Wake for Me (Life or Death Series) (33 page)

At the end of his speech, Sam dropped his hands with a defeated sigh.

“Are you going to arrest me?”

Sanchez let go of Sam’s shirt and took a step back. He stared at Sam for a long moment, as if daring him to change his story into something less absurd. Finally, he shook his head.

“Damn, and I thought my job was stressful.”

With a polite nod, Sam went back into his apartment and slammed the door. Standing alone in his living room, he tried to figure out what the hell he was supposed to do now. For the first time in his life, he didn’t have a single idea about where to start. Usually, the kinds of problems he faced could only be solved by consulting facts. The answers weren’t subjective, and there was a precedent for almost any given situation. If there wasn’t a precedent, then there was a rule. A protocol. A logical procedure he was supposed to follow.

When it came to Viola, though, Sam realized he’d left the world of logic a long time ago.

So what else was there to do but behave illogically, and hope to God that Viola would do the same?

Sam grabbed his mom’s car keys—because searching for his own car would be a logical, albeit time-sucking pursuit—and headed for the door. His first stop would be the hospital—logically, it was the absolute last place she would go.

But his hopes weren’t high, because Viola had been right when she first opened the door to his apartment: chasing blindly around the city looking for her did not sound like a very good plan. In fact, it was probably the worst plan imaginable. But other than calling out the National Guard, what choice did Sam have?

Almost as an afterthought, he backtracked into his bedroom and scooped up Étienne Bellerose’s medical file. Logically, he should call the hospital and report that his badge had been stolen, and tell them that he was still in Syracuse, so they’d know he couldn’t possibly have stolen anything. Then he really ought to burn the file, and destroy all evidence that it had ever been in his possession.

Instead, he was going to return it to the hospital and confess, since he was in the neighborhood.

Twenty-five minutes later, Sam entered the hospital through the hallway of doom, and followed it down through the labyrinth to Medical Records. Julia, the erotica writer-slash-secretary, was still sitting at her desk, even though the night shift was long over. When she saw him, she dropped the book she was holding and scowled.

“Well, it’s about goddamned time you brought that back,” she groused. But then her eyes took in Sam’s appearance, and her scowl evaporated. “Whoa, what happened to you? No offense, Dr. Philips, but this whole homeless track star thing you’re rocking? Not your best look.”

Sam wasn’t sure which statement to address first, so he ignored all of them.

“Hey Julia, when was the last time you saw Viola?”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “Viola? I thought she was discharged a while ago. I haven’t seen her since before she was in that special place with the…well, I think we both know where she was last week. But not since before that.”

“Really.” Sam looked down at the file he was holding. “So how did you know I had this?”

The secretary’s scowl returned.

“Um, don’t you mean ‘How did I
not
know?’” She snorted. “It’s my job, man. I saw that your badge had been scanned on my log, so I stayed late and did an inventory. When I realized which file was missing, I decided you were holed up somewhere in the hospital, obsessing over some medical mystery having to do with,” she coughed delicately, “that patient. Anyway, I probably should’ve reported it, but since everyone knows how much of a boy scout you are, I knew that there was no way in hell you could ever…” she coughed again, this time with even less sincerity, “possibly be stupid enough to take a file off the premises. So I waited for you to bring it back, before anyone else came in and noticed it was missing. Because…well, I am just that fucking awesome, Dr. Philips.”

In spite of his decision to throw caution to the wind and take his chances on the mercy of the hospital board, Sam felt incredibly relieved.

“Well, thank you,” he said, reaching to hand the file back to her. “I really appreciate your… staying late.”

“Oh, no,” she said, holding her hand back. “I might be awesome, but I am not touching that file. If anything illegal happens, I don’t want them to find my fingerprints on it. You can march your fine ass in there and put it back all by your damn self.”

With that, Julia stood and scanned the door to medical records, holding it open for him with an impatient expression. “Go on, and make sure you don’t fuck up my alphabetization.”

Feeling like he’d just been chastised by a Goth Kewpie Doll, Sam walked through the door and into the filing room. In front of him, there was a huge wall full of vertical slots, each stuffed with folder after folder of comprehensive patient data. He flinched as the door slammed shut behind him, turning to see that Julia had not followed him inside. Scanning the racks for where the alphabet began, he quickly located the B section and followed the progression from BA to BE. When he found the right slot, he spider-walked his fingers through the files until he thought he could safely get away with just shoving the file back in and walking away, the only consequence being a potential miniature tirade—pun intended—from the irate secretary, because he would have very slightly ‘fucked up’ her perfect alphabetization.

But when his finger landed on the file marked ‘Bellerose, Viola,’ Sam couldn’t help himself.

A few minutes after Viola had first come into the ER, someone had called her parents and asked them to provide a verbal medical history. Instead, Viola’s father had simply called and woken up their primary care doctor who lived upstate, who had faxed down the record immediately. Email would’ve been a faster and more accurate option, but his office had yet to switch to electronic records.

Because of that, the only history of Viola’s medical life was contained in a small paper file, which held a combination of records from several different countries. Her parents had an apparent obsession with what other people might find out about them—or think of them—and the file had been marked ‘VIP’ before it had even reached the doctors’ hands. Meaning that Sam had never gotten a chance to see whether or not she had a pre-existing condition—a heart murmur, asthma, diabetes—anything that he might have missed during his preliminary exam.

Now though, he could finally appease his curiosity, and maybe even his guilt, but only if he acted fast and didn’t get caught. The decision was easy.

Pulling out Viola’s file, Sam replaced it with her father’s. He quickly leafed through it, passing over the general stuff like vital information and birth certificate, only stopping when he reached the summary of her medical history.

Chakrabarti’s working theory had been that Viola had suffered a reaction to anesthesia during her surgery. It would’ve made sense, if Viola had never gone under the knife before, because most people didn’t know they were allergic until the first time. But according to the record, Viola had undergone multiple elective surgeries at the age of fourteen—a nose job, for fuck’s sake, Sam thought angrily, wondering which one of her parents had been stupid or shallow enough to agree to that. During those surgeries, she had been given the same anesthetic, with no reaction.

So maybe it hadn’t been a reaction, Sam thought, not for the first time. Maybe it had been an interaction. What if Viola had been taking a prescription, or something else that had caused her to go into arrest during the surgery? And, oh God, he realized—they hadn’t had her history at that point. What if Sam had forgotten to order a tox screen on her blood work when she came in through the ER?

Frantically, he flipped through the pages, looking for Viola’s lab results from that day. But no, there they were: he’d remembered to order them, but they were marked as inconclusive. Which meant that the attending, or at least the surgeon, should’ve re-ordered another blood test, STAT. Apparently, no one had. Apprehension growing, Sam rifled through the rest of the file, looking for a follow-up tox screen. There wasn’t one. Not anywhere. Which meant Sam had been right all along. Someone had screwed up, just not him.

The last piece of paper in the file—also the most recent—was a one-page letter from Viola’s psychologist, Dr. Horace. Sam found himself skimming through it, wondering what he had to say about his patient’s mental state. Had Dr. Horace—her so-called family psychiatrist—thought Viola was likely to suffer from PTSD, or something more severe, like schizophrenia? The letter didn’t mention any specific diagnosis. Instead, it threw around a lot of terms like ‘criminally insane,’ and ‘inability to function in any legal or financial capacity.’ The letter had also been notarized.

What the
…. Viola might be freaking out at the moment, but there was no way in hell that she was criminally insane. A diagnosis like that would’ve taken years to arrive at, not to mention a patient usually had to have some criminal precedent—like a history of kleptomania, or homicidal behavior—to merit such harsh terminology. On top of that, from what Sam could tell, there was no other record of Viola ever having been treated by a psychologist. Until now, after her accident. After she’d accused Jacques Gosselin of plotting to kill her family, in front of witnesses.

Reading the letter should’ve made Sam doubt Viola’s mental state. After all, that was what it was meant to do. But instead, he found himself doubting the doctor who’d written it. He folded up and pocketed the letter, just as the door creaked open behind him.

“What are you doing in there?” Julia’s voice made her sound like she was at the end of her patience.

“Sorry,” Sam said, quickly blocking the file with his body. “I haven’t slept in a while. Does B-E-L come before or after B-E-H?”

“After, you moron,” she said. He could practically hear her rolling her eyes behind him. “And to think, you’ve had four times as much education as I’ve had. Pathetic!”

Sam quickly moved some files aside and slid Viola’s file back into its slot. “Okay, got it.”

He turned and smiled his most innocent smile. “Thanks again for being awesome.”

Julia rolled her eyes. “I know, right? Sometimes I can’t even stand it.”

After escaping the file room without further incident, Sam jogged down to the end of the hallway and out into the parking lot.

Once he was in the clear, he pulled out the letter and his cell phone. An idea had suddenly occurred to him, and even though it was massively illegal, he had to give it a try. Dialing the number at the top of Dr. Horace’s letter, Sam waited, holding his breath.

Almost instantly, there was an obnoxious beeping noise, followed by a familiar recording of a woman’s voice. “We’re sorry, the number you’re trying to reach has been disconnected, or is no longer in service. Please hang up and try your call again.”

Frowning, Sam hung up and looked down at the letter. He double-checked the number he’d just dialed, matching it against the number printed in bold along the top. It was the same number.

A tingle started to form at the back of his neck, but he shrugged it away.

Okay, he told himself, that didn’t mean anything. Maybe the letterhead was old. Or maybe it was a typo. There were any number of good excuses out there.

Clearing his phone, he dialed the hospital switchboard from memory. When the operator answered, he identified himself as an Our Lady of Mercy staff member, then asked her if she could please look up Dr. Horace’s office number.

When she rattled it off, Sam repeated it back, trying to hold the number in his head.

The operator laughed. “I can just connect you, if that would be easier.”
“Thanks,” Sam told her, feeling stupid. “That would be great.”

After a click and a few rings, another pleasantly voiced woman answered. “Geneva Medical Center, after-hours answering service. How may I help you?”

“Hello,” Sam said, in his most official voice. “I’m a physician at Our Lady of Mercy in Brooklyn, and I’m looking for Dr. Horace. He recently did a consult on one of my patients, and I have a few more questions for him.”

“I’m sorry,” the woman said, very pleasantly. “Which doctor did you say?”
“Horace,” Sam repeated, glancing down at the letter. “Timothy Horace.”

“And when did you say that this consult took place?”

“Last week.”

There was a long silence before the woman spoke again, this time much less pleasantly.

“I’m sorry, Doctor….”

“Perry, Dustin Perry,” Sam said, and then felt immediately bad about it. Then again, how much trouble could Dustin really get into for asking for a phone number? Sam could always change his alias once he got on the phone with Dr. Horace.

“Dr. Perry,” the receptionist continued, “I think there’s been some kind of misunderstanding. Dr. Timothy Horace retired from practice over a year ago.”

Even though he knew it would out him as someone who hadn’t done his research, Sam couldn’t stop himself from asking.

“I know he still has admitting privileges at this hospital. Is it possible that he still sees some of his patients? Maybe, I don’t know…” What was the term for doing a casual, medical favor? “Off the record?”

“No, doctor,” she said, more bluntly this time. “Dr. Horace had a stroke. I doubt he could see patients, even if he wanted to. If you ask me, it sounds like someone is jerking your chain.”

“Fuck.” That was exactly what Sam had been afraid of.

“Sorry for swearing. Thank you for your time,” he added, and hung up the phone.

Sam stood in the parking lot, leaning against his mom’s minivan as the weather turned from chilly to freeze your face off. His brain felt like partially frozen sludge, but his heart was beating a mile a minute.

“What do I know?” he asked himself. “What can I prove?”

Nothing he’d found out in the past hour amounted to proof, at least not conclusively. But just like before, his instincts were roaring at him that once combined, all of these seemingly unrelated facts would add up to something bad. Something dangerous. And even though he still didn’t know if Viola was a hundred percent sane, he knew now that that she had a genuine reason to be worried.