Chapter 17: The Hearing

The hospital boardroom had a long walnut table and a portrait of a founder who disapproved of everyone.

Nine board members sat along both sides, with the white-haired chair at the head.

Corinna stood at the foot in a black dress, with a folder under her arm and her lawyer's empty chair beside her.

She had arrived an hour early, and I could tell she had been crying on purpose.

Ward sat across from me, tall and tense in his good jacket.

Dot sat behind me with her purse on her knees.

She had told the guard at the door exactly what she thought of him.

"We are here on a complaint," the chair said. "Ms. Danvers, please begin."

"Thank you." Corinna opened the folder and set out three pages. "This is painful, because I have known Callie for seven years."

I kept my hands flat on the table.

"She came to this city claiming to be fleeing a marriage. In fact, she is still legally Gavin Chamberlin's wife."

"She is not," I said.

"Ms. Merrow, you will have your turn," the chair said.

"Forgive me," Corinna said sweetly. "I only worry that she forged a document to get charity care for her mother."

A board member at the end of the table, an older woman with a silver braid, frowned.

"What document?"

"A marriage certificate that gave her mother a policy that was never hers."

She slid a page down the table to the chair.

"She used a doctor's affection to push an expensive device past the committee.

"I am sure Dr. Brodsky is a good man. He has simply been used."

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