Critical Condition Read online

He stroked the place once occupied by his wedding band. He was attracted to Tara, sure. But he could never feel for another woman what he’d shared with Carole. They’d had a once-in-a-lifetime kind of love. He kneaded the bunched muscles in the back of his neck, and looked around the room.

  Two couples remained in the waiting area. An elderly couple sat near the desk, bathed in the orange glow of the late-afternoon sun shining through the glass ceiling. The woman was on oxygen, yet she serenely knitted away at a tiny sweater. A middle-aged couple, the man shivering and pale, sat huddled in the corner, draped in shadows.

  A nurse entered the waiting area from the hall beyond. “Peter Campbell, this way, please.”

  Zach’s interest was piqued. Peter Campbell was one of the names on the list he’d found in Whittaker’s office. The hunched man followed the nurse down the hall to an examining room. Whittaker slipped into a small room next to the reception area as the previous patient exited.

  “Is that another office?” Zach asked the clerk.

  “Yes, after seeing each patient, the doctor goes there to dictate his report.”

  A few minutes later, Whittaker headed to the room where Peter Campbell waited.

  “I’ll just check out that system while Whittaker’s in with the patient,” Zach said, then slipped into the office. If he had the printer half-apart when Whittaker came back, the doc might ignore his presence as readily as he would a janitor or a copier repairman.

  The clerk tapped on the door and opened it without waiting for a response. “Dr. Whittaker wants to see a CT-scan report, but I don’t know how to upload it to the patient’s medical record with this new software. Can you help?”

  “No problem.” Zach followed her back to the reception desk and clicked the tab that brought up the list of the day’s reports. Three were from radiology. Zach showed the clerk how to open the first report and check the name and ID number.

  “That’s not it. I’m looking for Mr. Campbell’s.” She opened the second report. “This is the one.”

  Zach skimmed the incomprehensible shorthand, which only confirmed his supposition that even if he peeked at the patient’s medical records, he’d have a hard time making sense of them. Before he could glean any useful information from the report, the clerk pressed him for help appending it to Campbell’s records. Unfortunately, that process didn’t afford him a glimpse of the record, either. Zach scanned the remaining list of reports and debated whether to hover over the clerk long enough to see if any of them were for other patients on Whittaker’s list.

  The nurse retrieved the last patient from the waiting room, and Zach decided he didn’t have time. “If you’ve got the hang of this,” he said to the clerk, “I’ll finish with the other office.”

  When Dr. Whittaker opened the door a few minutes later, Zach busied himself shaking and reinserting the toner and then fiddling with the paper trays. “Sorry, sir, I won’t be long.”

  “Take your time.” Whittaker sat at the computer desk and inserted his card into the hub. Campbell’s CT-scan report appeared on the screen. “This is unbelievable.”

  Zach held his breath, waiting, hoping Whittaker would explain.

  “The tumor shrank three centimeters in four weeks,” Whittaker muttered to himself. “Without treatment. Could this be some sort of delayed effect?”

  Campbell was getting better? Interesting.

  “Reynolds, is there a way for me to add notes to this report?”

  Zach put down his cleaning brush. “Certainly, sir.” He took over the mouse and demonstrated how to open a text box to add comments. “When you’re done, you click here to save and close.”

  As Zach returned his attention to the printer, Whittaker typed in his comments. Then, without so much as a glance at Zach, he clicked on the Dictaphone and rattled off his report on the patient’s visit. “After seeing no reduction in tumor growth, Peter Campbell withdrew from the AP-2000 trials eight weeks ago, yet his condition has now improved.”

  Zach’s hands stilled at the mention of drug trials. Was this the connection among the patients on Whittaker’s list?

  “If this trend continues,” Whittaker rambled on, “Campbell’s prognosis looks promising. He continues to take oxycodone for pain. Follow up in a month.” Whittaker clicked off the microphone, pulled his card from the computer hub and exited the room.

  Oxycodone. Tara had mentioned Whittaker’s unusual interest in the pain med. And what was AP-2000?

  Zach quickly reassembled the printer and hurried back to Tara’s ward. He ran into Jeff at the elevator. “Hey, how’s Melanie doing?”

  “Good. The doctor might release her tomorrow.” Jeff’s positive spin sounded forced.

  “After the fever she had today?”

  “You heard about that?”

  Zach smirked. “From the way Nurse Bradshaw griped about Melanie’s refusal to take anything for it, I’m sure everyone on the floor heard about it.”

  Jeff groaned.

  “Why didn’t she want to take anything?”

  “I don’t know.” Jeff toed the baseboard. “She’s been poked and prodded for so long, she’s been itching for a fight.”

  That was better than giving up as Tara had supposed. For Jeff’s sake, Zach hoped she was wrong. But the shuttered look in the other man’s eyes suggested that perhaps he feared the same.

  By the time Zach reached the nurse’s station, Tara had clocked out. Through the window at the stairwell, he caught sight of Barb, his fellow IT consultant, and Dr. Whittaker walking arm in arm to Whittaker’s red Maserati. Terrific. The one woman expert enough to see through his cover was dating his prime suspect.

  Zach hurried out to the parking lot and found McCrae looking under Tara’s hood while she tried to start the car.

  McCrae wiped his hand on a rag and went around to her window. “Sorry. Not sure what else to try. Why don’t I give you a lift home and you can have your mechanic tow this to the garage?”

  The offer sounded sincere, but Zach didn’t like it. He jogged over to them and offered to take a look.

  McCrae stepped aside.

  Zach immediately spotted a loose spark plug and tightened the connection. “Try it again. No, wait.” He scanned the engine, then shimmied underneath to check for evidence of tampering or explosives. Everything looked good, but to be on the safe side, he asked her to step out of the car and turned the key himself.

  The engine roared to life.

  “Thank you,” she beamed, and then, thanking McCrae, declined his offer of a ride.

  McCrae didn’t seem overly disappointed.

  But that didn’t allay Zach’s suspicions. He certainly wasn’t about to let Tara head home alone to an empty house, knowing her spare key was missing.

  Trouble was, before he’d reached his truck, Tara had pulled out of the parking lot. He waited a moment to see what McCrae would do. After the doc headed back inside the hospital, Zach zipped out after Tara.

  Two blocks later, he got caught behind a truck with a wide load. He cut down a side street only to hit cul-de-sac after cul-de-sac. Finally he found a street that took him back to the main road, smack behind the truck again.

  He whipped out his phone and punched in Tara’s number.

  The phone in his pocket rang, and he cursed himself for forgetting to return it to her. He tried the house number, but the machine picked up on the first ring—which meant she was making a call. He instantly hung up in case she was trying to reach him. Spotting a hardware store, and still gridlocked behind the truck, he swerved into the parking lot to buy new dead bolts.

  He was in and out in record time, but his cell phone beeped a missed message alert as he exited the store.

  His heart in his throat, he snatched up the phone, then let out a breath at the sight of Rick’s number. Zach returned the call.
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br />   His buddy picked up on the first ring.

  “I’ve got a couple more comparisons for you,” Zach said, referring to the fingerprints he’d collected. “I’ll drop them by later.”

  “Use the alternate.”

  Alternate? The alternate was code for their backup rendezvous site. “What’s wrong?”

  “The pound called. The cat got out.”

  He’d been made? And Rick’s talking in code indicated that communications might’ve been infiltrated. Chances were their analytics software showed increased traffic to the phony websites associated with his alias, which meant someone had checked him out.

  “Okay, thanks for letting me know.” If it was an analytics flag, the site traffic could be innocent. Tara might’ve done a search on him, or perhaps any of a number of women in the hospital who’d batted their eyes at him. But he had to assume he’d made someone nervous, or suspicious, which could mean he was close.

  He pictured how cozy Whittaker and Barbara had looked. At least anyone snooping into his background would conveniently find that he used to own a computer shop. Sort of. It had been his cover for an operation that had cracked a major theft ring specializing in computers. And since his role in the operation never came to light, they’d left the cover in play.

  But if someone had seen through it and figured out what he really was...

  Tara was at greater risk than he’d feared.

  EIGHT

  “Forget it,” Tara repeated into the phone, ready to hang up on her ex.

  “Come on, Tara. You know Suzie’s never going to wear that ugly broach, and you’re too sentimental to sell it. So it’s just going to sit in your jewelry box not doing anyone any good.”

  “Your mother willed that broach to Suzie. She deserves to know how special she was to her grandmother.”

  “So tell her. I’m desperate here. If I miss another payment, I’ll lose my car.”

  She felt her patience dwindling. “I’m sorry about that, Earl. I truly am. But I won’t let you hock Suzie’s and my home out from under us so you can drive an overpriced sports car. You made your choice a long time ago.”

  “But—”

  “Earl, I mean it. Don’t call again.” Tara clicked off the phone before he could utter another word. She sank onto the bed, her insides jittering. At least she didn’t have to worry anymore that his sudden attempts to contact her were a ploy to gain custody of Suzie. He cared so little for his daughter that, not only hadn’t he asked after her, he had no qualms about confiscating his mother’s gift to her only granddaughter.

  The doorbell chimed.

  Interrupted by Earl’s call in the middle of changing her clothes, Tara quickly pulled on a pair of jeans and T-shirt.

  The doorbell chimed again.

  “I’m coming,” she called, stuffing the bottom of her shirt into her waistband. As she hurried through the living room, she picked up a few of the toys Suzie had left lying about.

  Pounding rattled the windows. “Tara, are you okay?”

  She yanked open the door. “Sorry I took so long.” Tara drank in the sight of Zach on her front porch, his cheeks reddened by the cold and his jaw shadowed with early evening stubble. He hoisted a box of tools and locks from the stoop and stepped inside. His broad shoulders filled the doorway, and the mix of leather and crisp air that swirled in behind him made her breath catch.

  Sure, he was handsome. But she shouldn’t have noticed the intense way his honey-brown eyes searched hers.

  “Are you okay?”

  She finger-combed her mussed hair. “Absolutely,” she lied, telling herself that Zach didn’t need to know about Earl’s call. Her ex was the last person she wanted to talk about. Zach was already changing the locks because of him. No reason to add more fuel to that fire and spoil the conversation.

  Zach gave her a lopsided smile, and goose bumps that had nothing to do with the chill in the air rose on her arms. “Glad to hear it.” He closed the door and scrutinized the dead bolt. “This shouldn’t take me long to replace.”

  “Can I get you a soda or coffee or something first?”

  “Maybe after I’m done.”

  He took her welfare so seriously, the complete opposite of her ex. Zach’s concern went above and beyond his job description, too. She’d never heard of the police changing an attempted break-in victim’s locks. Maybe Kim was wrong about him this time.... Maybe he was interested in her.

  “Oh, and before I forget...” Zach held out her cell phone. “No luck tracing the call, I’m afraid.”

  She pressed her palms to her sides. “Maybe you should keep that in case he leaves another message.”

  Zach’s gaze brimmed with compassion. “I don’t like the thought of you being without a phone in an emergency.” He set it on the table. “Just leave it turned off unless you need to make a call.”

  She shivered at the thought of turning it on to a long list of missed messages like the weird one she’d gotten at lunchtime. She fisted her hands, angry that some maniac had forced this chaos into her life. She was tired of looking over her shoulder. There had to be more they could do to catch this guy.

  Tara proposed Dr. McCrae’s theft theory to Zach. “If the guy in Mrs. Parker’s room had been trying to steal her medication and Mr. Parker surprised him, the thief might have pushed him in a panic to escape. It explains Mr. Parker’s head injury.”

  “Doesn’t explain his wife’s death. Or Ellen’s. She wasn’t at the hospital when she started seizing.”

  Tara blew out an exasperated breath. “Maybe I’m wrong about the patient deaths. Maybe the guy targeted me because I caught him in the room and he’s afraid he’ll be charged for Mr. Parker’s death.”

  “Mr. Parker told you the person killed his wife. That’s why I’m on this case.”

  “Maybe Mrs. Parker saw the guy take her medication and he killed her to keep her quiet.”

  “She had no sign of trauma on her body.”

  Tara pressed her palm to her pounding head. “It’s a hospital. He could’ve injected her with one of a half dozen different drugs that would kill her and go undetected. Anything from potassium to insulin.”

  “But if he had access to those kind of drugs, why would he steal from patients’ rooms?”

  Possible scenarios had been swirling through her mind at such a dizzying rate she couldn’t think straight anymore. She ran her fingers through her hair. “I don’t know. It was just a theory.”

  “I’m not knocking it. Honest. This is how investigations play out. We entertain different theories and work them through to see if they match what we know.”

  “What I know is that a bottle of oxycodone went missing this afternoon. Lots of cancer patients are on similar pain pills. Pain pills that score a lot of money on the street. The theory may not explain the fevers, but it’s more than you’ve come up with.” She cupped her hand over her mouth, then lowered it sheepishly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”

  “No apology necessary.” His gentle voice soothed her ragged nerves. “Investigations are rarely as straightforward as we’d like.” He looked as though he might say more, but then hefted his toolbox and headed for the back door. “Okay. If someone’s skimming drugs, he’s probably selling them on the street. It’s a good angle. I’ll ask Rick to press his street informants for information.”

  She trailed after him. “No, that doesn’t make sense. A doctor could simply sell a prescription to a dealer and claim his pad was stolen. He wouldn’t risk getting caught pilfering a pill here and there.”

  “Whoever shoved you isn’t necessarily a doctor. He could’ve worn a lab coat so patients wouldn’t question why he was in their room.”

  The doorbell chimed. She glanced out the front window. “That’s my sister bringing Suzie home.”

/>   The moment Tara opened the door, Suzie peered past Tara’s legs. “Where Dak?”

  Zach stepped around the corner of the kitchen, and Suzie bolted straight to him. “Dak back,” she squealed, lifting her hands.

  Zach scooped her into a bear hug and was rewarded with a bellyful of giggles.

  “Ahh,” Susan said, “you must be the doc Suzie’s been chattering about all day. She went nuts when she saw your truck in the driveway.”

  He set Suzie down and extended his hand to Tara’s sister. “Zach. Pleased to meet you.”

  “He’s a computer consultant, not a doctor,” Tara clarified.

  Suzie recaptured Zach’s attention, and Susan sent Tara a telling smile. “Ni-i-ice.”

  “Will you stay for coffee?” Tara spun toward the kitchen before her sister noticed the blush heating her cheeks. It had to be Earl’s total disregard for Suzie that made Zach’s adoration seem so absolute.

  To Tara’s relief, Susan tactfully declined the coffee offer.

  Suzie scurried to her room and came running back with her teddy, her blankie and a bedtime story. “Read dis one to me.” She stretched up her arm, bobbing the book in front of Zach, her eyes glowing with anticipation.

  Tara’s heart did a slow roll in her chest. He was so good for her daughter. But Suzie was getting too attached. Tara didn’t want Suzie’s tender heart broken when this case ended and Zach left. Soon enough, she’d face taunts from school kids over being abandoned by her father. She didn’t need a trail of father figures doing the same.

  * * *

  Zach glanced up from the Bible story he was reading to Suzie. Tara sat at the opposite end of the sofa, her gaze considerably cooler than it had been a few minutes ago. Was she mad at him for indulging Suzie’s request? Or was it the story that left her cold?

  The sense that she might not share his faith bothered him more than he wanted to admit.

  By the time he reached the end of the story, Suzie was sound asleep, snuggled against his chest, thumb in her mouth, blanket and teddy crunched under her arm. The picture of contentment. Oh, Lord, I could get used to this in a hurry.