Fragmented (4 page)

“
Not so quick. Are you forgetting? You promised me your number?”

Cameron nodded nervously. She said her number slowly, watching him enter it into his phone. The next moment her phone rang.

“Now you have mine.”

He leaned over and pulled her back to him.
“You don’t think I’m just going to let you go so easily, do you?” He kissed her, a long, deep, promising kiss. 
“Tonight. Dinner. Do you like Italian? I know a great place down in the North End.”

“
I love Italian,” she answered, certain her face beamed her joy at his words. She didn’t care whether he knew.

“
I’ll call you later,” he promised. He kissed her again.

She glanced back at his departing car as she entered the hospital.
 
Oh, good Lord, I feel like a giddy teenager.

Cameron swiped her ID and entered into the transplant unit. She had left Meghan’s gift in her locker. She needed only to retrieve it and make a quick exit. Immediately, she noticed activity surrounding her patient, Brenda Harris, a fifty-one-year-old mother of three with a concerned husband.

Diagnosed with end-stage biliary cirrhosis, the patient had received a liver transplant less than a week ago. She had been doing so well. Complications must have arisen.

The poor thing had already gone through so much. The disease had gone undetected for years. The symptoms she had displayed had been explained away by other issues. Looking back on her health history, the chart confirmed that her thyroid and gallstone problems had been symptoms of her underlying disease.

Mrs. Harris had learned to live with her arms and legs itching and the fatigue. Unfortunately
, it wasn’t until she developed jaundice that the cause was determined. By that time, her liver had been damaged beyond its ability to heal.

“
Problems, Liada?” Cameron asked one of her co-workers at the nurses’ station.

“
Afraid so,” Liada answered. “Been working on her all night. Labored breathing, ph dropped, pCO2 rose, lactate increased back up to over six. Dr. Levine’s afraid she’s going to crash. Probable blockage.”

Cameron watched the patient being wheeled out. The pale, frail woman, barely conscious, struggled to speak. Her face constricted with fear, whispering,
“Not yet. Not yet.”

Cameron had been her nurse long enough to read her concern.
“Liada, you have her husband’s number?”

“
He’s already been called. He’s on his way in,” Liada answered.

“
I know. I know,” Cameron said, quickly dialing up the number. She rounded the desk with her phone in hand. “Just a sec, guys.”

Talking quickly into the phone, Cameron placed it to the patient’s ear.
“Mrs. Harris, you don’t have time to wait for your family to get back down here. They wouldn’t want you to wait. I have your husband, George, on the phone. Don’t worry if you can’t talk. He’s going to talk to you. Okay?”

The surgical tech helped hold the phone to the patient’s ear. Cameron watched as the stretcher disappeared down the corridor. She sighed. She needed to get what she came for and leave.

“Didn’t think you were working today,” Liada said. “Did Peggy call you in? It’s been off-the-wall busy.”

“
No, I’m off until Monday. I left Meghan’s present in my locker. Just picking it up.”

“
Sure you don’t want to work? Yvonne called in sick. She was supposed to work a double tonight. Think she’s worried about the forecast. Nor’easter.”

Cameron turned to the voice behind her
—her supervisor, Peggy Sullivan. “Sorry, not this weekend.”

Cameron saw the look of disbelief on Peggy’s face. No, she had hardly ever turned down overtime. She walked back through to the locker room. She briefly thought of the storm and whether it would cancel her date. She smiled to herself. No, she couldn’t imagine Mr. Kennedy allowing a little snow
to stop him.

Opening her locker, she withdrew a wrapped box. A little something for her friend’s belated honeymoon. Meghan wouldn’t be surprised at its contents.

She closed her locker and prepared to leave when the thought of her cell phone crossed her mind. Shoot! She would have to run upstairs to surgery and retrieve it.

“
Understand you might be looking for this?”

Startled, Cameron turned right into a warm body. He made no movement to back up. Instead, he gave her that irksome smile of his, a smile she knew all too well.

Tall and lean, there had been a time when she had melted in the arms of the devilishly good-looking surgeon. His sandy blonde hair was disheveled from pulling off his surgical cap. His piercing blue eyes stared into hers. Matthew 
Halliday
, her former fiancé.

She grimaced and grabbed her cell phone from his hands.
“What are you doing with it?”

“
Paul said that a nurse in the unit loaned it to a patient. Figured it had to be you, especially when I looked at the screen.”

“
I was just going to get it. Thank you very much,” she said curtly. She pushed by him, out the door. But any hope of leaving him behind diminished when she heard him walking behind her. She hoped no one noticed his sudden appearance. She slammed open the stairway door and quickly walked through the fire door to the stairwell.

“
Cameron, wait. Just give me a second. Come on.” He reached for her arm.

She jerked it back, temper flaring.

“Can you not take a hint, Matthew? Leave me alone. It was bad enough that you took a job here. I already transferred away from you, once. What is your game? To try to totally destroy my life? Don’t forget it was you that ended it…besides the little fact that you’re married.”

She went silent as Liada came down the stairs, but given the circumstances, Liada didn’t say a word
and disappeared quickly down the flight of stairs to the next floor.

“
Go home to your wife,” Cameron hissed. She tried to walk by him. He stepped in front of her.

“
Please, Cameron. Can’t you see I’m trying to rectify my mistake? I don’t want to go home to Allison, Cameron. I’ve been trying to tell you. You won’t listen. It’s all been a huge mistake. All of this. A terrible, terrible mistake. I miss you. I want you back.”

Cameron laughed.
“You have just figured that out? It’s been three years, Matthew. Three years.”

“
I have tried to tell you, Cameron. Someone tricked me three years ago. It was the pictures. It drove me crazy seeing you in those pictures.”

She stared at him for a long moment.
“What pictures, Matthew?” Cameron asked, confused. This was the first she had heard of this excuse. “Three years ago, you never gave me a reason. You just moved out. Moved out of the apartment we got to begin our life together. We were supposed to be married in less than four months and you just moved out without a word.”

“
I was hurt, Cameron. Jealous as hell. Now, though, I know the pictures were fake. Someone superimposed your face on a naked girl’s body.”

Cameron stood silent for a moment. She stared at him. Her eyes widened, her breathing quickened.
“You have some explaining to do. Exactly what are you trying to tell me?”

“
My mother…my mother received pictures in the mail, very lurid. It looked like you in an orgy. Naked people in sexual acts, Cameron. It wasn’t until six months ago that it came to light that the picture of you had been superimposed.”

“
You believed I would have ever…you didn’t have the courage to confront me…,” Cameron stuttered. Anger choked her words. “You mean to tell me you broke up with me over
fake
pictures? After all this time, and you have the nerve…”

He grabbed her by both arms.
“Mother hired a private investigator. He was the one to confirm the pictures. He had this…this report. It wasn’t until another client sued him six months ago that it came out about my case.

“
Don’t be mad…I’ll make it up to you, Cameron. I promise…I was a fool to believe her and the pictures. I had just completed my residency. Mother was concerned about us…”

She eyed him harshly.
“And it never occurred to you the extremes your mother might have taken to break us up.”

She thrust her arms down in a manner that loosened his grip. She recoiled back toward the wall.

“Don’t you dare try to touch me,” she said in exasperation. “How could you even think I would have participated in such a thing? You who knew me better than anyone. You knew you were the only one I’ve been with…ever. When was I supposed to have had this orgy, and with who? It makes absolutely no sense. Tell me, Matthew. And tell me why it’s of any importance now.”

“
I know it will take time to forgive me, Cameron, but you need to know I love you. I’ve always loved you,” he started. He reached for her and caressed her cheek. She slapped it back.

“
Not in your wildest dreams, Matthew. I don’t believe a word you’re saying. What, are you bored with Allison? Go find another dalliance. It won’t be me.”

“
Does it have to do with this Darren on your phone?”

She shot him a cold look.
“My personal life isn’t any of your business. How did you ever see what’s on my phone?”

“
You should vary your password, Cameron. It’s been the same since I met you. Your mother’s birthday. Besides, Nevy said he saw someone drop you off this morning.”

She pushed past him down the stairs.
“Leave me alone and stop having Nevy spy on me.”

She ran down the flight of stairs and didn’t turn back. The nerve! She had never dreamed he would have ever accepted a position here. All the doctors in his family worked at
Brigham and Women’s Medical Center across the street. When he had accepted a position here, it surprised her. When she found out she would have to work firsthand with him in trauma ICU, while he worked toward his surgical internship, she had asked for a transfer.

She couldn’t work with him. He had torn her world apart. It had taken a long time to piece it back together. She wished he had never come to work here, but she wasn’t going to let him get to her. Not this time, not ever.

She looked down at her hand holding her cell phone. She clicked on her calls. She had missed a text. She smiled.

Look forward to tonight. Call you later with a time. Darren
.

* * * *

Cameron stood in her friend’s sun-drenched kitchen with two cups of coffee in her hands. She placed the coffee down on the countertop. Swinging her bag over the back of the stool, she sat and waited for Meghan.

Meghan had been her roommate in college, graduating with Cameron from
Simmons College of Nursing more than three years ago. One couldn’t find two people so different, yet so close. Exact opposites, Meghan lived life on the edge, afraid she might miss a moment. She loved attention, men, and money.

Meghan had made no qualms about going after what she wanted. Joel Warren didn’t have a chance when she set her sights upon him
; not even being married had been a deterrent. At the time Meghan met Warren, Cameron had been deeply involved in her own personal life…before it came crashing down on her. The whole of her attention had been on Matthew, and Matthew hadn’t cared for Meghan.

Meghan had met Joel when he had come in as a patient, a heart patient who had come in for an evaluation from a heart attack scare. She hadn’t looked back. Joel, a sixty-two
-year-old investment banker, had Meghan move in with him early on, but only recently they had tied the knot. Meghan had become the third Mrs. Warren. This trip was a delayed honeymoon, a month-long trip in the Caribbean, a month in the sun and sand far away from the cold and snow.

Now Meghan lived in this spacious mansion on Commonwealth Avenue off Hereford Street. Five floors of living space, with the lower level being
 access to a private two-car garage and three outdoor parking spaces on the street level. A magnificent carved wooden staircase connected all the floors, or one could use the elevator if they wanted. A beautiful music room, a handsome library and three private roof decks, a sweeping living room which opened up with twelve-foot high ceilings and an ornately carved fireplace. Slate and marble graced the house throughout…simply gorgeous.

Cameron sipped her
Starbucks while she waited. The housekeeper, Mila, had let her in. Mila, an elderly woman who had emigrated from Russia more than thirty years before, had worked for the Warren family since before she married Ian, who now worked as a handyman and chauffeur for Mr. Warren.

“
Don’t know when Mrs. Warren will be down, Miss Quinn,” Mila said, wiping down the countertop. She shook her head, making little effort to conceal her dislike of the new Mrs. Warren.

“
I’m fine, Mila. I’m sure she’ll be down soon. They are due to be leaving later this morning. Just wanted to give her a little something before she leaves. I hope they get off before the snow comes in.”