"He says he was assaulted," Brenda whispered, stepping back from the counter as if my presence alone might get her arrested. "By the Sheriff."
Dr. Aris looked at the blood on my face, then at the dislocated shoulder. His expression immediately tightened into a mask of aggressive neutrality. He gestured for me to follow him into Examination Room 2. I walked in, sitting heavily on the edge of the paper-lined table.
"Let's get that shoulder back in place," Aris said, avoiding eye contact. He didn't ask me any questions about the incident. He snapped on a pair of latex gloves and moved in, manipulating my arm with a sudden, sharp twist.
The joint popped back into the socket with a sickening crunch. I bit down on my lip hard enough to taste copper again, refusing to give him the satisfaction of a scream.
"It's going to be sore for a few weeks," Aris said, his voice entirely devoid of bedside manner. He grabbed a roll of gauze and a bottle of saline, quickly wiping the dried blood away from the laceration above my ear. "The cut isn't deep enough for stitches. Just keep it clean."
He walked over to the computer terminal in the corner of the room, typing rapidly.
"What are you putting in the chart?" I asked, my voice echoing slightly in the small room.
Aris didn't stop typing. "Patient presented with a dislocated shoulder and minor head abrasion resulting from a fall. Patient states he tripped over his own feet in a public restaurant. Alcohol involvement suspected."
I stared at the back of his white coat. The audacity of the lie was breathtaking, but it was exactly what Elise had predicted. This was how Hollister maintained control. He didn't just terrorize people; he owned the infrastructure that was supposed to protect them.
"I haven't had a drop of alcohol in thirty years," I said coldly. "And I didn't fall."
"It's the only way I can treat you, sir," Aris said, finally turning around to face me. His eyes were hard, completely unyielding. "If I put an assault charge against Ray Hollister in the county database, this clinic loses its funding by Friday. My practice insurance gets pulled. I'm not ruining my life because an old man didn't know when to keep his mouth shut. You tripped."
He hit the print key. A single sheet of paper slid out of the tray. He grabbed a pen and pushed the paper across the metal counter toward me.
"Sign the discharge form," Aris demanded. "Acknowledge the injury was an accident, and you can walk out of here right now."
I stood up from the examination table. My shoulder throbbed with a dull, heavy ache, but my right hand was finally functional. I walked over to the counter and looked down at the fabricated medical report. It was a masterpiece of institutional erasure. If I signed it, Hollister’s narrative became the absolute legal truth.
"No," I said.
Before Aris could react, I pulled the phone from my pocket. I aimed the camera at the computer screen showing the time-stamped fabricated notes, snapping a clear, high-resolution photo. I then turned the camera to the bloody gauze Aris had thrown in the biohazard bin, and finally, a picture of the discharge paper itself.
"Hey! You can't do that in here!" Aris shouted, lunging forward. "That's a HIPAA violation! Give me that phone!"
"I'm documenting my own medical care," I said, stepping back and hitting send. The images vanished into the encrypted cloud server two thousand miles away. "And you just committed medical fraud to protect a corrupt police officer."
The heavy glass doors at the front of the clinic slammed open.
Heavy, polished duty boots echoed across the linoleum of the waiting room. Through the partially open door of the examination room, I saw Brenda shrink back into her chair.
"Doc!" a loud, arrogant voice called out. It wasn't Hollister. The voice was younger, sharper. "Sheriff told me we had a clumsy vagrant wander in here bleeding all over the floor. You got that paperwork ready for me to sign off on?"
Dr. Aris froze, panic flooding his face. He looked at me, then at the door.
"It's Deputy Miller," Aris whispered, his bravado entirely evaporating. "Hollister's brother-in-law. You need to sign this paper right now, or he's going to arrest you for public intoxication and drag you to the county lockup. You will not survive a weekend in those cells."
I looked down at the phone in my hand. The line to Elise was still open. The digital timer on the screen read forty-two minutes of continuous recording.