“The board didn’t care about emergencies,” Evelyn said. “They wanted to clean up the ledger.”

She looked toward the window, her eyes vacant as she remembered.

“I argued with the supervisor,” she said. “I told her that Helen wouldn’t survive the night without antibiotics.”

“Who made the decision to turn her away?” I asked, my voice trembling.

“The supervisor’s hands were tied,” Evelyn said. “She had an order from the front office.”

“Who was in the front office?” I asked.

Evelyn took a deep breath, her chest rising and falling slowly.

“There was a young man,” she said. “A representative of the new ownership group.”

“A Carter?” I asked, the name tasting like ash in my mouth.

“He wasn’t one of the older executives,” Evelyn said. “He was young, barely out of university, but he had all the authority.”

She shook her head, a look of disgust crossing her lined face.

“He sat in the administrator’s office with a calculator,” she said. “He called patients ‘liabilities’.”

I leaned forward, my hands gripping the armrests of the chair.

“Did you see him?” I asked.