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“January 3? March 4? May 5? July 7 and September 3, as well? January was almost a full year ago.”

“We wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t of the utmost importance to clear you of this accusation. The person responsible for Lilly’s attack is also responsible for the victimization of the women in those photos I showed you. Prove where you were on those dates, and it’s more likely we’ll believe that you didn’t have anything to do with the crime against Dr. Reeves.”

Nathan stood. “I think that will do for now. I’d like to thank you for your willingness to cooperate. We’ll contact you within the next couple of days to get that list back from you. We’re probably going to have a few follow-up questions.”

“Great,” Drake said, standing as well.

“Oh, there is one more thing.” Nathan turned and opened the door, motioning in Brett. He stepped in with another man carrying a large case; a camera swung from his neck.

“Dr. Maguire, we have a warrant to secure a DNA sample and photograph of you and your tattoo. Will you do this willingly?”

To Nathan’s surprise, Drake Maguire didn’t hesitate to pull off his shirt.

Chapter 27

K
ADIN’S PAGER VIBRATED
on his hip as he finished up the last of the staples on his patient’s lower abdomen from a successful, though emergent, C-section. He was relegated to the main OR due to a plumbing issue in the labor unit’s OR. The baby’s cries comforted him as he placed a dressing over the incision. Ripping off his gloves, he grabbed his pager.

“The nurse’s station just called. They need you. Room 350,” Barrett said.

“Where’s Drake? He’s supposed to be covering the unit.”

“He’s not answering his pages.”

A page and a phone call meant a woman or baby in trouble. Maybe both. Kadin ran the list of patients through his mind, trying to remember who was in that particular room. Stephanie Nelson. He recalled the blonde hair with blue streaks. The last he’d heard, she was eight centimeters dilated.

“You guys got it covered here?” He pulled off the rest of his OR garments. Barely staying to see the affirmation, he raced up the stairs and used his badge to get through the door. He didn’t see anyone at the main desk and made his way down the hall.

310. 320. 330.

A nurse waved from two doors up. “Dr. Daughtry. The baby’s crowning.”

Kadin entered the room. The patient was positioned on her left side, her hand tightening around the bed rail as another contraction hit.

“Don’t push, honey, not yet. They don’t want you to push.” A nervous father smoothed his wife’s hair. “Remember, like the nurse said. Think birthday candles.”

“How much longer?” she screamed through her oxygen mask.

Darien, one of the unit’s most experienced nurses, had the delivery tray set up. “Dr. Daughtry, this is Stephanie. This is her first pregnancy. She came in ruptured at 1500. Her strip is showing a nonreassuring fetal pattern and we suspect possible mal presentation. She’s had an epidural. OR on standby. Stephanie, this is Dr. Daughtry, he’s covering for Dr. Maguire.”

She grabbed the monitor strip for Kadin.

“I see it. Let’s see what pushing does and we’ll go from there.”

Darien began to break down the bed and position the patient in the stirrups. Kadin squirted antiseptic spray into his hands. Another nurse waited for him with a gown unfurled. He pushed his arms into it as someone else tied it from behind. He grabbed the black rolling stool and positioned himself at the bottom of the bed. After placing a mask with a face shield over his mouth and eyes, he pulled on a pair of gloves. Kadin placed a comforting hand on the woman’s lower leg, already positioned in the stirrups. He always felt at a disadvantage when he delivered another doctor’s patient. You had a few seconds at best to build rapport.

“Stephanie, it’s Dr. Daughtry, I met you not too long ago. Looks like your little one is in a hurry.” He patted her foot. “I’m going to check the baby, but feel free to push with the next contraction.” Kadin placed two fingers inside the birth canal, feeling the baby’s suture lines. Sure enough, the baby wasn’t in the best position. He looked at the fetal heart monitor and noted the up swell of another contraction. The patient cried, grabbed her knees and pushed. He could see the perineum bulge, the baby’s head protruded slightly, then sucked back into the birth canal like a turtle hiding its head within its shell.

The baby’s shoulder was stuck.

The heart rate monitor alarmed as the baby’s heart rate dropped.

“Darien, lower the head of the bed.” He placed his hand gently on the patient’s knee as the top of the bed was lowered. “Stephanie, I need you to listen to me very closely. Your baby’s shoulder is stuck and I need to help you get it free. Can you pull your legs out of the stirrups?”

He saw her attempt, but her legs quivered. The epidural had knocked out her motor function from the waist down.

He glanced at Darien.

“Epidurals off,” she confirmed.

Kadin snapped his fingers at the husband. “Dad, I need you to grab a leg and help widen her legs apart. You.” Kadin pointed to a nurse he was unfamiliar with. “Grab the other leg and do the same thing. Darien, I need you to apply some suprapubic pressure at the next contraction.”

Kadin reached up and felt the top of the woman’s abdomen. The muscle tightened beneath his hand.

“Stephanie, give me all you’ve got. Push past the pain.” Kadin placed his hands on each side of the baby’s head and reached in as far as he could to place gentle downward traction as Darien pushed from above, to pop the shoulder free. He felt a slight give and the baby’s head popped all the way out. Although he’d hoped against it, Kadin felt the umbilical cord was wrapped once around the infant’s neck.

Can I catch a break?

Supporting the head, he guided the cord gently over the top of the baby’s head. He was relieved that it pulled easily and was not taut. Taking a blue bulb syringe, he suctioned out the mouth and nose.

“One more gentle push, Stephanie, and you’ll have your baby.”

He let the baby drift and cradled it as it slid into his arms. He knew his stress level was exceeded when the nurse announced the sex of the baby and he hadn’t offered the father a chance to cut the cord.

The mother and baby cried in unison.

Darien took the baby from his arms and headed straight to the warmer. “Mom, we’re going to take a quick look at her to make sure she’s doing all right.”

Thank you, God.

He finished with the patient and stepped out of the room, only to find Detective Nathan Long hovering in the hallway.

“You have a few minutes?” he asked.

Definitely not going to catch a break.

“Is this about Lilly?”

“Is there somewhere we can talk privately?”

He took Detective Long to the nearest private lounge. Kadin washed his hands and splashed his face several times with cool water, tasting the salt on his lips as he cleaned off the last several hours of worried tension. His stomach gnawed from both hunger and nerves. He halfheartedly offered a bag of potato chips from the snack bowl to the detective, who had shown up at the worst possible time. After Nathan waved him off, he took a soda and corn chips for himself and sat on the couch. Long took a nearby chair.

“It’s nearly three in the morning. Seems awfully late, or early for that matter, for you to be doing police work. Is this about Lilly? Is she all right?”

“You haven’t heard any hospital gossip?”

“Sadly, I’ve been working. Two crash C-sections and just finished an emergent delivery. Believe me, I’ve been too busy to pay any attention to the rumor mill.”

“Do you know why Dr. Maguire asked you to cover for him tonight?”

“Actually, I didn’t know he had left the building. Drake often has a need to find coverage for his night call.” Kadin lifted the aluminum tab and took several swigs of the lukewarm caffeinated sugar.

“Really? You keep any records of when others cover for him when he should be working?”

“I have a log I keep for the practice.”

“I’ll need to take a look at it.”

Kadin couldn’t keep his annoyance at bay. He still blamed this man for the delayed public notification.

And for Lilly’s attack.

“For what purpose? Detective, I run a private practice with obvious confidentiality issues. You’re going to need a very good reason and warrant.” His frayed nerves pushed aside his normally calm demeanor. “I don’t want you thinking you can shut down my practice while you rifle through our office. Babies don’t stop coming, ever. Your department couldn’t afford the windfall of lawsuits that would come as a result of you blocking my patients’ access to health care.”

“Kadin,” Nathan put his hand up. “Let me put my request into context. Lilly has accused Drake of committing her sexual assault.”

As if a tornado had just taken out the walls of his house, Kadin felt everything within him shift. Everything he knew and trusted, in shambles. His associate was a rapist?

That meant Lilly was pregnant with Drake’s child.

“Dr. Daughtry?”

He shook his head, trying to clear the debris. His mind struggled under a thousand thoughts. The ramifications. Consequences. He needed to say something intelligible.

“How did this happen? How do you know Drake is the one?”

“There was quite a ruckus in the ER tonight. A patient committed suicide. Maguire was splashed with some blood in his eyes. Lilly was trying to help him wash it out. Drake was wearing contacts to help cover up the fact that his eyes are different colors. When she irrigated them, the lenses popped out. Lilly checked for the tattoo. And well, she decked him because she thought her rapist was standing right in front of her. It was a mess, but she had security detain him, and they called us.”

“Did Drake confess?”

“He professes his innocence.”

“Do you believe him?”

“We took DNA samples under a court order and photos of his tattoo. It could take several days for them to run the tests. We’re going to need to re-interview the other victims and see if they can identify any of his physical characteristics. This is why I requested to take a look at that log. I know you still harbor some resentment toward me, but both of our goals should be the same. What do you know about Dr. Maguire?”

Kadin acquiesced, feeling his anger subside. “He came on board with our group about three years ago. He’s a competent physician, though not very compassionate. Sometimes I wonder why he picked this particular area of practice.”

“Because he doesn’t seem to like women very much?”

Kadin considered the question and realized it was a concise statement of how he’d felt about Drake for a while. He never seemed personally connected to his patients, more going through the motions. Not wanting to fulfill his call responsibility. Not knowing the sex of a baby he’d delivered minutes before. Was a competent physician more than someone who could just safely deliver a baby?

“I guess it would be hard for me to disagree with that statement. It’s a difficult bridge though to cross from his dislike of working with women to outright violence against them.”

“What do you know about his past? Where was he before he came here?”

“I know there was a period of about a year where he didn’t work at all. He said he had cancer and required a bone marrow transplant that took him out of commission. I know he doesn’t like being low man on the totem pole, either. He wants an equal share of the practice, but Melanie and I aren’t sure we want to make him a partner.”

“Why not?”

“It’s hard to put a finger on it. More of a feeling, an intuition, that he’s not a good fit.”

“Has he ever had complaints of any kind?”

“Nothing formal. I have had more than one nurse pass along patient comments about his bedside manner, but never anything that overly concerned me and certainly nothing about his decision making.”

“Do you know where he was before Colorado?”

“Las Vegas.”

“Did he bring any issues with him?”

“There hadn’t been any complaints filed with the Nevada Board of Healing Arts. He got favorable references. There were no red flags. We wouldn’t take on a liability like that.”

“What do you know about his family?”

Kadin opened the bag of chips, taking a few to munch as he considered the question. What did he really know about Drake’s personal life? He’d only brought his mother around one time, and it had been a cursory introduction at best.

“He’s not forthright about his personal life. I met his mother one time, just after the first of the year.”

“January?”

“Exactly then. It was the day after New Year’s—a Monday. I remember pulling into our lot and seeing this huge, obnoxious, hot-pink Escalade. It had snowed over the weekend, and the car just stuck out. When I went into the office, they were there together.”

“Did you speak with her?”

“Only cordially, then I grabbed the things I needed for patient rounds.”

“Are you aware of Dr. Maguire’s genetic eye defect? That one eye is blue and the other brown? When I interviewed him last night, he said that it is something he hides from his patients because it tends to be distracting. Was he hiding it from you and the rest of the staff as well?”

“It was obvious he wore lenses because the color is not natural. But I didn’t know he was hiding something. I thought it was vanity.”

“Is there a medical cause for his condition?”

“In general, eye color is determined by the presence of melanin. A lot of melanin gives you brown eyes. Lack of it gives you blue eyes. There are several genes involved. I’d have to do some research.”

“Can I get a look at his personnel file?”

Kadin considered the request. He struggled between balancing Drake’s privacy over his need to see justice for Lilly. “Look, Detective, these are pretty serious allegations you have against my coworker. I’m sure you want to know everything about him, but I’m not going to jeopardize what I’ve built here by giving you unfettered access to my files. Get a warrant and I will fully cooperate with its requirements.”

“Okay, Kadin. I understand where you’re coming from. Can you meet me halfway and tell me what I need to ask for in the warrant, so at least I won’t have to come back twice? Will you guarantee me that you’ll protect all the documents in question? I don’t want to have a race with Dr. Maguire to see who can get to his file first.”

“Fine.”

No breaks tonight. That’s for sure.

No matter what happened, it seemed impossible for Kadin to believe that his business was not going to take a hit. News that an OB physician is a suspect in a serial rape case was like gasoline and flame, not only for local news, but national outlets as well. If what Nathan said was true, it would mean the demise of his professional practice altogether. What woman would ever go to a group where a man, even if it wasn’t him, was accused of rape? How could he distance himself and his practice from these allegations and maintain his personal integrity? It was his nature to cooperate with law enforcement. But how did he do that without angering Drake, who could be covering his true nature from all of them?

And what if Drake was innocent? Nothing was proven yet.

“When you submit your warrant to the judge, make sure you ask for his employment application, his CV, and references.”