Shifting Destiny

Chapter Fourteen

Feyre POV

Alis makes me eat before I go to the administration room. My hands have stopped shaking since the visit at the window, but I still feel tired when I stand. She walks beside me down the interior hall without taking my arm.

Kayla gets up from the table when she sees me, then stops short of hugging me.

"Alis said you weren't feeling well yesterday," Kayla says, pulling out the chair nearest the door. "Do you need to do this another time?"

"I want to see what you found." I sit, grateful for the chair. "If I start looking at the same number five times, you can send me back to bed."

Kayla almost smiles. She takes a yellow carbon sheet and a printout from her folder. The carbon's bottom corner is creased, but the writing above it is clear.

"These were in the office folder where I said they'd be," Kayla tells Alis. "I left the originals there. These are copies I made after you said it was okay."

Alis checks the case numbers, then sets yesterday's intake printout beside Kayla's pages and slides them toward me.

"Just this case," Alis says, sitting across from us. "Let's keep the copies here while we go through them."

The carbon has the black wolf's case number, crate seal, isolation room, and a time in thick blue ink: 1:38 p.m. Kayla initialed the unloading line. Alis signed the receiving line at 1:46 p.m.

"I wrote my time when the crate came off the truck," Kayla says, tapping beside her initials. "Alis signed when we got him inside. I told you it was after lunch."

"You did." I turn the printout over. It carries the same case number and an intake time of 1:46 p.m. across the top. "When was this printed?"

"Two twenty-three," Kayla answers, pointing to the small footer. "I printed it for the isolation folder after you took the paperwork. I kept the carbon behind it because the seal number wouldn't copy clearly."

I set Kayla's printout beside the one Alis showed us yesterday. The layout and case number match. Alis's copy shows an intake time of 11:06 a.m.

"Could someone have entered an earlier transport time by mistake?" Kayla asks, leaning over the two pages. "That number might belong somewhere else."

"It might," I tell her. "But this field means time received. At two twenty-three, it matched Alis's signature. Now it doesn't."

Kayla takes her pen out, then leaves it capped. She knows better than to write on a record we may need to preserve. I turn the two printouts so she can read their footers without reaching across me.

"It was one forty-six when I printed this," Kayla says, keeping a finger beside the footer. "Someone changed it later."

"That's what it looks like." I want to see the history before I call it anything more. "Alis, can the system show when that field was edited?"

"I pulled the edit history this morning," Alis says, opening a separate folder. "At six eighteen on the evening he arrived, someone changed the time from one forty-six to eleven oh-six."

She places the audit page between the printouts. I check the case number, then the old and new values. The page names the intake desk terminal, but the user field contains the shared ward account. I have complained about the lack of individual sign-ins before.

"Can you tell who was there?" Kayla asks Alis, tracing the terminal name without touching the ink.

"Not from this," Alis answers. "I'll preserve the access history and check who was assigned to that desk. A schedule won't prove who used the account."

The change was made only a few hours after the wolf arrived. I put my palms flat on my knees. My nails stay where they are.

A knock comes from the open doorway. A man with dark hair and a narrow leather folio waits there until Alis waves him in. I've seen him in the hall with Levi, but we haven't spoken.

"Dain has the transport copy," Alis tells Kayla and me. "I authorized him to bring the handoff page for this case. He knows we're comparing arrival times."

"I'm Dain," the man says, taking the empty chair only after Alis points to it. "I handle Blackridge's records. We arranged the transport."

Kayla nods at him. There is nothing strange about a sender keeping a transport receipt. I watch Dain open the folio. He gives the page to Alis, who checks it before passing it to us. It lists the crate seal from Kayla's carbon, the vehicle number, and the signature of the sanctuary handler who met the truck. The handoff time is 1:34 p.m. The driver noted a short wait at the gate before unloading.

"Our driver recorded the handoff at one thirty-four," Dain says, pointing to the signed line. "I checked our copy this morning. It doesn't say eleven oh-six anywhere."

Kayla compares the seal numbers aloud. They match. She lays the handoff page beside her carbon, following the minutes from the gate to isolation.

"I remember the driver complaining about the wait," she says, looking at Dain. "He thought we'd lost the keys. We hadn't. The handler was clearing the route."

"He wrote that down too," Dain answers, turning the page so she can see it. "I don't know why someone changed the time here."

On a blank sheet, I put the handoff, unloading, receipt, print, and edit times in order. Kayla's printout and the edit history show that the time changed later. The carbon and Blackridge's copy place the wolf here after one thirty. None of it tells us who typed eleven oh-six.

"Can we correct the time without erasing the edit?" I ask Alis, keeping the blank sheet separate from the evidence. "I don't want the eleven oh-six entry to disappear before we know why it was there."

"I'll add a dated correction and keep these copies," Alis replies, closing the audit folder. "I'll deal with the shared account too. That won't tell us who used it that evening."

Kayla studies the current printout. "Was this an accident?"

"Maybe," I tell her. "I can't accuse anyone from a changed number. I still want to know why it happened."

She sits back. I can see her trying to remember who was at the desk that evening. I don't want her looking at everyone she works with as a suspect because we have one changed number.

Dain sets his folio aside. "Once you've reviewed them, could you send us the intake copies and the edit history? I want to check them against our records."

"The transport copy is yours," Alis tells him. "I'll review the rest with our records supervisor."

"And my chart isn't part of that packet," I add. Dain turns toward me. I hold his gaze, though I would rather look down at the times again. "You don't need my medical notes to check when the wolf arrived."

"I agree," Dain says, his hand still on the folio. "I haven't requested your chart."

"Good." I hear how sharp I sound and don't take it back. Yesterday Levi said people would ask what I did at the fence. The changed intake time gives them another reason to ask questions, and I don't want those questions answered with pages about my body.

Alis pushes the animal records into one stack and leaves my handwritten timeline in front of me. "Your care record stays with my medical staff," she says. "If a request comes in, I will show it to you."

Kayla looks between us. She heard me ask about my chart yesterday, so the boundary isn't new to her. She gathers her folder and stands when Alis's desk phone rings. Alis answers beside the door. She listens, asks the caller to send the request in writing, and hangs up without saying anything about me. A moment later, the small printer on the side cabinet starts feeding out a page.

"What was that?" I ask as Alis lifts it from the tray. Dain closes his folio, and Kayla waits by her chair.

Alis reads the header, then passes the sheet to me. The name at the top belongs to an office I've never heard of. Beneath it is a request for my full medical chart, including the observations made at the window yesterday.