Nothing But Trouble (18 page)

The realization didn't make her feel
better.

Instead of going to the counter to order
lunch, since she'd suddenly lost her appetite anyway, she
approached the table and sat down.

Neither man had food in front of them, which
wasn't a good sign. The other guy was nursing lemonade, which had
barely anything drunk out of it. Josh was just sitting there, in
his white pharmacist coat, tapping his fingers on the table.

"Are you hungry? Do you want to order
something?" Josh asked her.

"No, I'm fine," she said as she set her purse
next to her.

Josh cleared his throat and gestured to the
man next to him. "Rebecca, this is Agent Reinhold."

Agent?

"He's with the DEA," Josh continued.

Oh, God
.

Oh, my Lord.

Rebecca glanced at the agent and tried to
swallow past the bile rising in her throat. What had Josh done?

Agent Reinhold handed her a white business
card, which she accepted but didn't bother looking at it. What was
the point? It would only tell her what Josh had already said.

"Dr. Underwood, I need to speak with you
about the activities going on in your practice."

She tossed an accusatory glare at Josh, but
he wouldn't look at her as though he knew he'd betrayed her
confidentiality. His focus was fixed on the tabletop, so Rebecca
glanced back at the other man, even though her stomach turned over
at the thought of what was happening.

It was too soon for this. She wasn't ready to
involve the authorities. All she'd wanted was to get to the bottom
of everything and put a stop to Dr. Gross's activities. The DEA
would shut the practice down. They'd take her medical license and
possibly even throw her in jail. Her name would forever be tainted
and she'd never be able to practice medicine again.

Now she was glad she hadn't had anything to
eat, because she'd likely have thrown it up by now.

She shook her head and tried to sound
light-hearted. "I'm not sure what you mean, because I don't really
have anything to go on."

How could she explain herself without
outright lying? She had no way of knowing what Josh had told the
man, and she didn't want to start contradicting herself. That would
only make her look guilty.

"They're just suspicions―"

"Actually, we've been investigating Patrick
Gross for several years now, but we've never been able to pin
anything down." He accentuated his statement by pulling out a thick
file and laying it on the table.

"His reach goes far beyond his practice, Dr.
Underwood."

Was he still speaking? Rebecca couldn't think
past his initial statement. Several years? As in, as long as she'd
been working with Dr. Gross?

The agent kept speaking and Rebecca forced
herself to remain in her seat. And listen. Even though she wanted
to puke.

"How long have you been employed by Patrick
Gross, Dr. Underwood?" he asked her.

She shook her head and forced herself to
think. "I don't know. A few years."

"Hmm," he replied, and flipped through his
file. His head remained down when he asked his next question. "Does
three years sound about right?"

Rebecca didn't like where this conversation
was going. Would he chase after her if she ran out of the deli? "I
suppose."

"Because three years is how long we've been
investigating Patrick Gross."

Had one of the deli employees cranked up the
heat? Perspiration coated the valley between her breasts. "You
don't think I had anything to do with this, do you?"

Agent Reinhold ignored her question and
pulled out a piece of paper. On it was a photocopy of a
prescription.

He held it up in front of her face so she
could see her own signature. "Did you write this prescription, Dr.
Underwood?"

"Well, yes but―"

"And this one?" he interrupted with another
photocopy of a prescription.

"That child actually has ADD." The words came
out in a rush because she was so desperate to defend herself. It
wasn't until after she'd said them that she realized what it
sounded like.

"And this child doesn't?" Agent Reinhold
asked, as he pointed to Lindsey's prescription.

Rebecca waited before answering because she
needed to choose her words very carefully. "Lindsey Parker isn't my
patient. I was filling in for Dr. Gross that day and she came in
for a refill on her Adderall. I had never examined her before and
all her vitals were normal."

"Even though you suspected prescription fraud
of Adderall XR?"

"At that time I didn't suspect anything. I
was just trying to take care of the patient." She glanced at Josh
but his expression was unreadable. After a moment, he looked away
and fiddled with the napkin holder.

For the next thirty minutes, Agent Reinhold
peppered her with questions in that bored, monotone voice of his.
As though he did this sort of thing every day. And maybe he did.
But she certainly didn't. She'd never had her ethics questioned
before, never had the possibility of having her medical license
stripped. His calm demeanor was driving her crazy. It made her want
to reach across the table and strangle him with that ugly-ass tie
of his.

He didn't even know her! And yet he thought
her capable of writing fraudulent prescriptions, when the very idea
made her sick to her stomach. It defied everything she stood for.
Unfortunately just her association with Dr. Gross and that bullshit
'scrip made her look guilty has hell.

Then he slapped her with the words she knew
was coming, yet still was like a punch to the stomach. Worse even.
A knife through the heart.

"We're suspending your medical license until
further notice, Miss Underwood. Your practice will receive a cease
and desist order and will we be confiscating all of your patient
files."

"Those are confidential," she argued, as
though that was a bigger deal than being told she couldn't practice
medicine anymore.

Agent Asshole packed up his stuff, all nice
and neat in that stupid file of his. Which she wanted to burn. "Not
anymore, they aren't."

"You can't take those," she reiterated with
borderline hysteria. "What about the practice? What's going to
happen to that?" She leaned forward and came
this
close to
latching onto the man's scrawny neck. "When can I go back to
work?"

Agent Reinhold tossed her a casual glance, as
though it was all so damn easy for him. "We'll know more after we
take Dr. Gross into custody and question him further."

Everything around her stopped. The waitresses
stopped chatting when they should have been serving customers. The
speakers in the ceiling stopped playing the dull elevator music.
And her heart stopped beating.

"Custody," she repeated. "I don't even know
what that means. What does that mean?"

"It means," he answered in a low voice. "That
we have a warrant for the doctor's arrest. You can legally continue
to operate until you receive a cease and desist order. Then you'll
have to surrender your license."

Unable to stomach anymore, Rebecca stood from
the table and bolted for the door. Somehow she managed to fend off
tears of frustration and fear until she got to the car. She thought
she heard Josh call out her name, but he was the last person she
wanted to talk to right now.

Moisture pooled beneath her eyes and spilled
over as she fumbled with the stupid keys. They fell from her hand
three times before she got the car started.

Arrested? They were actually going to place
handcuffs on Dr. Gross's wrists and book him? Wasn't that what they
called it in the movies? Take them downtown and book them?

How could you compare this to a movie?

This was as real as it got. Fear, like she'd
never even felt in her whole life, gripped her like a hard fist
trying to choke the breath from her.

Why had Josh called the DEA? Yes, Dr. Gross
needed to be stopped, but why had he broadsided her like that? She
would have rather he told her to go screw herself than
help
her the way he had. She'd gone to him in confidence because she
hadn't known where else to turn.

She gripped the steering wheel tighter and
tried to compose herself. Walking back into work sobbing
hysterically wouldn't be good for business and would hardly look
professional to her patients.

Her cell phone vibrated somewhere in the
depths of her purse, but she ignored it. There was no way she could
hold a conversation and sound normal.

The rest of her day passed in a blur, and
Rebecca kept going over the recent turn of events in her mind. How
had the DEA gotten a hold of the prescription she'd written? He'd
seemed particularly interested in Lindsey's 'scrip which was no
coincidence she was Danielle's daughter. And no coincidence that
Danielle had just been fired by R.J.

Rebecca didn't want to think it was possible,
but had Danielle ratted her out? But why would she do that?
Wouldn't she only be pointing the finger back to herself? It was no
secret Danielle didn't like Rebecca, and Rebecca was basically the
reason the woman had lost her job. Would she go so far as to call
the authorities and blame the whole thing on Rebecca?

None of it made sense, but something told her
Danielle had played a part in this. Rebecca didn't have a clue how,
and to what extent, or even who Danielle knew to call.

The only thing Rebecca knew was that after
today nothing would be the same. Her work was the reason she got
out of bed in the morning. If she didn't have that, what did she
have?

****

R.J. didn't know how much more of this shit
he could take. Danielle had coded all the files in effing
hieroglyphics, so he couldn't find a damn thing. The phone rang
every five minutes, and he was pretty sure bills were supposed to
be paid this week, but fuck it if he could find the checkbook. Or
the bills.

He'd finally delegated Alex to phone duty so
R.J. didn't rip the bastard out of the wall and smash it over
somebody's head. After that was taken care of, he'd located the
checkbook in a locked drawer. But that hadn't been until he'd
searched for twenty minutes for the key. However, a checkbook
wouldn't do him any good without the bills to refer to. Danielle
had probably filed them somewhere with some weird ass code that
didn't make sense.

A line of cars were in the garage, but R.J.
couldn't get anything done for chasing his own ass. None of the
guys knew where Danielle kept the bills, nor did they have a clue
what her filing codes meant. To top that off, the computer was
locked with a password, which was probably Greek symbols or some
stupid shit.

"I need a vacation," R.J. muttered to himself
as he dug through another filing cabinet, hoping to find the
bills.

"Don't we all, man?" Alex said.

How did he not know his own office? It was
obvious he'd placed way too much responsibility on Danielle's
shoulders. Shouldn't he have at least known the password to the
computer?

"Why the hell did she lock everything?" R.J.
asked as he found yet another locked drawer that wouldn't unlock
with the key he'd found.

"Maybe she had some freaky shit she wanted to
hide," Alex chimed in.

R.J. didn't want to think about how right
Alex might have been about that. He moved to the next drawer as the
phone rang. His employee picked it up and recited the shop's
greeting.

"Devlin Motors." Alex paused and glanced at
R.J. "Yeah, he's right here." He held the phone out. "It's
Charlie."

Great. He really didn't need this right
now.

"Hey Charlie," R.J. greeted with as much
enthusiasm as he could.

"Just calling to check on my babies. How are
things coming along?"

Luckily he'd gotten a call from his supplier
that morning to let him know the parts for both the cars had
shipped. He'd put a rush on them and they should arrive next
week.

"Moving along on schedule," he lied. Charlie
didn't need to know of the little hiccup. As long as R.J. could
finish the cars on time, no harm done.

"Great. That's good to hear. Listen I have
some drawings and ideas I wanted to run by you. Would you mind if I
stopped by this afternoon? I wanted to see the cars anyway."

Wouldn't that just be the perfect end to his
day? Having Charlie show up to micromanage R.J.'s design style,
then see that he hadn't really done anything yet to the cars.

"Actually, today's not good. Would you mind
coming in the morning?" That would give him time to at least look
like he'd started working on the cars. And maybe he'd be too busy
to shoot himself.

"I guess I could wait another day," Charlie
said with resignation.

R.J. knew the drill with the man. He always
tried to disagree with whatever R.J. did to the cars, but in the
end he'd always loved the way they turned out.

He ended the call and rubbed a hand down his
face. "We need to place an ad for an office manager. Call the paper
and get information on running an ad in the employment section," he
told Alex.

Alex turned in the desk chair and lowered his
brows. "You said this needed to get done first." Alex gestured
toward the computer where he'd been sorting through the
payables.

"I changed my mind. None of us is going to
get anything done until I get someone in here to pick up where
Danielle left off."

"All right."

R.J. left Alex to the task, then he walked
down the hallway to his office. Even though he had a shitload of
work to do, he needed some time to himself. Someplace where there
was no noise and no phone ringing. He shut his office door behind
him and sank down in the desk chair.

Maybe he'd been too hasty when firing
Danielle. Maybe he should have found a replacement first, then
shown her the door. His impulsiveness had gotten the better of him
again. In the past, he'd had a habit of acting without thinking.
Quitting a job without thinking of how he was going to pay his
bills. Selling a car without having other means of transportation.
Screwing a woman without thinking about the next morning.