Callie?” He took a step toward her, then thought better of it. “Please. Just tell me. Why is there a new patient in her room?”

“Because she’s gone. Isn’t it obvious?”

Ethan’s throat tightened. “How? I thought –”

“That she was planning to stay?” She glared at him. “Well, she was, until yesterday when her Protected Health Information started popping up all over the internet. Then there’s that wonderful picture of you holding her hand and strolling through the garden like effing Romeo and Juliet.” Her cheeks flushed scarlet. “Doctor Grieves trusted you. Despite my better judgement, I trusted you. Damn it, Ethan. What were you thinking?”

He forced himself to look her in the eye. “I’m sorry, Sophie. You’re right. I screwed up. But it’s not too late to help Callie. If I could talk to her, even for a minute, maybe –”

“You don’t get it.” Choi put her hands on her hips. “It’s over. She left this morning with that nightmare mother of hers. Signed out against medical advice. Your hand-holding incident was only salt in the wound. The real crime is that someone leaked her PHI. Forget about the bad press and inevitable lawsuit. That kind of violation could shut us down.”

Ethan took a moment to process that bombshell. “Who had access to her medical record?”

“That’s the thing. We prioritize keeping our EMR secure. Callie’s nurses had access to her meds and allergies, but even they couldn’t see her full chart. All the sensitive PHI was restricted to her medical team. That’s three people.” Sophie gave him a pointed look. “You, me and Doctor Grieves.”

“What about a hacker?”

She nodded, like that was what she suspected. “IT is looking into it. Given the breach of Callie’s medical record, the board of trustees told us to let her go without challenging her decision. They’re in damage control mode, bracing for a lawsuit and full ethics investigation. Doctor Grieves will probably be suspended.”

“Why?” Ethan raised his voice. “This isn’t his fault.”

“Doesn’t matter. He’s the attending physician” – she waited for a nurse to scurry by before continuing, in a loud whisper – “and I’m the Chief Resident. I’ll be caught up in this clusterfuck too.”

“No you won’t. I’m the one who screwed up, Sophie. You and Doctor Grieves both warned me not to cross professional boundaries with Callie, but I plowed right through them anyway.”

“Yeah, those photos didn’t help. You’re going to face some consequences for your lapse of judgment.”

“I see.” Ethan tried not to hyperventilate. “Am I going to be expelled for this?”

“Not likely. You’ll need to appear before the ethics committee, but I doubt you’ll even be suspended. That photo was taken illicitly and published by a sleazy gossip site that’s well known for fabricating stories. What’s to say they didn’t photoshop the picture?” She arched a brow. “That’s what I’d claim if I were in your position.”

Ethan breathed a little easier. “Thanks, Doctor Choi.”

“Don’t thank me,” she snapped. “I don’t think you should lose your med school degree over this, but you shouldn’t get off scot-free either.”

“I understand.”

“We’ll discuss that tomorrow. Right now, our priority is to hunt down whoever leaked Callie’s PHI. That son-of-a-bitch just trashed Belmont’s reputation, and that’s not even the worst part. If Callie dies because of this” – she fixed her gaze on him – “her blood will be on his hands.”

His hands. Ethan noticed her word choice. Was she trying to bait him?

“You know there’s no way in hell I’d leak Callie’s information,” he said, staring her down. “I wouldn’t betray her any more than you or Doctor Grieves would. This is an outside job."

“I hope you’re right.” Choi glanced at her cell phone. “But that doesn’t change the fact that Callie’s probably on a flight to California right now. Unless she decides to return to school. Either way, she won’t have the support she needs. You remember what we told you about her suicide risk. How it will be off the charts if she leaves Belmont before she’s ready.”

“If she goes back to Brown,” Ethan said, “she’ll probably try to reconnect with her roommate. What was her name again?”

“Maya Moreno.”

“Right. Callie had a framed picture of her by the window.” He remembered the image: Callie with her arm around a pretty girl with olive skin, long black hair, and brown eyes. They were standing on the front porch of a bright pink Victorian house. “She’s the girl in front of the pink house. Too bad I don’t know the address.”

Choi frowned. “Yeah, too bad.”

She started walking toward the sedated patient’s room, then paused to look back over her shoulder. “I know you want to be benevolent, Ethan. But don’t go walking down the wrong street." Her brow furrowed in a curious way. "Not until we talk to Doctor Grieves tomorrow. You’re excused from morning rounds. We’ll meet in his office at ten AM.”

Once she was gone, Ethan whipped out his iPhone and pulled up a map of Providence. Callie would never follow Elin to California, which meant he still had a chance to find her before it was too late.

Fingers shaking, he typed in “Benevolent.”

There it was: Benevolent Street, Providence, Rhode Island. Right at the edge of the Brown University campus. The street was only four blocks long. Not a lot of space to hide a flamingo-pink Victorian.

***

© Copyright 2025 graymartin. All rights reserved.