“Dr. Norris, calling you was premature. When we’ve made a full examination of the patient, decisions will be made.”
He tried to hustle them out of the room but Leesha was a blockade. They had a brief standoff where Leesha tried to step aside and make way for the doctor to leave and he stood in lockjawed annoyance. Claire decided to alleviate the small drama by heading into the hall herself, but as she gave a last glance back at the patient she saw the pretty blond woman’s face contort with pain.
“The patient,” she declared, pushing back into the room past Blount, who still maintained his stance. Leesha was on her heels as Claire jerked back the covers as the Jane Doe moaned and thrashed. “Is she in labor?” Claire asked, seeing the contraction.
“Hope not.” Leesha pressed the call button, then hustled into the hall for additional help.
Claire looked to Blount, who hesitated, then swept after Leesha. As Claire leaned down to the patient, Jane Doe’s eyes slowly opened. Cornflower blue. Confused. Full of pain.
“You’re all right,” Claire told her. “You’re in a hospital.”
Her pupils seemed to dilate, then retract.
A team of medical personnel suddenly rushed into the room. “Excuse me,” one of the nurses said sharply and Claire was pushed aside. Reluctantly she moved to the door. There was nothing she could do but get in the way. They needed room to move. Drugs to inhibit the contractions. Prayers that they could keep the baby from coming too early.
Too early…
Leesha was in the hall. They looked at each other and Leesha came over and gave Claire a pat on her arm. Too early. Claire knew what that was like as well. Life was full of unexpected pitfalls, and today Claire was revisiting all of hers.
“Dr. Norris?”
The tight male voice was familiar. Claire’s stomach tightened as she turned and faced the frowning visage of the insufferable Dr. Freeson as he made his way toward them. One of the psychiatrists at Halo Valley. Her immediate superior, in some ways, though he thought he was in all ways.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded.
“I called her,” Leesha jumped in. “She was good enough to come on her day off.”
“Well, you’re not needed.” He gazed at Claire hard. “I was in a meeting with Avanti, or I would have been here earlier,” he said primly, his Vandyck beard bristling. Forty-something with sandy-colored hair and eyes and a blotchy complexion, he wasn’t exactly God’s gift but he sure thought he was. He’d made a casual pass at Claire when she’d first joined Halo Valley and when she didn’t jump for joy, he’d been irked and somewhat embarrassed. It hadn’t helped their working relationship.
“I’m already here.” Claire forced a faint smile. It was better to treat Freeson like she was impervious, but sometimes she just wanted to smack his smug, supercilious face.
“Tomorrow, when you’re back at work, Avanti wants to talk to you.”
So what else was new? Dr. Paolo Avanti, Freeson’s immediate superior, loved giving daily lectures about anything and everything. He was at least as much of a prick as Freeson, though he had better social skills in front of the public. But neither Freeson nor Avanti had come to Claire’s defense when she really needed them, and they would both prostrate themselves in front of the head hospital administrator, Dr. Emile Radke, if they thought it would help their positions at the hospital.
“Okay,” Claire said neutrally.
“Where is this patient?” Freeson demanded.
“The staff’s in with her now,” Leesha answered. “You’ll have to wait.”
He eyed her frostily from head to toe. He was a fairly slight man and Leesha’s stolid form seemed to nonplus him a bit. He wasn’t used to being thwarted, wasn’t used to anything but complete capitulation. “Then I’ll wait.”
Claire knew Freeson didn’t give a damn about the patient. This was all about jockeying for position within the hospital, and this patient provided media attention, something Freeson went after like a heat-seeking missile. He seemed to also have made it his personal mission to keep Claire in line.
It was such utter bullshit. A means for everyone to believe that they were doing everything possible to rectify the fact that Melody Stone had been attacked on their hallowed grounds, in front of one of their own doctors, by another patient whose wealthy parents had coerced his release from those selfsame doctors and therefore helped set up the very events that led to Melody’s death.
Why was she the only one who saw it?
She answered her own question: hospital politics and money.
The nightmare scene of Melody’s death tried to play across Claire’s mind again, but this time she resolutely stuck it inside a box in her mind and tied it tightly. Not now. Not today. She knew grief and shock took their own sweet time in relinquishing their grip, and so she was trying to let nature take its course and heal her. She’d made good strides and was beginning to understand and process Melody’s death. She was also almost managing to forgive Heyward, knowing he was at the mercy of his own disease, though that was happening much slower.
The team of nurses and Dr. Blount came out of Jane Doe’s room and Leesha hurried over for a quick consult. Freeson breezed past them and entered the room. Claire felt compelled to follow him as he stood over the now peacefully resting patient.
“Not labor,” Leesha said near her ear. “Some other pain. Maybe mental.”
“She was attacked,” Claire reminded her.
They were all silent for a few moments, then all left together. Claire said to Leesha, “Keep me informed.”
“She’s not your patient,” Freeson told her, but Claire ignored him as she walked rapidly down the hall in the opposite direction that she’d arrived. By design she’d chosen a different exit. She had no interest in speaking to Freeson any more than she had to, and since he was likely to leave by the front, she would hit a side door. If he wanted her to wait for him, he could just go ahead and be pissed off that she’d avoided him.
“Hey!” He called after her before she could turn the corner.
Claire increased the length of her strides, pretending she didn’t know he was calling for her. She hit the stairs and hurried down the steps, pushing through a door to a small walkway that circled the building. Turning toward the front of the hospital and the parking lot, she bent her head to the chilly, drizzling rain. The Passat was still parked in a reserved spot. The hovering newspeople barely gave her a passing glance as she climbed into the car. She hadn’t left by the main entrance. She wasn’t wearing a lab coat. They couldn’t connect her to the patient and didn’t know who she was.
Good.
She’d had enough of them six months earlier. Oh, brother, had she! As she backed out, she glanced through the window at their news van and the smattering of people milling around. She could see the dark, slickly combed head of Pauline Kirby.
Claire made a growling sound as she twisted the ignition. That woman had been particularly invasive. Between her insinuations, the accusations from Melody Stone’s family, and the abandonment of her
