Page 80 of Every Last One
This hospital destroyed our lives…Mindy’s words ricocheted in her head, along with so much else that Dylan had revealed. Mindy sounded suicidal and truly felt she had nothing to lose. “Did she talk about Founders Hospital, maybe Bright Future LLC?” Sandra recalled the only other person Mindy said she knew was the owner of the pharmaceutical company.
“We both talked about the hospital. It still doesn’t make sense she’d go in there with a gun, and with strangers. But that company sounds familiar, though I’m not sure why.”
“They make chemo medication,” Sandra told him.
“That’s why, then. I must have seen the name somewhere during her treatment.”
“But Mindy never said anything about them to you?” Sandra asked.
“Nothing about storming in with a gun, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“She’s holding members of the hospital board in a boardroom. One of those people is the CEO of Bright Future.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Then she never expressed any malice toward them or the hospital? Or people who worked for them?” Sandra just wanted as much information as she could before getting back on the phone with Mindy. Assuming she’d answer her call. But she thought of a workaround for that when the time came.
“She’d get frustrated at times, yeah. Like how much money they were making from inflating the cost of medication and treatment. How they should be ashamed of themselves.”
“Besides talking about suicide,” Sandra said, putting extra care into saying that last word gently, “was your wife acting differently in the last few months?” That would account for when she’d got online with Fat Cats and found like-minded people in Feeney, Sparling, and Perkins.
“She was quieter, but I thought that had to do with her depression.”
“Which it could, but it would seem there was more to it.” Sandra told him about the website and the forum. “Did she ever mention it to you?”
“No. I’m starting to think I haven’t known my wife these last few months. I thought she might be getting better. Now this. What does she expect to accomplish? That they’re just going to wipe out our debt?”
“It is our belief she feels the people in that boardroom can do that.”
“I told her we would figure it out. She just had to focus on getting better.” Dylan shook his head. “Now, she’ll spend the rest of her life in prison.”
Where she will receive free treatment…The thought fired through Sandra’s mind. But prisons were only required to provide very basic medical care to inmates under the US Constitution. “Your wife isn’t thinking rationally right now. She probably isn’t even concerned about that.”
“She must be in a darker place than I thought,” Dylan said. “I should have seen this coming.”
“There was no way that you could have seen this.” Sandra felt confident in offering that assurance. From what he’d told them, Mindy had essentially shut herself off from him, her true feelings, her plans…
“Is she going to be all right? Can I talk to her? Maybe if I do, she’ll see she’s made a huge mistake.”
It could also trigger her to do worse. So far no one was hurt in that room that they knew about. “I don’t think that’s a good idea at this point.”
“But there is a way that she can walk away from this, right?” Dylan looked around anxiously. “I saw those ERT guys out there. They look ready for war.”
“No one is moving in.” Sandra was quick to quell the man’s panic. There would be no advantage to telling him there were two shootings that would reflect on her. “On that site I mentioned, Fat Cats, she used the handle Alaya Princess. Do you know why?”
“Yeah. When Mindy was at her lowest during chemo, she took up meditation. In this guided one she was encouraged to ask the name of her higher self.”
Sandra didn’t miss Brice’s tense facial expression. He clearly wasn’t a fan of new-age spirituality. She had a tolerance for it, appreciating there was more to the universe than could be explained with science. But running was her god. She hadn’t found a better way of purging her demons and glimpsing peace of mind. After consideration, the fact Mindy allowed Sandrato call her by that name could be something she used to her advantage when she spoke to her next. “What did you think your wife was doing today?”
“She told me she was going to shop for flowers for the backyard.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “All a lie.”
“You couldn’t have known, and none of this is on you,” Sandra assured him. “And I will do my absolute best to get your wife out of that hospital safe and sound.”
“But she’ll still go to prison?”
“I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do about that.”
“You can talk for her, maybe lessen her sentence.”
