She fell silent and just kept staring at the fire.
His initial relief gave over to feeling a little uneasy at how calculating this all sounded. Strip it down, and she’d basically come here to use his patients and the investigation to pursue her personal agenda. But she was also a legitimate resident and damn good doctor who had provided first-rate care to the people he’d entrusted her with. So was there a problem here?
For one, he’d shown her evidence in a coroner’s case. Should any of those files ever add up to charges against Chaz, the fact they’d been in the hands of someone who had her own issues with Chaz’s father might give the Braden lawyers yet another conflict-of-interest gun to hold over his head. He couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought of that.
She turned her head and gave him a contrite smile as if she sensed his discomfort with what she’d done. “I would have told you all this by next week. Events just started to roll faster than I expected, and you got the jump on me. Our first day together, when you said how everyone would let me in on the seamier sides of Hampton Junction, I nearly ‘fessed up then and there. I hope you can forgive me.”
Forgive? His instincts leapt to point out the potential problems she’d caused, but in the firelight her dark eyes emitted a sad warmth that laid a calming hand on his concerns. “Of course,” he said, deciding against saying anything for the moment. It was too late to do anything about what had happened anyway.
They remained where they were for a while, sipping wine, Lucy talking about the service industry that had sprung up for people trying to find a biological parent – everything from detectives to tracking programs on the Internet – and how none of it worked for her. To Mark it sounded as if she was still trying to justify her subterfuge. In any case, the openness between them from before dinner was gone.
Before going to bed, he took his messages.
“… Dr. Roper, it’s Victor. I think I’ve found what had companies using Nucleus Labs so jumpy. Also, I got to wondering about the group of New York doctors and, being in a suspicious frame of mind, figured I ought to check if there were anything in the test results themselves to warrant someone wanting to store them separately. I hacked into the terminal we forward them to, and there’s a peculiar little something there as well. Give me a call…”
Instantly he felt wide-awake. He was dialing the number when the next recording sounded.
“… Mark, it’s Earl. I’m in the hospital, admitted as a patient. We have to talk…”
Holy shit! he thought. There was no answer when he got through to Victor’s. “Maybe he’s out somewhere for Thanksgiving dinner,” he said to Lucy, who had appeared at the door to his office. She must have overheard the messages.
He was already dialing the number for NYCH.
“I’m sorry, sir, but all calls to that number have been blocked. I can give you the nurse’s desk.”
“Are you a relative?” said the woman who picked up.
“No, I’m his colleague, Dr. Mark Roper. He and I are working on a coroner’s case together. I must talk with him.”
“Dr. Garnet has been sedated, sir, and Dr. Collins has left strict orders he not be disturbed.”
“Then connect me with Dr. Collins’s home.”
“One moment.”
“Mark!” Melanie greeted him. “I’m sorry, I guess I should have informed you about Earl’s admission. Apologies.”
“What happened?”
“Looks like he picked up a bug from our fair city’s fine cuisine. I’ll have preliminary cultures in the morning.”
“But is he all right?”
“Sure. I mean, he’s got a lot of discomfort, but vitals are fine, lytes et cetera check out okay, and believe me, he’s well covered in the analgesia department.”
Mark’s heartbeat ticked up a notch. He hesitated to ask his next question, thinking it would sound crazy, but went ahead anyway. “Melanie, I know you’re going to think I’m nuts for even suggesting this, but is there any way Earl could have been deliberately poisoned?”
“You mean by the likes of Chaz Braden?”
“My God. Earl told you?”
“Only about your suspicions over what happened to Bessie McDonald. As for him, his case seems bona fide. Certainly Earl didn’t say anything to make me think differently. But don’t worry. I’m hovering over him like a mother hen. Chaz Braden, or anyone else I haven’t personally authorized, won’t get near him.”
That’s a pretty big promise, Mark thought, knowing perfectly well how staff could come and go as they pleased on a busy ward, whatever Melanie might order. Nevertheless, he thanked her, asked that she phone him if there were any changes in Earl’s condition, and hung up.
Quickly telling Lucy what had happened, he tried Victor’s number again.
Still no answer. “I guess we’ll have to wait until morning. He’s obviously got a better social life than I thought.”
“Let’s hope he’s getting laid,” she said with a wicked grin, and walked over to where she’d left the boxes of birth records she’d been going through. “As for me, I’m going to work on these a while. You, mister, better go to bed. You look tired.”
Mark felt a flash of alarm, his concerns about the integrity of evidence resurfacing. Then he thought, What the hell. She’d already been through them once. From his own look at them, they didn’t seem to have a bearing on the case anyway. And somewhere in there should be her own birth record. Maybe she’d find something useful in that regard. Who was he to stand in the way of a woman’s search for her mother?
As she spread out some of the papers on the kitchen table, he saw large sheets that looked like accounting ledgers with reams of handwritten numbers on them. “What are those?”
“A summary I’m making of all the statistics. I got pretty good at spotting trends on spreadsheets like these in the refugee camps. I thought I’d give it a go here.”
Impressed by her diligence, he wished her good night, and went upstairs to bed.
But as he tried to fall asleep, his ugly confrontation with Braden crowded in, hanging over everything like a cold shroud. Damn the man to hell for suggesting such muck about his father.
He eventually drifted off.
Bad dreams ambushed him throughout the night. The one that brought him fully awake found him in the cold water where they’d found Kelly with her killer out in the blackness, circling him, drawing closer. He struggled to reach the surface, but his limbs moved in agonizing slow motion as he sank deeper, and the dark liquid congealed around him with the smothering slipperiness of blood.
That same evening, Thursday,
November 22, 11:30 P.M.
New York City Hospital
Earl’s eyes shot open.
He lay motionless, peering through the darkness, wondering what had awakened him. He heard a soft click, the sound of his room door swinging shut.
Someone must have been in to check on him and just left.
Probably a nurse.
Mentally he felt wrapped in cotton from the morphine he’d gotten during the day, but for the moment he didn’t have any pain. He definitely didn’t want another shot, not the way it turned his brain into cream cheese.