Chapter 8 - Patient Zero
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After my mother was removed from the floor, I couldn't sleep. The narcotics kept the physical pain at bay, but my brain was working at lightspeed.
I dragged my hospital tray closer, opened my laptop, and began running a deep-trace audit on Apex Care Management.
As a forensic auditor, I knew that every financial fraud had a starting point—a "Patient Zero" where the thief first tested the system to see if anyone was paying attention.
I set the search filters to three years prior, sorting by system creation date for user ID A_WELLMAN_FIN99.
The screen flickered, loading a single archived file.
Patient Record #88412: Leonard Hayes.
Age: 74.
Status: Deceased (Palliative Care Wing, Unit 3).
Date of Death: October 14, 2023.
My breathing hitched.
Leonard Hayes was a wealthy retired shipping magnate who had passed away three years ago in our main hospital campus. He had no surviving children, leaving his multi-million-dollar estate to a private charitable trust.
Forty-eight hours after Leonard Hayes died, an electronic override was entered into the billing system.
A supplemental insurance payout of $340,000 was approved for "specialized post-mortem medical equipment charges."
The destination account for that money wasn't the hospital's primary bank.
It was a commercial checking account at a local credit union in San Diego, registered under Apex Care Management LLC.
I pulled up the corporate filing for Apex Care Management on the California Secretary of State portal.
The primary registered agent was Austin Wellman.
But it was the secondary manager listed on the corporate charter that made my blood run cold.
Secondary Manager: Amanda Wellman.
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My mother wasn't just covering for Austin because he was her favorite child.
She was his business partner.
