“Her car was vandalized and someone didn’t stick around after a near-miss. That’s your incriminating evidence?” Dade laughed. “Both of those events could be completely unrelated. And could have nothing to do with the surgeries. You’re reaching, Wyatt. Like you do when you’re trying to find the answer to a patient’s symptoms that don’t all make sense. Go back to your crystals and needles and whatever voodoo you like to practice in the clinic. Leave surgical review to the real surgeons.”
“Ah, real surgeons. Let’s look at the mortality rate then, shall we? Dade’s and Camille’s. Should we even bother pulling the numbers?”
Dade flushed, possibly because he knew the numbers better than anyone. His survival rate was average. Hers was near perfect. “Statistically speaking, for Camille to have three deaths in one month caused by her hand would be the same as those three patients dying by shark attack. Let’s be real here. Something else is going on.”
“Unless Camille is having some kind of breakdown,” Delia suggested. “It’s not the first time we’ve lost a good surgeon that way.”
Wyatt took the hit but ignored it. He was too focused on what actually might be happening. “You’ve seen the tapes of the surgeries, you’ve heard from the resident in this case. The medical examiner couldn’t find a legitimate cause of death with the first two, what I’m now going to call victims.”
“Wyatt.” Camille finally spoke up. “That’s crazy. You’re saying—you’re saying someone deliberately killed those people.”
“I’m saying that someone is targeting you. For some reason. Dade, there was a rumor your car was keyed and windshield cracked before you left. Any ideas on who might have done it?”
The doctor shifted in the chair. He looked at Delia then at Camille. “No clue. I thought it might have been Camille.”
“Try again. You know she wouldn’t have been within ten feet of shattered glass.”
He sighed. “Let’s say I had some…admirers who weren’t exactly pleased when I told them I was leaving.”
“Any one particular admirer?”
He paused, then shook his head. His eyes never left Delia’s face. “No. It could have been any one of a small group of people. I have no intention of naming them without proof. That’s all it takes in a rumor mill like this for fiction to suddenly become fact and that wouldn’t be fair. They couldn’t help their feelings for me. That’s not a crime.”
Wyatt controlled his instinct to roll his eyes.
“Besides, what does trashing my car have to do with Camille? If whoever it was was pissed because I was leaving, what’s that got to do with her?”
“Everybody blames me,” Camille said softly. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Everybody thinks I forced you to leave.”
“Well, that’s a damn lie. Nobody, nobody, forces me to do anything I don’t want to do.”
“Geez, Logan,” Wyatt groaned. “You sound like a bad imitation of Clint Eastwood. Is it so far-fetched for people to place the blame on Camille when you practically pointed to her on the way out? Anger toward you could have easily transferred to the person responsible for making you leave.”
“So angry that person would kill for it?” Delia asked. “That’s where this all becomes so much theater, Wyatt. You can’t tell me that a person so upset about Logan leaving would go from wrecking a car to murder. They are two pretty big extremes.”
“Yes, big extremes,” Wyatt agreed. “Like going from believing that Camille Larson’s talent can win you a new hospital wing to thinking that she suddenly can’t operate anymore.”
Delia bristled but Wyatt had made his point. “And let’s also not forget that someone nearly ran Camille off the road. What is that if not an attempt on someone’s life?”
“But the driver didn’t hurt me, Wyatt,” Camille admitted. “Just passed me and stopped suddenly. Then sped off. It could have been anyone for any reason. A kid joyriding in a parent’s car. I can’t believe someone would go so far as to kill innocent people.”
“That’s fine,” Wyatt said. “Maybe I’m wrong. But I say let’s have the police figure it out. We’ve got two vandalized cars, a near-miss accident and three patients dead after perfect surgeries. I think that might be enough to garner the sheriff’s attention. Then we let him do the investigating.”
Delia shook her head. “Do you have any idea what kind of media attention that might bring with it? Do you understand at all what I’m trying to do for this hospital?”
Wyatt wanted to shake the woman. “Is that all you care about? The damn money.”
“Don’t make me sound like some greedy shrew,” she snapped. She ran her hands through her hair and managed only to make it frizzier. Then, realizing she was still being watched by the other doctors in the room, she took a deep breath. “I’m trying to build us a new wing. A discreet review of Camille’s surgeries is one thing. A police investigation is another.”
“Well, I’m trying to find out why three people who shouldn’t have died, did,” Wyatt countered.
“Then let me do what I was asked here to do. Let me look at the tapes,” Logan announced.
Everyone in the room turned to him. Including Camille.
“I’ll review them objectively. I’ve got no stake in this anymore. I’m only here as a favor to the board. If I can’t find any problems with the surgeries, then you may have to consider that something else happened to those people. But if I do…”
“Yes.” Delia nodded, almost eager for the latter to be true. “If you do, then we’ll simply handle this in-house. In the meantime, Camille, you’re to stay out of the O.R.”
“You’re making a mistake.” Wyatt knew it in his gut. Nothing had added up about those two deaths. Not their histories, not the surgeries and not the fact that the patients were recovering before they died. When Camille had told him about the car accident he had thought nothing of it. Why would he? Why would she? But putting that together with vandalism and the deaths…
Yes, it seemed far-fetched. He would be the first to admit it. Murder at Physicians’ Memorial? It sounded like something out of a bad soap opera.
But he was a doctor who specialized in diagnosis. Look at the whole patient, at all of the symptoms, even though some might not apply. Because the books say a swollen toe doesn’t have anything to do with a runny nose, it doesn’t mean a person doesn’t have lymphoma.
And because vandalism and murder were two opposite extremes on the crime scale didn’t mean they weren’t dealing with a psychopath.
Chapter 10
Camille stood as soon as everyone stopped talking. It didn’t matter what Wyatt or Delia believed. The end result was still the same. Either some deranged person bent on revenge was killing her patients—which she couldn’t accept—or she was unknowingly committing an error during surgery that was responsible for their deaths. Another option she couldn’t accept.
Either way, they were all dead. Either way, she was no longer a surgeon.
“Can I go home?”
Delia nodded. “Yes. Logan will begin the review as soon as he can. I’ll let you both know what he finds.”
Camille walked out of the conference room and headed to the elevators. She stopped when it occurred to her she had no idea which button to push. Up or down. The day—the past two days—had been entirely too long.
Wyatt moved around her and pushed the down button. “You’re not going home alone.”
The elevators opened and Camille stepped inside without answering. He followed her and they rode in silence to the lobby. She thought about what she had to do. Collect her purse, empty her locker, drive home. It all seemed like too much.
When the elevator doors opened she stepped out then stood there with no concept of how to begin such an onerous task list.
“I’ll take you home. We’ll find a way to get your car tomorrow. Do you need house keys?”
“I keep one under the planter on the porch,” she said without thinking.
“Good enough.”
/>
She knew she was being led but she didn’t care. She couldn’t say that she cared about anything anymore. She was suspended. She wasn’t a surgeon. She could not operate. She could not be what she was. What happened to a person then?
Once outside she realized it was already dark. Funny, when she was operating, eight, ten, twelve-hour surgeries meant nothing to her. But that same amount of time being questioned felt like a lifetime in hell.
When they reached the Jeep she noted that he’d washed it at some point. The green paint gleamed in the dark. It was thoughtful of him, but she didn’t have the energy to thank him. Instead she climbed in and fastened her seat belt.
He drove without speaking. She could see him glancing in her direction a few times probably wondering if she was going to lose it, but other than that his eyes remained on the road.
They reached her house and she thought of the new task list in front of her. Fall on the bed, sleep until this nightmare passed. That, she was capable of. When they reached the porch it didn’t occur to her to tell Wyatt that she had it from here. Instead she let him get the key, let him open the door, let him walk inside in front of her…
“What the hell!”
Startled by his shouting, Camille blinked a few times. Then she realized that Wyatt was running through her house. No, not running. Chasing someone through her house!
Someone had broken into her home. It seemed unreal and took her a second to know what to do next.
“Camille, call 911. Now!” Wyatt shouted the directions to her, but then took off before she could stop him.
The sound of footsteps pounded through the ranch, then the backdoor slammed and slammed again.
Who wanted her things? Why? She didn’t keep money in the house or jewelry. She never wore it. There was only one thing of any real value to her at all and that was…
Aphrodite!
Camille went in search of her pet’s favorite hiding spot in one of the kitchen cabinets that had a space in the bottom of it where she could climb up. Any time someone delivered anything to her house, that is where Aphrodite would hide until the coast was clear.
Camille left the cabinet empty for her and furnished it with some toys to make the small dark space hospitable. After all, every creature needed a getaway. When she opened the cabinet she breathed a sigh of relief seeing Aphrodite tucked into a tiny ball in the far corner of the dark space.
“It’s okay. I’m here now. Nobody’s going to hurt you.”
She hoped. Satisfied her pet was safe she closed the cabinet then reached for the phone in the kitchen. She took the portable with her as she called 911 then made her way outside to find Wyatt.
He shouldn’t have gone running after the thief. What if the person was armed? What if he had a gun?
“Oh, God. Please no.”
She listened for the sound of a weapon but heard nothing. Cursing herself for taking the time to check on her pet first. Wyatt was out there chasing a criminal. He needed backup. Hand shaking, she held the phone to her ear as she looked out over her backyard. Her property bordered a small patch of woods and on the other side of that was another block of homes. Scanning the dark she heard the rustle of someone moving through the bushes at the perimeter of the yard. For an instant she stepped back uncertain of who approached.
What if Wyatt was hurt? Whoever this person was, whoever had come back for her, she felt like she could kill with her bare hands.
“Who is it?” she asked and wished her voice sounded more threatening and less of a hiss.
The tall lean silhouette of Wyatt was impossible to miss as he moved closer. “Don’t shoot, it’s me.”
Camille glanced down and realized she’d pointed the phone in her hand like a gun. Not a very effective weapon, but she wasn’t feeling particularly rational right now. She wanted to run to him and throw her arms around him and make him promise never ever to do anything so stupid again but noise was coming from the speaker.
“What’s your emergency?”
“Someone broke into my house,” Camille reported. She gave her name and address to the dispatcher and was assured that a police cruiser from the sheriff’s office would be by shortly.
Wyatt stopped and picked up something from the grass. He studied it for a second before making his way to her. She couldn’t see his face in the dark, but he was winded and his shoulders were slumped.
“He got away?”
A sharp nod of the head was all he offered.
She slapped his shoulder. “You shouldn’t have done that. You could have been hurt, killed.”
“Yeah. You’re probably right, but whoever it was, was more interested in escape.” He took a few more puffs of air. “I couldn’t see anything. A shape, that’s all. He dropped this before bolting.”
Camille took the item from his hand and held it out. It was a length of rope with a loop at the bottom. Not a common tool for a thief…it was a noose, she realized. Only not big enough for a person’s head to fit through. Only big enough for a small animal.
Turning to her right, Camille vomited into the grass. She could feel Wyatt move around her, circling her waist to steady her and cupping her forehead in his big strong hand. She still felt sick. But she also felt safe.
“I told you I couldn’t make out any distinguishing features.”
“But you keep referring to the intruder as he,” the officer who sat in the chair across from the couch noted.
“He, she, I don’t know. They ran fast. That’s all I know.” Wyatt leaned forward on the couch and watched the kid—because anyone with that clean-shaven of a face had to be a kid—take notes. The deputy seemed earnest, but he also seemed fairly new at questioning.
Camille was sitting next to Wyatt completely still throughout the process. So far all the questions had been directed at Wyatt and he was fine with that. He could feel her tension and knew she’d been pushed to her last straw. Her patient had died, she’d been suspended from surgery and someone had wanted to hang her cat. Or at least had wanted to leave a threatening message. She wasn’t in hysterics, she wasn’t shouting and maybe that was a good thing. Or maybe the silence was worse.
“Can you think of any reason someone might want to harm your pet?” This time the deputy did direct his question at Camille. When she blinked, he prompted, “Maybe a neighbor not happy with the cat using his lawn as a litter box? Someone with a bird that the cat went after?”
Wyatt shook his head. “This wasn’t some neighbor with a grudge against the cat.”
“Wyatt, don’t,” Camille said putting her hand on his arm. “You don’t know if it’s related. We don’t know anything. Delia didn’t want—”
“Delia wanted to protect her own ass,” he snapped. “Deputy, we paid a visit to the sheriff yesterday morning. I want you to pass along a message to him from us. There is another dead patient.”
The kid’s eyes opened wide and his jaw dropped. “A dead person? You’re saying someone is dead?”
“I’m saying that three patients have died at Physicians’ Memorial Hospital in the past month and I don’t think it was due to their health. These were all patients of Dr. Larson. I want someone to look into the possibility that she is being targeted. Her car was vandalized. She recently had a near-miss car accident. And now someone has broken into her home with malicious intent. Combine that with three dead patients and I think we have more than a coincidence.”
“Yeah,” the kid breathed. “Totally.”
Wyatt closed his eyes. The deputy was no hardcore detective. But he didn’t need to be. He needed to report back to his commanding officer and let him handle it. If the sheriff needed reinforcements for this kind of detective work, he would get them. He’d struck Wyatt as a shrewd man. Maybe they didn’t have enough evidence to warrant exhuming two bodies, but when everything was laid out, Wyatt had a sense that the older man would come around.
“I have your cell-phone number. Keep it with you and I’ll be in touch.” The deputy left then and Wyatt cl
osed the door behind him.
“You shouldn’t have done that. The sheriff will call Delia and—”
“And what? I’m not playing around anymore, Camille. Someone broke into your house with a freakin’ noose. This can’t be ignored.”
Wyatt ran his hands through his hair when he realized he was trembling. With rage, fear, he wasn’t sure what. This wasn’t a joke. Someone wanted to hurt her. Bad. And he wasn’t taking any chances with that.
“You need to pack a bag.” Ordering her around was probably not the best course of action. She might realize any second that he had no business doing so. But he was scared. He’d never been so scared.
For a moment Camille stared at him. Debating in her head, no doubt, whether she would listen to him or kick him out.
“Please,” he conceded. “You have a travel case for the cat, right? Get that and her litter box. Plus food and whatever else she’ll need. Then pack what you need because you’re coming with me.”
“Wyatt, I’m perfectly capable of…”
“You’re not!” he shouted. Instantly he regretted it because she shrank a little on the couch. “I’m sorry. But you’re not staying here. Do you understand what is happening? Some sick SOB wants to hurt you. In lots of different ways. You’re not staying here waiting for the next attack. You’re coming with me until we get this mess sorted out.”
She pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “I can’t leave my house.”
Wyatt knelt in front of her and pulled her hands away from her body, holding them even when she tried to tug them back. “We can’t stay here. The back door lock was jammed open, it won’t lock properly. It was a lousy lock anyway, but that’s not for this conversation. I won’t feel comfortable letting you sleep alone here. If we go back to my place, you can have the spare room all to yourself.”
Space. Instinctively he knew she would require it. The intruder had violated her security. Delia had done a number on her psyche by taking away from her the one thing she knew how to do. If he’d insisted on sleeping with her, even to have her close, she would feel that she had no control over anything in her life. The other option was to take her some place secure.
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