Page 61 of Collision

“I never, not for one moment, have regretted bringing you into this world. I wouldn’t have traded even the most high-end luxuries for you. Now, I need you to stop doubting yourself and realize you’re the best thing since sliced bread and lock down that man.”

I drop my head back in a laugh. “I love you, Mom.”

“I love you more, Sammy.”

I groan. “You know I hate when you call me that.”

She giggles. “That’s why I do it. Now, hand me another one of those cookies.”

CHAPTER 27

Carter

Ishouldn’t be doing this.

I continue to stare at my computer screen anyway. Am I really going to do it?

Yes. I am. I have to. I won’t be able to let it go if I don’t check through the data.

It’s been three weeks since Inez found the wrong date on the RetLab program. Our database went live a week later, and at least some of the data should be entered by now. If I break the rules and look into the lymphoma team’s data, I can confirm on my own that everything is on the up and up.

I can’t explain why my gut is telling me something is wrong. Anyone else would’ve moved on by now. Everyone has moved on from this. Except for me. I can’t let it go.

The decision cements, and I pull up our database.

I take a moment to be proud of what my team has created. Each research team has specific login information to access only the data their credentials allow them to. The scoring programs are built into the database so that once the data is entered, it will be scored accurately and efficiently. The hope is this will streamline most of the data collection and analysis for our teams. They won’t have to enter their data into multiple scoring programs and then transfer those scores into some other format to be analyzed.

All the teams will keep the paper copies of their testing scores, of course, but if we can make it easier to analyze the data, that could mean faster results for life-saving medications.

I log into the system as if I’m a researcher. I’m pretending to be checking the database for any random bugs, even though I know no one will ever know I did this.

Once I’m on the right team’s dataset, I flip through their data. The database is set up to highlight any errors in red. And as far as I can tell, all of their data is accurate. There are a couple of red numbers, but that could be an error in the data entry or a participant’s data was skewed.

With my concerns abated, I close out of the program. Maybe my worries are just a product of my anxiety. The uncertainty about the scoring program being updated could’ve just been my anxiety going haywire. It’s still weird as fuck, but there’s no way to find out what happened without going to the source. And I don’t have a clue who would’ve done it. The company that created the program never got back to me on it, so it truly is a non-issue at this point.

I’m not exactly satisfied with not having a definitive answer, but my curiosity has been sated for now. I go back to working on the rest of my to-do list for the day. It’s about as long as my arm.

Time passes in a blur as I work. I’m not even aware of what time it is when my computer screen lights up with a call, pulling me out of my focus.

“Hey, Inez. Everything okay?”

“I’m not sure, exactly.” She sounds nervous or anxious about something, which puts me on edge. “I just got a call from the osteoporosis lab that they were having issues with our database. They said the data they entered wasn’t coming back with the correct scores. I thought that was strange, so I went up to see if maybe they were using the wrong program or something. Everything they’re doing is correct. They shouldn’t be getting incorrect scores.”

“Is this on the RetLab program?”

“Yeah. I thought we’d gotten it fixed before the database went live. What the hell is going on?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. I’ll dig into the code of the database to see if something is weird there. Can you have them use the original scoring program to find out if it’s incorrect, as well?”

“Sure. I’ll let you know what they say.”

“Thanks.” I click off the call and drop my head into my hands. This is ridiculous. I don’t understand what is happening. This whole situation is making my team look like imbeciles.

That’s the crux of why I can’t let this go. I have an incredible team. Shit like this wouldn’t have flown by us without raising a red flag.

I keep going back to the same question. Could someone be fucking with the data? If that’s true, they’re going to ruin their research. They’ll lose all credibility. Not to mention the ripple effect it would have on the company as a whole.

I send William an email asking him for the scoring criteria for the RetLab program. Then I pull up the code and start to go through it one line at a time. It’s a tedious job. If I don’t cover every detail, it’ll be my fault the program still isn’t working as it should.

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