“One hundred twelve.”
Ethan looked at her.
“How do you know?”
“I listened.”
“Go to school.”
“It’s Saturday.”
He closed his eyes.
“Get in the truck.”
Lucy grinned.
For Elena, the evening did not become easier.
Her executive team expected celebration in Columbus.
Instead she canceled dinner and turned a hotel conference room into an emergency audit center.
At 8:11 p.m., twelve laptops were open.
Regional reports covered the table.
Elena sat at the head.
The mint robe had been replaced with a black sweater and tailored trousers.
Her wheelchair remained.
Nobody looked at it.
They had learned.
Daniel Mercer, the chief operating officer, projected complaint statistics.
“Main Street location has four formal complaints in eighteen months.”
Elena frowned.
“Four?”
“Yes.”
“Customer churn?”
“Seventeen percent.”
“That doesn’t fit.”
“I agree.”
“Transfer-outs?”
“Thirty-one percent above regional average.”
“Cash-pay percentage?”
Daniel clicked.
“Also high.”
“How high?”
“Twenty-eight percent.”
Elena sat back.
“That store serves a working-class population.”
“Yes.”
“Why are they paying cash at that rate?”
Silence.
General counsel, Priya Shah, opened another report.
“I found something.”
Everyone turned.
“Insurance reversal frequency.”
“What?”
“Gary’s location processes more initial cash transactions followed by retroactive insurance rebilling than any comparable store.”
Elena narrowed her eyes.
“Meaning?”
“They charge cash at pickup.”
“Then bill insurance later.”
“Refund patient?”
“Records say yes.”
“Method?”
“Store credit in many cases.”
Elena’s expression changed.
“Store credit?”
Priya nodded.
Elena looked toward Daniel.
“Is that allowed?”
“In narrow circumstances.”
“Not systematically.”
“No.”
“Who approved?”
“We don’t know.”
Elena’s stomach tightened.
One rude manager might be personality.
A pattern was structure.
“Expand audit.”
“How far?”
“All one hundred twelve.”
Daniel blinked.
“That could take months.”
“Start tonight.”
“Elena—”
“Tonight.”
They did.
By 2:00 a.m., the picture became worse.
Not catastrophic.
Not criminal everywhere.
But messy enough.
The pharmacy chain’s previous private-equity owners had implemented aggressive profitability targets eighteen months earlier.
Managers were rewarded for increasing margin on cash-pay transactions.
Discount-card use reduced store-level bonuses.
Insurance rejection resolution took staff time but did not increase manager performance scores.
Customer-service metrics existed.
Profit metrics mattered more.
Nobody wrote:
Humiliate poor customers.
Nobody wrote:
Refuse second payment cards.
Nobody told Gary to throw anything onto floor.
But the organization had rewarded speed over patience.
Margin over resolution.
Transactions over people.
Gary had taken that framework and added his own arrogance.
Others may have done different things.
Elena stared at spreadsheet until numbers blurred.
At 2:34 a.m., her phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
She answered.