“You should have these,” she said, and for the first time, Neil realized she held a stack of notebooks. Charli shoved them at him, and he took them in pure reflex.
“What are they?” he asked.
“My father’s journals. They’re kind of jumbled up, with patient notes—patients he saw on the side. I’ve checked, and there are no official patient files on any of these people at the office.”
“Why do you want me to have them?”
Charli frowned as if in pain. “I’m not making excuses. Please know that. But you need the whole story. About the money. And why I donated it.”
“You said it was your father’s. But I thought he was broke.”
“He was. Officially. I found the money that I donated to the clinic in his safe deposit box. I didn’t know how he’d come to have it, and I could find no legal, aboveboard way he could have acquired it. And then I found the notebooks, and apparently my dad must have got it from covering up a TB outbreak. Like father, like daughter, huh?” Her words were bitter and tinged with regret.
Neil couldn’t process it very well. “Who?” he asked. “Who paid him the money?”
Charli shrugged. “I have no proof. When Lige first threatened to fire me and turn my mom in for tax evasion, it sure sounded to me like he was the one who’d bribed my dad. But I doubt he’d confirm it on the record. And Dad’s notebooks don’t tell that part. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that my dad took a bribe—or a lot of bribes—and I didn’t want to spend it or have anything to do with it, so instead of doing what I should have done and going to the authorities, I donated it to the clinic.”
Neil looked from Charli to the stack of notebooks in his hands. “And it was Lige?”
“Neil, it doesn’t matter what I think. I have no proof. Lige will come out of all this as clean as a whistle.”
“No, he hasn’t. Haven’t you heard? They found the migrants.”
Now it was Charli who was surprised. “Where? How? Are they sick?”
“Just across the Alabama state line. They’re okay—none of ’em got HUS. But Lige ran them off so they couldn’t turn him in.”
“Hmm. Sounds like something he’d do,” Charli said. “The DPH didn’t tell me that when I was meeting with them.”
“That’s where you’ve been?”
“Well, yeah, for yesterday and today, at least. I’ve been in Atlanta at their headquarters. And with the medical board. Before that, I was in Savannah, looking for my mom.”
“I thought she was with you. You didn’t take her with you?”
“No, she was...” Charli closed her eyes, and Neil saw exhaustion in her face. She opened them again and spoke. “It’s a long story. Suffice it to say I jumped to some very wrong conclusions. But I’ve been doing that a lot lately, haven’t I?”
Before he could tell her that she wasn’t the only one who’d done that, Charli went on in a hurried voice, “There it is, what I came to give you. I just wanted to be sure you had it, so that you’d have time to read it and to ask me any questions before I, well, before I leave.”
Neil swallowed hard. “You’re leaving again?”
“Yeah, well. Student loans don’t wait. I’ve got to find some way to earn a living.”
“So they did take your license? I’m sorry, Charli. I sent them my newspaper article, and what all the DPH had said about the contaminated well, and I kept trying to get them word that the DPH had cleared you.”
“No.” She shook her head. “What do you mean?”
“They said—well, somebody said that the state medical board was going to make an example out of you, since you had all this media coverage—and that’s all my fault, and I’m sorry. I was wrong.”
“Neil, I don’t know what you’ve heard...” Charli spoke slowly, as though she were trying to make connections that weren’t coming together easily. “But the medical board and I came to an agreement today.”
“Tell me you didn’t give up. Tell me you didn’t surrender your license. We can fight this! Other doctors haven’t been prompt in reporting, and the DPH said you saved Bethie.”
“Whoa. Neil. They let me keep my license. I agreed to a pretty harsh consent order that will stay with my record, and I’m going to be teaching a continuing ed course for the DPH on the importance of prompt reporting. Kind of like community service for doctors. But I have my license.”
Relief pulsed through Neil, and it was like a huge weight had lifted off his chest. “So they did read everything I sent. I talked to them today, though, and they said the investigation was still ongoing, that the board hadn’t met—”
“It’s not official yet. But I signed the paperwork, so it will be. Next month.”
“Then...why are you leaving Brevis?”
Now Charli did look befuddled. “Because. I don’t have a job.”
“But you do. Here. You have your dad’s office.”
“I need a hospital that will extend me privileges, Neil. And I don’t think Lige will be doing that for me any time soon.”
“Didn’t you get my voice mails?” For the first time, hope coursed through him. If she didn’t know about Lige...
Charli gave a laugh that came out bitter and harsh. “Let’s just say I wasn’t responding to any reporters’ calls.”
“But I’m not just any reporter.”
She winced. “No, Neil, you’re not. You’re anything but. I let you down. I let Brevis down. Maybe it’s better that I leave. Because honestly...”
“Honestly what?” Would she say that he’d killed off any chance at a future with her? If she stayed in Brevis, he had that chance―at least, he hoped so.
But Charli didn’t explain her cryptic comment. She started to turn away from him, but he stopped her with a touch of his hand to her shoulder.
“You don’t have to leave,” he told her.
Charli sighed. “It’s okay. Like my mom said, I have to face the consequences of my decisions. I made some really crappy ones, Neil. And I know I let you down. I know I’m not the person you thought I was—the person I should have been.”
“Neither was I. I jumped the gun big-time. I let my anger get the best of me, and I broke a lot of the personal rules I’d made when it came to reporting.”
She bit her lip. “Folks here definitely won’t want me after they find out about my dad. Plus, I don’t have a prayer as long as Lige is here.”
“About Lige... I left you a voice mail or three about him. The other members of the hospital authority revolted, and when the migrant workers turned up and started talking, the board forced Lige to resign. Once I reported that the DPH cleared you, the new chairman lifted your suspension.”
“Wow. Lige is gone?”
“Well, not gone, and he still has the bank, but he’s a bit too busy now with immigration violations and keeping his onion farm going to be bothered with you.”
“You mean I don’t have to find another job?” Joy lit her face. “I don’t have to leave?”
He pulled her into his arms, and gazed down at her. Life without her, just for the past few days, had been flat and empty, and not even Christmas lights could brighten it up.
“God, I hope not. I hope you’ll stay in Brevis for the next hundred years. Right here with me. I hope I don’t ever make you want to leave again.”
She leaned her cheek against his shoulder and hugged him back, hard. “No, you make me want to stay,” Charli said firmly.
As if on cue, his timer clicked, and a version of “Winter Wonderland” blasted out of his speakers. Charli shook her head and asked over the music, “Guess the Christmas decorations are part of the package?” But she didn’t seem to mind. Instead, she laughed and reached up and kissed him.
* * * * *
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ISBN-13: 9781460322079
SECRET SANTA
Copyright © 2013 by Cynthia R. Reese
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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