Fatal Reaction (11 page)

CHAPTER 26

At County, leaked secrets spread quietly. They were whispered between doctors and nurses, housekeeping and transportation, and people hesitated to jump at rumors. It had taken the better part of a month for the story about Colby and Simon to make the rounds, and the source of the leak was never officially uncovered. Jared had been able to deny the affair when he had to.

What happened with Dorian at the fund-raiser hadn’t been leaked. The broadcast had been public, and the evidence was there for all to draw the same conclusion that he had: Colby and Dorian had slept together, and probably not for the first time.

Fact was not gossip and, this time, people spoke openly and with conviction.

The looks of pity and quiet chatter started at the main desk and continued all the way to the on-call room, where Jared, who was as nervous about his foothold at County as he was ashamed of being made a fool of, found Wilson fast asleep on the couch. His round, expressionless face was the color of white paper, and there were a few bits of popcorn embedded in his thick beard. A pair of readers was folded neatly on the arm of the couch, and a medical journal lay open across his chest.

Jared shook him gently and waited for a response.

Wilson puffed out a sour breath and started to snore.

“Hey, Wilson, wake up.
Wilson
.”

Wilson jumped up and nearly smashed Jared’s nose with his forehead. “What the hell? Are you trying to give me a heart attack?”

“Who knows what happened last night?”

Wilson was coming off a twenty-four-hour shift, one where he’d have spent time in more than just the ER. He didn’t spread gossip, but he listened to it.

“Good morning to you, too.” Wilson wiped the sleep from the corners of his eyes and yawned.

“I asked you a question, Wilson.
Who knows?
”

Wilson dog-eared a page of the medical journal, sat up, and straightened his shirt. “Who doesn’t know?”

The pounding in Jared’s head pulsed in pace with his heartbeat. He opened the community refrigerator, stocked with half-empty containers and unclaimed lunches, and grabbed a bottle of water from the door.

Wilson handed him two acetaminophens. “Don’t worry about it. You didn’t do anything wrong; she did. Besides, it’ll be old news in no time.”

“Easy for you to say. I have to look at Dorian every day, knowing what he did, to my
wife
.”

“Maybe not for long.”

Jared choked down both tablets at once. “What do you mean?” He finished the water and threw the bottle in a recycling bin.

“You know I hear things.” Jared nodded. It was the reason he went to him first, to assess the damage done. Wilson poured a cup of coffee from the dingy carafe. “I was down in Administration picking up a check for the retreat next month, and I overheard two of the secretaries talking. Apparently, Cynthia Davis, that surgeon from Saint Matthew’s, was here yesterday.”

“So?”

“So?” Wilson shook his head. “So she went straight to Mitchell’s office, was in there for the better part of an hour, and left carrying a folder, the blue-and-white folders that HR hands out. It looks like Dorian’s days might be numbered.”

Jared, seeing a glimmer of hope, wondered what he could do to hasten Dorian’s exit. He thought about leaking news of Stephanie Martin’s failed surgery to the press, but considered the implications to his own career if he were found out.

Wilson smirked. “I know that look. What’s next?”

“I meet with the lawyer whose card you gave me, I guess. I called this morning.”

Wilson wiped the crumbs from his beard and leaned against the counter, slurping his bitter-smelling brew. “I’m not talking about what happens with Colby, and you know it.”

“Then what?” Jared didn’t want to put Wilson in the situation of knowing something he shouldn’t if push came to shove.

“If it’s true that Mitchell’s looking to replace Dorian, this thing with Colby should be the nail in his coffin. If it’s not true, and it might not be because I didn’t see Cynthia here, personally, then there’s at least a seed to be grown. Rumors don’t materialize out of thin air. If I were looking to get Dorian out of here, I’d make friends with Marco Prusak. He’s a strange guy, but I’d bet good money that if anyone is digging up dirt on Dorian, it’s him. A lot of people think Marco’s on some kind of religious crusade, and he might be, but the fact that he put himself so far out on the line with that protest of his, I’d wager that whatever his issue with Dorian is, it’s personal.”

CHAPTER 27

As soon as Dorian pulled into his office driveway, it was clear that something was wrong. Noreen was almost always the first to arrive, and he allowed her to share the off-street parking because they kept such similar hours. He looked around, assuming she’d parked on the street, but found no sign of her.

He unplugged his phone from the car charger and dialed her cell.

The call went immediately to voice mail. Rather than leave a message, he headed inside to see if she’d gotten a ride in.

Kristin sat behind the cluttered reception desk, engrossed in returning the long list of overnight calls that had come from the exchange. She barely looked up when Dorian walked in.

A middle-aged woman, wearing a turtleneck and a denim dress, thumbed through a
Good Housekeeping
magazine and tapped her foot nervously.

“How long has she been waiting?” Dorian said. Kristin responded with a confused look, balancing the phone between her shoulder and her ear. “The patient, in the waiting area. How long has she been there?”

Kristin capped her highlighter and squinted to see the clock on her monitor. “About a half hour.”

“And Noreen hasn’t put her in a room yet?” It was Dorian’s subtle way of pretending not to have noticed her absence.

Kristin handed him a copy of his hectic schedule for the day. “I thought she was making rounds with you.”

“No, I haven’t heard from her. Call her at home. I need her to arrange home health care for Emily Warren, and there’s no way I can handle this full a schedule without her. Tell her she needs to get here.”

“What if she’s sick?”

Dorian ignored the question, picking up his laptop and referencing the schedule for his first patient’s name. “Melissa Montgomery?”

The patient set down the magazine and was about to clean up her coffee cup when Dorian stopped her.

“Kristin will take care of that. I’m sorry for the wait. We’re going to go into this room right here.” He opened the nearest door.

“Dr. Carmichael?” Kristin rushed around the desk, holding an unmarked mailing envelope.

Dorian turned on the exam room light and ushered his patient inside. There was fresh paper on the examination table and a gown on top of that. “You can go ahead and get changed. I’ll knock before I come in.”

The timid woman nodded and set her purse on an empty chair.

Dorian closed the door and took the envelope from Kristin. “What’s this?” She shrugged. “Where did it come from?”

“I don’t know. Someone slid it through the mail slot. I found it on the floor this morning.”

An uneasy feeling came over him, the fear that this had something to do with Noreen, or Colby. He waited until Kristin was back at her desk to open it and couldn’t believe what was inside.

“I’m ready.” Melissa, his patient, peeked from behind the mostly closed door, shivering in only a gown and socks.

Dorian slid the paper inside the envelope and went into the exam room, his mind sorting a thousand grim possibilities. He started up his computer and opened the woman’s electronic chart, finding letters from both her primary care physician and the oncologist who had referred her for a hysterectomy. Her case was complicated, and he was having a hard time concentrating.

Melissa swung her legs back and forth over the end of the table and flexed her feet, emphasizing her toned, thin calves. “I brought these from the imaging center. My oncologist thought you should have a look.” She held out two disks encased in white paper envelopes.

Dorian loaded the first, full of CAT scan images, into his computer. His preoccupied mind refused to comprehend the complex, layered images.

“Are you all right?” Melissa said.

Dorian clicked his mouse and opened another file. Still, nothing made sense. He couldn’t work like this.

“Actually, no,” he said. “I’m sorry. I was notified of an emergency just before coming in here, and I’m afraid I’m going to have to reschedule. I’ll make sure Kristin gets you back in any time this week that is convenient for you, if that’s all right.”

“That’ll be fine.”

Dorian felt terrible for first making Melissa wait, then rescheduling her, but a malpractice suit would be worse than a delay. He shook her sweat-slick hand, and after thanking her for her understanding, headed back to the reception desk to allow her time to change.

“Any luck getting through to Noreen?”

Kristin shook her head. “She’s not answering her cell or her house phone.”

“I have to go. Reschedule Ms. Montgomery for her earliest convenience. Double-book me, triple-book me, whatever. Just fit her in. Also, call and cancel my day. Tell the patients I had an emergency.”

“Wait, what? You want me to cancel a full day at the last minute? Where are you going?”

“To find Noreen.”

CHAPTER 28

Seventy-five-year-old Henry Coleman had had his first heart attack two years earlier, and had called Ana his “angel” ever since she first saved his life. The near-death call resulted in a triple bypass, but with a handful of lifestyle changes, Henry avoided a second incident.

Dorothy, his eighty-year-old wife of fifty-five years, had EMS on speed dial.

Ana recognized the address as soon as the call came in.

Ethan backed into the driveway of the small, cape-style house and reached for his bag. “Are we good?”

Ana zippered her coat and pulled on a fresh pair of gloves. “Yeah, we’re good.” She climbed out of the ambulance and went inside. “Hello, anybody home?”

She knocked as she opened the door, familiar enough with the couple to feel comfortable doing so. The house smelled of chicken soup, boiling away on the stove, and of strong, rose-scented perfume that reminded her of embalming fluid.

“We’re in here, angel.” Henry coughed and sounded short of breath.

Ana followed the scuff trail on the laminate floor left behind by the black rubber feet on Dorothy’s walker. “Hello?”

Henry sat with his feet up in the living room recliner. He was a kind man—short and squat, with deep wrinkles that came from years of working on tugboats and smoking unfiltered cigarettes.

“My angel.” He smiled, and his skin folded into itself, each wrinkle swallowing the next. His slate-blue eyes appeared clear, and if he was in pain, it wasn’t obvious.

“Mr. Coleman, I’m starting to think you’re just calling for company.” Ana returned his smile and put her stethoscope in her ears.

Ethan walked into the room, and Mr. Coleman lifted his hand off the arm of the chair. “I’d say I was trying to take you away from all of this, but how can I compete with this handsome young man?”

Ana listened to Henry’s heart and logged the first set of vitals. “Want to tell me what’s going on?”

“I thought I was going to lose him.” Dorothy shifted in the seat next to Henry’s and reached for him with her shaking hand. She dabbed at her nose with a crumpled tissue and lifted her thick glasses to wipe her green eyes, which were fading beneath the haze of advanced cataracts.

“She always thinks I’m dying, angel. It’s nothing, really.”

Ethan ran down a list of meds with Henry, referencing the cornucopia of bottles next to him for dosages.

Henry pointed at a wad of crumpled-up foil. “I didn’t tell Dorothy, because I didn’t want to hear her yelling at me, but I overdid it. I ate a whole chocolate bar, and I got some pain.”

Ana took his thin wrist in her hand and checked his pulse. “Can you describe the pain for me?”

Henry coughed again, and Ana handed him his glass of water. “Burning, I guess. Like heat in my throat and chest.”

“Is there any pain anywhere else? Any tingling or numbness?”

Henry smacked his lips. “No, just a terrible taste in my mouth.”

Dorothy shuffled over to the coffee table and handed Henry a peppermint from the bowl on the table.

Ethan, looking a bit smug, shook an empty medication bottle. “How long ago did you run out of your Aciphex, Mr. Coleman?”

“A week, maybe two.”

Ana wrapped her stethoscope around her neck and stepped back. “It sounds to me like your reflux is acting up, but I can’t be sure. It’s up to you if you want me to take you in or if you want to see your regular doctor . . .”

“He needs to go to the hospital,” Dorothy said. “He’s being pigheaded. This isn’t just today, and it’s not from the candy bar he knows he’s not supposed to eat. This has been going on for almost two weeks.”

“She doesn’t know two weeks from two hours anymore. Dotty, give it a rest.”

Ana second-guessed herself, realizing she might only be getting half of the story. “You know, it doesn’t hurt to get looked at.”

“Please,” Dorothy said, starting to cry, “I want to make sure.”

“All right, I’ll go,” Henry said, “on one condition. You need to call Judith and have her bring you to the hospital. I don’t want you stuck there all day without a ride. You know where we keep her phone number, right?”

“I know how to make a phone call, for Pete’s sake.”

Judith, Henry’s grandniece whom Ana had met on several occasions, had been a godsend for the elderly, childless couple.

“Ethan, will you get the gurney?” Ana said.

“No. No. No. I’m not helpless.” Henry reached over the side of the chair, pulled the lever to retract the footrest, and with some effort, managed to stand. He walked to the closet, his gait steady, but awkward, and opened the door. The smell of mothballs, once faint, filled the room. He put on a navy blue wool coat, one that appeared at least two sizes too big, and shrank under the coat’s substantial weight. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get this over with.” He picked up the cordless phone on the way to the front door and dialed Judith’s number. “Here, Dotty. Phone’s for you.”

He handed Dorothy the phone and shuffled toward the ambulance.

Ana gestured for Ethan to help her and, between the two of them, they settled Henry in. Henry shivered, and Ana added a second blanket before tightening the straps that secured him to the gurney.

“All set?” Ethan said.

Ana nodded and sat on the bench seat.

The rear doors slammed, and Henry rolled his head toward her, reaching for her hand.

“Everything all right?” she said.

Henry drew a labored breath, looking noticeably worse in Dorothy’s absence. Ana rechecked his vitals; his blood pressure had gone up.

“How come a pretty girl like you isn’t married?” Henry asked.

“Who says I’m not?” She forced a smile, uncomfortable having this particular conversation, even with her favorite patient.

Henry’s tired eyes settled on her left hand. “No ring.”

“Ah.”

“Dorothy and I have been married fifty-five years next month,” Henry said, his eyes tearing up. “She knows things without me saying.”

“She seemed upset. Is there something you’re not telling me?”

Henry made a motion just short of a shrug. “No, not really. It’s just that Dotty’s starting to forget things.”

“She remembers to call us.” Ana tried to lighten the mood.

“I’m worried what happens when I’m not there to take care of her.”

“We’re not going to let that happen, are we?”

“No, no we aren’t. Speaking of being taken care of . . .” He nodded toward the driver’s seat. “What about that good-lookin’ fella?”

Ana wrinkled her face. “Not so much.”

“Fifty-five years, Dorothy and I have been together, for better or worse, and you know we only dated a couple of months before we got married? Maybe if you gave him a shot. He likes you, you know? He watches you when you aren’t looking,” Henry said with a wink. “I knew Dotty was the one the day I met her. Love at first sight. You believe in that?”

“Sure do,” Ana said.

Unfortunately, the person she felt that way about was married.