Chapter 6 - The Name on the LogBy sunrise, Yuna had been suspended.
Not fired.
Not accused.
Suspended pending investigation.
Chairman Park told her personally.
“I know you did not do this.”
Yuna sat across from her.
“That sentence should not appear in the official investigation.”
Chairman Park looked at her.
“You want the process clean.”
“I demanded a system that worked without requiring powerful people to intervene for the people they liked.”
The irony was almost unbearable.
One year earlier, Yuna had stood in this hospital and fought for an independent accountability system.
Now that system was investigating her.
“Then let it work,” she said.
Chairman Park nodded slowly.
“You understand your badge access has been disabled.”
“Yes.”
“You cannot contact Mr. Cho as a patient.”
“I know.”
“You cannot access his chart.”
“I know.”
Chairman Park hesitated.
“Jacob called.”
Yuna closed her eyes.
“Of course he did.”
“I told him the same thing I’m telling you.”
“And?”
“He was not pleased.”
“He survives disappointment.”
Chairman Park almost smiled.
Then Yuna’s phone rang.
Jacob.
She stared at it.
Chairman Park stood.
“I’ll give you privacy.”
Yuna answered after she left.
“I know.”
Jacob’s voice was quiet.
“I’m coming.”
“No.”
“Yuna.”
“Where are you?”
“Five minutes away.”
“Turn around.”
Silence.
“I mean it.”
“Someone used your credentials to attempt to murder a patient.”
“Yes.”
“And frame you.”
“Yes.”
“I am not leaving you alone.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“Then—”
“I’m asking you not to solve it.”
He stopped.
Yuna stood and walked to the window.
“You can come,” she said. “You can sit with me. You can help me find an attorney. You can make tea. You can be angry. But you do not call anyone to make this disappear.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“Were you going to call anyone to find Min-jae?”
Silence.
“Jacob.”
“Yes.”
“Don’t.”
“He is trying to destroy you.”
“Then we prove it.”
“And if proof comes too late?”
Yuna looked out at Chicago waking below.
“Then we live with the cost of choosing not to become him.”
Jacob said nothing.
She continued.
“You asked me to marry you because you said you wanted to be worthy of the person I was becoming.”
“I remember.”
“This is what that costs.”
Another long silence.
Then:
“I’m downstairs.”
Yuna turned.
“You said five minutes.”
“I lied.”
Despite everything, she almost laughed.
“Come up.”
—
The evidence against Yuna was excellent.
That was the problem.
Her credentials had accessed the medication cabinet.
Her badge had opened the west corridor door.
Her account had logged into Ethan’s chart.
All within the relevant window.
The hospital’s internal investigator, Rachel Stein, laid the timeline out without accusation.
Yuna respected her immediately.
“Where were you at 2:58?”
“Nurses’ station.”
“Witnesses?”
“Ji-Young Lee. Tomas Alvarez passed through around then. Possibly two patient family members.”
“Camera?”
“Yes.”
Rachel nodded.
“We have footage.”
“Then why am I suspended?”
“Because your credentials were used.”
“Correct answer.”
Rachel looked at her.
“You expected me to say something else?”
“I expected you to understand why I’m asking.”
“I do.”
Yuna nodded.
This was the system.
Not comfortable.
Not personal.
Necessary.
Rachel continued.
“Someone duplicated your badge or obtained temporary access to it.”
“My badge never left my possession.”
“Are you certain?”
Yuna thought.
Then stopped.
Three days earlier.
Cafeteria.
She had left her scrub jacket over a chair for approximately four minutes while getting coffee.
Badge attached.
“Not completely.”
Rachel wrote it down.
“Who knew your login?”
“No one.”
“Could someone have observed it?”
“Possibly.”
“Any recent unusual interactions?”
Yuna thought of Daniel.
Ethan.
Min-jae.
Jacob’s past.
White flowers tied with black thread.
“Yes,” she said.
“Several.”
—
The breakthrough came from Ji-Young.
Not from Jacob.
Not from the police.
Not from security.
From a second-year resident who had learned one year earlier that records mattered.
She called Yuna at 8:40 that evening.
“I found something.”
“You shouldn’t be accessing the investigation.”
“I’m not.”
“Ji-Young.”
“I’m reviewing my own patient notes because I’m allowed to do that.”
“And?”
“Remember the woman in 709?”
Yuna did.
Elderly.
Postoperative.
Confused at night.
“She kept saying a maintenance man came into her room.”
Yuna sat upright.
“What time?”
“Two-fifty.”
“What did you document?”
“That she reported seeing a man in gray maintenance clothing near her bathroom. I assumed delirium because facilities had no scheduled work.”
“Did she describe him?”
“Yes.”
Yuna’s pulse increased.
“What did she say?”
Ji-Young read from the note.
“Male, Asian, approximately fifty, scar near left eyebrow.”
Yuna stood.
Jacob looked up from across the room.
“What?”
She held up one finger.
“Send the note to Rachel. Not me. Rachel.”
“I already did.”
Yuna smiled.
“Good.”
“I learned from someone irritating.”
“You’re welcome.”
She disconnected.
Jacob was standing now.
“What happened?”
Yuna told him.
The color left his face.
“Min-jae has a scar over his left eyebrow.”
“Then tell the police.”
Jacob took out his phone.
He stopped.
Yuna watched him.
This was the moment.
The old instinct and the new choice.
He called Detective Moreno.
Not one of his people.
Not family.
Police.
Yuna said nothing.
She did not praise him.
He was not a child.
He did not need a reward for doing what he had promised to do.
But when the call ended, she took his hand.
That was different.
—
Min-jae Kang was arrested forty-eight hours later.
Not for the attack.
Not yet.
For an unrelated outstanding federal warrant discovered when police identified him entering a parking structure six blocks from Mercy General.
In his rented vehicle they found:
A gray maintenance jacket.
A cloned hospital badge.
A photograph of Yuna.
And black thread.
Yuna’s suspension was lifted the following morning.
She returned to the seventh floor at 6:00 a.m.
No ceremony.
No announcement.
She preferred it that way.
Tomas handed her coffee.
Ji-Young nodded at her from the desk.
Marcus from pharmacy sent a message consisting only of:
Welcome back. Also, check your orders because apparently doctors remain doctors.
Yuna smiled.
At 7:12, she entered Room 711.
Ethan was awake.
He looked at her.
“You came back.”
“Yes.”
“They let you?”
“They determined I did not attempt to kill you.”
“That must be reassuring.”
“It is administratively convenient.”
Ethan almost smiled.
Then his expression changed.
“Min-jae wanted me dead.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“I do.”
Yuna waited.
Ethan stared at the ceiling.
“Because I found the accounts.”
“The laundering?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“They aren’t mine.”
Yuna went still.
“Your father said—”
“My father assumed.”
“Whose are they?”
Ethan looked at her.
“Min-jae’s.”
The financial scheme had not been Ethan’s revenge.
It had been Min-jae’s.
Ethan had discovered it and tried to exploit it against Jacob.
Then realized too late that Min-jae was using him as cover.
“He told me we could take everything from Jacob,” Ethan said.
“And you believed him.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Ethan laughed bitterly.
“Because my father spent my whole life teaching me that Jacob stole everything from us.”
Yuna looked at him.
“And now?”
Ethan’s eyes closed.
“Now I think maybe everyone in my family has been lying to themselves so long they forgot which lie came first.”
Yuna understood that better than she wanted to.
“Tell the police.”
Ethan opened his eyes.
“If I do, I implicate myself.”
“Yes.”
“I could go to prison.”
“Yes.”
“You don’t have any comforting nurse speech?”
“No.”
He stared at her.
Yuna continued.
“You made choices. Choices have costs.”
“And if telling the truth costs me everything?”
She thought about Jacob.
About Sung-woo.
About the hospital.
May you like
About herself.
“Then at least what remains belongs to the truth.”
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