know! I know! And I didn’t say a word to Dr. Brickers about what we’re doing. But I know it will work!”
Amber smiled, her own hopes rising. As a doctor at Mandolin Clinic, Amber couldn’t possibly admit she was prescribing holistic treatments to anyone, least of all Dr. Brickers’s patients. After all, the man was Amber’s direct boss. But Lizzy’s mom was a friend and had begged Amber for help when the normal treatments had little effect. So Amber had prescribed a special tea and done energy work on the kid. And it was working!
“Just keep doing what you’re doing—especially the diet and exercise.”
“I know, I know,” Lizzy said with a very dramatic eye roll. “And I won’t tell anyone or you’ll get fired. But it’s working!”
Yes, it certainly looked like it was. The two spent the rest of the lunch hour giggling like little girls, then Amber dropped Lizzy back at school before returning to the hospital.
Some days it was hard keeping her interest in holistic healing secret from the ultra-conservative administration at Mandolin. But days like today made it all worth it. That was the reason she’d become a doctor: to find out what worked and what didn’t, no matter the source. Her colleagues might think she was nuts, but she didn’t care if it was Eastern, Western or alien medicine. If it worked, then she was going to embrace it even if it dealt with something as loosy-goosy as “qi energy.”
If only she could get her colleagues to be so open-minded. Some of them were, but the administration was firmly entrenched in the “Western medicine is God” mode, especially Dr. Brickers and his cronies. And until they left or retired, nothing would change at Mandolin.
She lived for that day, prayed nightly for it. Because frankly, she was running out of patience. She’d picked this hospital because it was expected of her. Six generations of Smithsons had worked here as orderlies, then nurses, and then her grandfather had become a doctor here. Her mother, too. So she’d caved to family pressure because Mandolin really was a good hospital and a prestigious place to work.
Then she’d discovered how very narrow-minded her boss was. Not only was alternative medicine evil, in his mind, but anyone who explored it was the devil’s handmaiden. No doctor under his watch could suggest anything but traditional Western medicine. So Amber had hidden her interest. She saw patients like Lizzy on her lunch hour, off of hospital grounds. But she was getting tired all the subterfuge.
She was still absorbed in those gloomy thoughts when she stepped through the door and was ambushed by Dr. Jack Ross, her best friend and an extremely talented neurologist. He matched steps with her and was obviously bursting with news.
“Guess who’s just killed his last patient,” he said as they stepped into the empty elevator.
“Oh, God,” she gasped. “Not another!” They were in a hospital, and people died in hospitals. But lately, the mortality rate at Mandolin was unusually high. It happened sometimes, but it never failed to raise alarms among the people in charge. Who then went crusading around desperately looking for an answer. Or a scapegoat.
“Yup. But this time the family’s lodged a complaint and it’s been backed up by a fellow doctor.”
The elevator doors open, and before Amber could move to her office, Jack gripped her arm and steered her to a doctor’s lounge. It was thankfully empty at the moment, but that wouldn’t last. Before long, practically the whole staff would wander through looking for more gossip to dish. Amber asked the first question on her mind.
“Who died?” Was it someone she knew?
Jack shrugged. “Some woman. Mother of four. Eldest is a lawyer and making all sorts of noise.”
“A name, please.”
He responded with the diagnosis. “Uterine cancer but she died of a heart attack. Why aren’t you asking whose patient she was?”
Because she knew. There was only one doctor that Jack desperately wanted gone. The same doctor who was a pain in Amber’s backside. Dr. Bob Brickers.
“Keep your voice down,” she whispered as she leaned forward. “What happened? Exactly.”
“Remember how Bob took that long vacation last month? Well, he pushed up this woman’s radiation treatment before she was ready. He wanted to get things going before he left. Anyway, she was too weak to do radiation, so bam, last night she has a heart attack and dies.”
Amber felt her mouth go slack. Bob couldn’t be that irresponsible. Sure, everyone jostled their schedules when they wanted to take a vacation, but to endanger a patient like that? Especially one who…
Her eyes widened and her breath got short. “Wait a moment,” she breathed. “Who was the patient? What was her name?”
Jack straightened, alarm growing on his face as he realized something was up. “I don’t remember. Vera someone, I think.”
“Vera Barker?”
“I don’t know.”
But Amber did. It all made sense in the most horrible way. She closed her eyes, fighting the tears. To think that Vera was gone. That she would never trade vegetarian recipes with her again. That no one would ever hear her weird horsey laugh again. That her grandchildren would never know how absolutely special she was. The very idea made her heart break. “Not Vera,” she whispered. “Oh, God, not Vera.”
Two hours later, she was having the exact same discussion in the director’s office. Dr. Brickers was there, his face hot and his expression furious. And he was pointing a finger at her.
“Did you or did you not see my patient behind my back?” demanded Dr. Brickers.
Amber sighed and addressed her words to the director. “Vera came to me. She was incredibly weak from the chemotherapy and she had heard about some herbal teas.”
“You did!” Brickers all but screamed. “You gave her some holistic crap behind my back, and now she’s dead.”
Amber didn’t bother looking at her boss. Instead, she spoke as calmly and clearly as possible. “My treatments were working, sir. She was getting stronger. But she wasn’t ready for radiation yet. Dr. Brickers pushed up her radiation just so he could go on vacation.”
“That’s not true!” bellowed her boss. But he shut his mouth when the director held up his hand.
“That’s not relevant, Amber,” said the head of the hospital. “Did you or did you not see Dr. Brickers’s patient?”
Amber sighed but stayed with the truth. “I did.”
“And you prescribed some herbal tea?”
“And certain energy treatments, yes. And they were working!”
The director just shook his head. “You know that’s against hospital policy. You can’t see someone else’s patient behind his back. You can’t prescribe non-traditional treatments. My God, Amber, what were you thinking?”
Amber threw up her hands. “That it was working!”
“Except that she’s dead,” inserted Dr. Brickers.
“Because
