Chapter 4 - The Midnight DossierBefore I could process the sheer scale of the tragedy that had shaped the city's most feared criminal, the emergency lights of my desk console flashed red.
A silent page.
I looked down at the monitor. An encrypted data packet had just been dropped onto the secure hospital terminal assigned to my station. The sender ID was masked, but the subject line read: FILE 17-B: THE MILLER-MORETTI CORRELATION.
"What is that?" Sebastian asked, his sharp eyes catching the red glow on my screen.
"I don't know," I muttered, quickly tapping my access badge against the reader to open the file. "The hospital's main server is heavily firewalled. Only the chief administrator or the board of directors can route files directly to this terminal."
I clicked open the PDF. The first page displayed a scanned adoption and birth record from seventeen years ago.
My breath caught in my throat.
"Look at this," I whispered, turning the monitor slightly toward him.
The document wasn't a standard birth certificate. It was an internal, highly classified medical transfer manifest from St. Jude’s Hospital, dated the exact night of the fire.
Infant: Male, 4 lbs, 2 oz. Admitted under emergency homeless intake. Status: Rescued prior to structural collapse by private medical transport. Rerouted to: Pine Valley Children's Hospital, Confidential Ward.
Sebastian slowly stood up, still holding Baby Boy Miller with one arm while leaning over the desk with the other. His eyes scanned the lines of text, tracking down the page until his finger stopped dead on a specific name in the guardian authorization field.
Authorized Guardian / Legal Trustee: Dr. Arthur Harrison.
The chief of pediatrics. The man who had just tried to forcefully evict Sebastian from the NICU ten minutes ago.
"Harrison," Sebastian growled, the name tasting like poison on his tongue. "That cowardly piece of trash was a resident at St. Jude's back then. He signed off on the demolition."
"If Harrison was there," I said, my mind racing through the terrifying implications, "and he covered up the transfer... then why is Baby Boy Miller here, in our hospital, under a fake chart name?"
Sebastian didn't answer right away. He scrolled down to the final page of the encrypted file. Attached was a financial ledger showing monthly hush-money payouts routed through a shell company directly to an offshore account registered in Dr. Harrison's name.
The last payout transaction timestamp?
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Today at 4:15 PM.
Right after Sebastian walked through the front doors of the NICU.
