Fine. I do operate a lot.
“This is all a game to you.” Mr. Dudley sneers at me. “I almost died from an infection in my gut because of you.”
“Mr. Dudley—”
“No, you listen to me, Dr. Davis.” He sticks his finger in my face. “The only reason that I came to this appointment today was to tell you that you’re going to be hearing from my lawyer. And I wanted you to know why.”
With those words, he hops off the table. He pushes past me and walks out of the examining room, his boots stomping against the ground.
Well, that wasn’t the best start to the day. But the reality is that most of my patients aren’t like Mr. Dudley. Most of them are very grateful to me—like Henry Callahan was before I refused to have dinner with him. And I doubt any sort of lawsuit Mr. Dudley files against me will be successful. In fact, I’m going to bet that’s the reason he showed up here in the first place. He knew he couldn’t really sue me, so the best he could do was scare me.
Nice try.
I start to head out front to see if any of my other patients have arrived, but before I can get there, I nearly bump into Harper in the hallway. Her cheeks are slightly flushed. “Dr. Davis,” she says. “I was about to come looking for you.”
“There’s another patient here?”
“No, but…” Harper’s eyes dart in the direction of the waiting area. “That police officer is here to see you again.”
Mr. Dudley’s threats didn’t scare me, but this does. I inhale sharply. “The same one from last time?”
She nods slowly. “Yes. The detective.”
Oh God. Does this have to do with Amber Swanson again? I know they haven’t found who killed her. They can’t possibly think it was me, could they? I barely knew the girlaside from removing her infected appendix.
Harper’s brow crinkles. “Is everything okay, Dr. Davis?”
“Absolutely,” I say it so firmly that I almost believe it. “It’s about that poor girl who was a patient here and was… killed. They’re just trying to figure out what happened to her, and of course, I’ll do whatever I can to help.”
I see the question all over Harper’s face.Why would you be able to help them find out who killed that girl?I can’t tell her the truth though. I can’t tell anyone.
I wait in my office as Harper tells Detective Barber to come in to see me. Even though I don’t usually use it when I see patients, I grab my white coat off the hook on the back of my door and throw it on. I figure anything that makes me look more professional is worth doing. Although unfortunately, my white coat has become wrinkled. Which is somewhat baffling considering it has just been hanging from the wall. Oh well.
The detective enters my office, looking like he’s been up half the night. There’s a bit of gray stubble on his chin and his shirt is wrinkled. He doesn’t look any friendlier than he did the first time he was here. In fact, any trace of a smile, phony or otherwise, has vanished from his face. His expression is deadly serious.
“Hello, Dr. Davis,” he says.
I swallow a lump in my throat. “Detective, I’m happy to answer any questions for you, but I wish you would talk to me at my house rather than showing up here with all my patients watching.”
The expression on Barber’s face doesn’t change. “I’msorry for that, but unfortunately, you’re a hard person to track down. And time is of the essence.”
I shake my head. “I don’t understand. Amber was killed a week ago, so what is the urgency?”
“This isn’t about Amber.”
My body turns cold. This isn’t about Amber? “Then what…”
“Dr. Davis,” Barber says. “Do you have a patient named Shelby Gillis?”
“I…” The name rings a bell. I’ve heard it before. “Maybe…”
He takes a photograph from the pocket of his dark jacket and slides it across my desk. I pick it up and look down at the smiling face staring back at me. It’s a headshot of a pretty girl with long dark hair and bright blue eyes.
Dark hair and blue eyes.
“Yes,” I say. “I believe I did a lumpectomy and open breast biopsy on her a couple of months ago.”
It’s all coming back to me now. Shelby Gillis was anxious because she found a lump in her right breast. I did a lumpectomy and they ran pathology on the tissue I took out. The lump was benign. I got to give her the news, and she was so happy. She grabbed my hand in both of hers and squeezed my fingers.I feel like I’ve gotten a second chance, Dr. Davis.
