Room 414 smelled of iodine and old flowers. Dana, the night nurse, set down the morning chart and stopped cold. Mara was already there, her administrator badge catching the light, her lanyard crooked like she'd dressed in a hurry. In the bed lay Eli Voss, oxygen tube under his nose, eyes half open. "You shouldn't be in here," Dana said. Mara didn't move. "We need to talk before he wakes up."

Dana decided she wanted no part of this. "I'm calling security," she said, reaching for the wall phone. Mara crossed the room in two steps and pressed her hand flat over it. "Please. Five minutes. Then I'll go, and you can pretend you never saw me here."

Mara took her five minutes. She told Dana everything, plain and ugly, how she'd hidden the errors to protect her career. "I'm not asking you to like me," she said. "I'm asking what it would take to make this go away." Dana stared at her. "You're offering me money," she said. "Get out before I say it louder." Mara left, and Dana wrote down every word for the morning.