At least that was what Moran would likely say.
But Jack didn’t buy it. Somehow Lonetree knew what Huckley was up to and that was enough to make him interesting.
Jack opened the door to the Bronco and climbed in. Lonetree shifted into drive and pulled out of the parking lot, heading south.
“So, where are we going?” Jack asked.
Lonetree glanced over and gave him a crooked smile. Jack considered that the smile might have been meant to reassure him, but coming from a man who had just kidnapped him at gunpoint, Jack felt less than comforted. They drove to the Interstate in silence, leaving Jack to wonder if he had just made the worse mistake of his life.
FORTY
“Mommy,” the girls shrieked on seeing Lauren round the corner. They pushed away their piles of band aids and gauze and ran to see her. Lauren knelt down and gave them a squeeze. On a normal day they would have only given her a quick glance and gone back to their playing, as if not noticing she was there would mean they could play longer. Their excitement reminded her that this was no normal day. After last night, Becky and Sarah were confused and scared, just like their mother.
“Have you been good for Nurse Haddie?”
“Yes Ma’am,” the nurse answered from behind them. “They’ve been sweet. Playing right there the whole time. I think you have a couple of future docs on your hands.”
“Well, they’re certainly bossy enough.”
Nurse Haddie laughed, “Are doctors bossy? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I have a few more things I need to do. If they’re—”
“No, leave ’em here. It’s not a bother at all. Keeps me from being lonely. It’s dead around here today.”
Sarah tugged at her mom’s sleeve. “Becky’s not sharing.”
“Am too. Shut up you little baby.”
“I’m not a baby.”
Lauren glanced up at the nurse. “Are you sure you don’t want me to take them with me?”
“Shoo now. Go do what you need to go do. Nurse Haddie’s got it covered.”
The girls giggled at their mom being shooed away. Lauren thought they might get anxious over her leaving but they were already walking back to their play area. “I won’t be long. Then we’ll get in the car and head down to Baltimore.”
“And see the dolphins?” Becky asked.
“At the quarum?” Sarah added.
“It’s the aquarium, dummy.”
Lauren leaned down and gave each of them a kiss on the head. “Don’t call your sister names. We’ll see if there’s time for the aquarium when we get down there. Play nice now.” With a wave and a mouthed thank you to Nurse Haddie, she headed back toward her office.
Lauren wasn’t sure where to start. All she had was a bad feeling that something was very wrong. It wasn’t only the botched protocol on Felicia Rodriguez’s body that had her bothered. She felt like Dr. Mansfield was hiding something. Maybe he had made a mistake. Administered the wrong drug, something. She’d seen things like it before. It happened more often than the general public would care to know. Working on little sleep and surrounded by stress, tired docs and nurses made mistakes. And sometimes the mistakes killed people. It wasn’t that they were reckless, it was just a fact of life. No one was perfect. People expected their doctors to be infallible, but to hold doctors to a standard where they were not allowed to make errors was unrealistic.
As Lauren ran through these old arguments in her head, she couldn’t help wonder if she was making them for Dr. Mansfield or for herself. Felicia was her patient and she had died. Was it her own failure she was trying to wash away? If it was, it wasn’t working.
She dug into a pile of papers by her computer and pulled out a photocopy of Felicia’s admittance records. Cradling the telephone between her shoulder and her ear, she dialed the number listed as her home. There was a long pause and then the phone rang. Panic seized her as she realized she didn’t know what she was going to say. She reached for the button to disconnect the call but before she could do it someone answered.
“Hola?”
“Uh, hello. This is Dr. Tremont. Is this Mr. Rodriguez?”
The voice erupted in a torrent of Spanish, too fast for Lauren to understand. It came across loud at first and then faded, as if the person had dropped the phone and was shouting at it from a distance. Lauren couldn’t understand the words but the tone was unmistakable. Anger. Mixed with grief. In her line of work, she was an expert in that language. Suddenly a new voice was on the line.
“Hello. Can I help you?” a woman said. She sounded young.
“Yes, my name is Dr. Lauren Tremont. I was treating Felicia. I’m so sorry for your loss. Is this her mother?” Lauren could still hear the man shouting in the background.
“Look, this isn’t a good time.”
“Is this Mrs. Rodriguez?”
“I’m Felicia’s sister. Rosa.”
“Rosa, I know this is hard. But I’m trying to understand what happened to your sister. I need to know what happened so I can stop it from happening to other people. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“Look lady, don’t talk down to me like I’m some illegal just over the border. I was born in this country, OK? I go to college.”
“I’m sorry, I just—I just want to find out what happened.”
“You’re sorry, huh? I’ve had enough with you people. You come after us because we’re poor, offering us money. Then when things go wrong you act like you don’t know what happened. You said you were her doctor and you’re calling me to find out what happened? That’s pretty screwed up, lady.”
“Wait, I don’t understand. Who offered you money? For what?”
“And now Felicia is dead. OK? Dead. I say fuck that lady. Fuck that you don’t know. Just leave us alone, all right. Leave us alone.”
The voice was gone, replaced by dead air. Lauren sat in silence, absorbing the sting of being accused of Felicia’s death. The girl was right, she was Felicia’s doctor. She should be calling the family with answers not questions. But she couldn’t let that stop her. Lauren hit the redial button. Busy. She tried again with the same result, busy. The phone was probably off the hook.
Lauren replaced the receiver on the headset with a shaking hand. The silence in the room felt cold and sterile. Her heart pounded in her chest and the blood thudded through her eardrums like boots marching on pavement. What the hell was going on?
She reached down to the filing cabinet drawer on the lower level of her desk. She pulled it open and flicked through the headings until she came to the one marked CDC. Pushing the other files out of the way, she pulled the manila folder out and slid the drawer back in with her foot. When she looked back up Dr. Mansfield was in front of her desk.
“Hello, Lauren,” he said.
Lauren jerked back in her chair, startled at his sudden appearance. “God, you scared me.”
“Seems I’ve been doing that a lot recently,” he said with a smile. “Sorry about that.”
Lauren caught her breath. She turned the CDC file face down on her lap so the label wasn’t visible. “What are you doing here?”
“Funny, I came by to ask you the same question. I heard you were still in the building. You’re supposed to be on the road, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I’m just…just finishing up some paperwork,” she said, hating how unsteady her voice sounded. She wasn’t sure if it was because of their last conversation or how he’d just given her a scare, but she felt nervous being in the room alone with him.
“Are you all right? You seem a little shaken.” Dr. Mansfield edged around the desk toward her.