Whitfield read the text over Rae's shoulder twice before he set his phone down on his desk with the deliberate calm of a man refusing to let panic show.
"Tomorrow night," he said. "That's the board's quarterly session. Halloran chairs the agenda committee. If she's moved the compliance item up to that meeting, she's not waiting for a formal investigation timeline anymore. She's going straight for a vote."
"A vote on what, exactly?" Beckett asked. It was nine p.m.; they'd called an emergency meeting the moment the text came through, Dr. Reyes seated stiffly in the corner of Whitfield's office, still visibly shaken by the decision she'd made hours earlier.
"On program oversight." Whitfield's jaw was tight. "If she frames this right — fraternization scandal, a potential undisclosed medical
