way it works here.”
“My privacy needs to be guaranteed. Be sure you send my assistant back as soon as you see her. She’ll handle everything.”
Alex left without another word, snapping the curtains shut behind him. If Sophia Jackson had that much faith in her assistant’s ability to make a hospital bow to her whims, then that assistant must be even more of a harridan than Sophia herself. Dr. Gregory planned to steer clear of her. As the only doctor on duty, he didn’t have time to spend deflating some puffed-up bit of Hollywood hot air.
His most senior nurse, Loretta, was coming on duty. He’d let Loretta handle Sophia Jackson’s personal assistant.
Alex wanted nothing to do with her.
“Dr. Gregory, we have a problem.”
Alex kept writing his notes on the patient in room three, but he nodded to his nurse to continue. Loretta had worked in the ER for so long that nothing shook her up. If Loretta was concerned, then Alex was concerned.
“Go ahead,” he said, as he signed his name for the twentieth time today and tossed the paper into the in-box on the nurse’s station.
“They just roomed another patient in the overflow area.”
“That makes two. The overflow area holds eight.”
“I know, but the beds are only separated by curtains in overflow.” Loretta lowered her voice as if she were about to tell a secret. “Sophia Jackson is in one of those beds. We’d better do some rearranging. Her assistant is asking about HIPAA.”
HIPAA, or hippah, as everyone called it, governed medical privacy. The harridan of a personal assistant had arrived, and now she wanted to threaten his ER with privacy regulations, did she?
“You know that the curtained area is considered HIPAA compliant.”
“Yes, but Sophia Jackson is famous.”
Surely his best nurse didn’t expect him to move a patient just to pander to someone famous. For the second time this shift, he felt as he had when he’d first come to America. The culture shock had been extreme. To survive the jungle that was the American high school, he’d quickly dumped his cycling stars and learned who the heroes of American football were. He’d killed all trace of his Russian accent. He’d worn blue jeans and Dallas Cowboy T-shirts, but all of that had been camouflage. Surface-level changes.
Deep down, he’d never quite caught that American mindset. To this day, he didn’t understand the fascination with the famous. Of all the traits a person might have, fame was one of the most useless. In his old life, rank in the political hierarchy mattered. Wealth mattered, for money bought power, and both could assure safety. Smarts mattered—a smart man could be valuable to those who held rank. But fame? Fame didn’t put bread in your belly when you were hiding from corrupt government officials. Fame didn’t pay for passage on a rickety ship to a country that didn’t want you.
“You know people will overhear you,” Loretta said.
“Then I’ll try not to call out her full name too loudly as I ask for her autograph.”
“Be serious, Dr. Gregory.”
He was always serious, even when the sarcasm slipped out. Sophia Jackson was famous and frivolous and nothing more. She’d be in no danger if her name slipped out, but she didn’t need to worry: Alex was not a man who let names slip. He could remember a time when his mother’s life had depended on his ability to keep her name a secret.
He paused, mentally closing the door on unwelcome memories. “Every room is full because you’ve got only one doctor on duty, so let me get back to work. Sophia Jackson will survive with curtains instead of walls. I’ve already examined her, so there’s nothing medical for anyone to overhear, anyway. If she doesn’t want anyone to overhear her other types of complaints, then she can stop complaining.”
“Yes, Doctor.”
“Loretta, one more thing. When the soccer kid in room three goes for his X-ray, make sure he doesn’t cross paths with Sophia Jackson. He’s a big fan of one of her movies, and I don’t—”
“You wouldn’t want him to bother Miss Jackson.”
“Actually, I wouldn’t want Miss Jackson to ruin his image of her.”
“Understood. By the way, her personal assistant is going to want to know how we’ll keep her identity a secret while we roll her gurney down to radiology.”
“If Miss Jackson doesn’t want to be seen, then perhaps her personal assistant would care to throw a blanket over her head.”
“I don’t get paid enough to deliver that message.”
Alex sighed. “I’ll talk to her assistant myself.”
* * *
Grace was very aware that a new patient had been placed on the other side of the curtain, a woman who’d barely answered the nurse’s questions with more than a syllable. There was a man with her, too, who’d loudly done most of the talking. Now that the nurse had left them alone, he was keeping his voice to a vicious whisper, but Grace could still hear him.
She wished she couldn’t.
“You already know what I’ll do to you, bitch. You want to see what I’ll do to your kids?”
Grace looked at Sophia in a panic, but she was lying on her bed, twisted away from her, typing madly away on the precious phone Grace had retrieved.
The unseen man on the other side of the curtain was obviously trying to be quiet, but he wasn’t quiet enough for Grace’s ears. “You tell the doctor you fell down the stairs. Say it. Now.”
“I f-fell down the stairs,” the woman said. “But we don’t have stairs.”
“The effing doctor doesn’t know that, you dumb-ass.”
Grace was paralyzed in her vinyl chair. She’d be horrified if this were a movie scene, but this was even worse. This was real life, and she was no Sophia Jackson heroine. Grace didn’t know what to do.
“Say it again, like you mean it.”
“I fell down the stairs.”
“Smile when you say it. You get me in trouble, I will hunt your kids. You send me to jail, and they’re dead when I get out.”
Grace couldn’t move. Couldn’t make a noise. The man clearly didn’t know someone was sitting inches behind him on the other side of a cloth curtain. If she made a sound, he would.
What would he do? Would he hurt those children that were apparently waiting somewhere in a one-story house?
Frantically, she reached forward to tap the mattress of her sister’s gurney, but her sister only hunched her shoulders and kept tapping away on her screen.
“Don’t
