Chapter 6 - Adrian Becomes the Suspect
Reed crossed the room and slapped his palm against the fire-door release.
Nothing.
“Who controls this floor?” I asked.
He ignored me.
“Malcolm.”
“Not now.”
The office phone rang.
He stared at it.
It rang again.
I picked it up.
A distorted voice said, “Doctor Shaw?”
“Who is this?”
“Check your bank records.”
The line died.
Reed’s eyes shifted toward me.
“What was that?”
“Someone who wants me looking guilty.”
His expression hardened.
“Maybe you are.”
There it was.
The mentor disappeared.
I shoved the receiver down.
The fire door unlocked with a loud click.
Ortiz stood on the other side with two uniformed officers.
“You both okay?”
Reed straightened his tie.
“Perfectly.”
Ortiz looked at me.
“Your bank.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“Anonymous call.”
“That’s bad.”
She showed me her phone.
Payments from Harrow Medical Consulting.
Fourteen thousand dollars over three years.
I recognized them immediately.
“Speaking honoraria.”
“Receipts?”
“Probably.”
“Dean Voss got paid by the same company.”
My stomach dropped.
Reed said nothing.
Ortiz scrolled.
“Melissa too.”
“That doesn’t make me part of it.”
“I know.”
“Will anyone else?”
She did not answer.
We returned to Trauma Bay 3.
Lucy was gone from the stretcher.
For half a second my vision narrowed.
Then Tessa opened the bathroom door.
Lucy stood behind her.
“Sorry,” Tessa said. “She had to pee.”
I breathed again.
The relief lasted twelve seconds.
Hospital legal counsel entered with two administrators and a child-services worker.
“Dr. Shaw,” counsel said, “effective immediately, you are suspended from clinical duties pending an internal security review.”
I laughed once.
“No.”
“That wasn’t a question.”
The child-services worker stepped forward.
“I have an emergency removal order for Lucy Vale.”
Lucy backed into Tessa.
Ortiz held out her hand.
“Let me see it.”
The worker hesitated.
“I need to move the child now.”
“Then you need to move faster and hand me the paper.”
She did.
Ortiz read the first page.
Then the second.
Her thumb stopped over the signature block.
“What?” I asked.
She turned the document toward me.
Hon. Martin G. Keene.
Circuit Judge.
Ortiz said, “Keene died last December.”
The child-services worker reached for Lucy anyway.
Tessa stepped between them.
“Don’t.”
The worker’s face changed.
The pleasant social-services expression dropped clean off.
She pulled something black from her coat pocket.
Ortiz shouted.
I moved before I saw what it was.
Lucy screamed without opening her mouth.
The black object hit the floor.
Not a gun.
A stun device.
The worker bolted for the hall.
Ortiz chased her.
I grabbed Lucy.
Tessa yelled, “Stairwell!”
We ran.
The alarm above the unit doors began flashing.
May you like
Then every magnetic lock on the pediatric side disengaged at once.
