“Nica?”Alarm jolted through his fatigue.“What’s wrong?”
She held up a manila envelope he hadn’t noticed her holding.“Someone mailed this to me at the ranch.It was delivered to the Big House today.”Her voice was too steady, the kind of calm that came just before a storm.“No name.No return address.”
Gabe set his bag down slowly, then closed the door behind him.Fear crawled up his spine.“What is it?”
“Documentation of a malpractice case in California.”She picked up one of the papers from the coffee table and held it out to him.“Melissa Carpenter.Mother of two.She died on your operating table four years ago.”
The name hit him like a physical blow.His stomach lurched and the hunger pangs from moments ago disappeared.His ears filled with a high, thin whine.For a moment, he was back in that OR, alarms blaring, blood pressure plummeting, his movements growing uncoordinated as the ketamine took effect, the mounting horror as he realized something was terribly wrong with both his patient and himself.
“Sit down, Gabe.”Nica’s voice came from far away, and he felt her hand start guiding him toward the sofa.“You look like you’re about to pass out.”
He sank onto the edge of the couch, his knees suddenly unreliable.His mouth was dry.“Where did these come from?”
“I told you, I don’t know.”Nica remained standing, arms crossed over her chest.“But that’s not the point, is it?The point is that I had to find out about this from a stranger instead of from my husband.”
My husband.
The words normally filled him with a quiet joy, but now they carried an accusation.He’d kept this from her, by omission if not by outright lie.
“I was cleared,” he managed to say.“The medical board—”
“I know.That’s in here too.”She gestured to the papers.“Along with allegations that someone tampered with your toxicology samples, that another doctor had a grudge against you, that there was some kind of cover-up.”Her voice broke slightly.“Two years of knowing each other, three months of marriage, and you never thought to mention that you were accused of killing a patient while under the influence of drugs?”
Gabe closed his eyes briefly.The headache that had been threatening all day bloomed behind his eyes.“It wasn’t like that.”
“Then what was it like?”Nica’s voice rose slightly.“Because I’m trying very hard to understand why my husband—a man I trusted enough to marry without telling my family—would keep something this significant from me.”
“I was trying to protect you.”Even to his own ears, the words sounded weak.
“From what?The truth?”
“From them.”Gabe stood, feeling steadier now the shock had worn off, and paced to the window overlooking the small park across the street.The sun was setting, casting long shadows across the grass.“Whoever sent these to you.This is exactly what I was afraid of, that my past would eventually follow me here, that it would touch you.”
“Who’s ‘them,’ Gabe?”Nica moved closer but still kept a distance between them.“What aren’t you telling me?”
He turned to look at her, at the woman who had brought light back into his life when he’d thought it was gone forever.The woman who understood him in a way he’d never thought possible.Despite all the obstacles in their path, the differences in their ages, the fact he was her father’s physician, he’d known the day would come when he’d have to answer for the decision not to tell her about the darkness that haunted him.Would the Boudreaus be able to accept him if they knew the full story—not just the accusations, but the truth behind them?He’d skimmed over the details that morning when he’d talked to Douglas, but the real truth—the truth nobody knew, was ugly and shameful, and he didn’t want it to come out.Couldn’t bear the thought he might lose the only good thing left in his life.
“I’m still getting the calls,” he said finally.“The ones I told you about.I downplayed them, because I didn’t want you to worry.I’ve been getting them at the hospital.At the clinic.Someone who doesn’t identify themselves.It’s a doctored voice, one of those mechanical-sounding machines, so it’s distorted.Someone who says they know what I did.Claims I deliberately killed Melissa.It’s not true, but…” His voice trailed off, unable to finish.
Nica’s eyes widened.“And you didn’t think to tell me this either?”
“I thought I could handle it.I thought it would stop, that they’d simply go away.”He ran a hand through his hair.“Stupid, right?The calls started getting more frequent a couple of weeks ago.Remember, I told you I’d gotten a couple of strange calls, that I thought it was a disgruntled patient from back in my Stanford days?”
“You did mention a couple of calls but those were several weeks ago.This sounds like more than a couple of random calls, Gabe.”She breathed out a deep sigh, sitting forward on the edge of her seat.“So, while I’ve been grading papers and substitute teaching eighth-grade science and sneaking around to see my own husband, you’ve been receiving threatening phone calls and just…what?Hoping for the best?”
“I wouldn’t call them threatening, exactly.Just…accusatory.”He took a step toward her but stopped when she tensed.“Nica, please.Let me explain what happened in California.It’s nothing like these papers make it appear.And I did tell you some of this, I just—didn’t tell you everything, because I—I thought it was all behind me.I didn’t want the things that happened in my past to color my future with you.”
She sank onto the couch, suddenly looking as exhausted as he felt.“I’m listening.”
Gabe sat across from her, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees.How could he explain the darkest day of his professional life?The day that had sent him fleeing across the country to this small town where no one knew his name?
“Dr.Marcus Richardson was my mentor in residency,” he began slowly.“Brilliant surgeon.Cold as ice in the OR.Admired by the administrative and teaching staff.I worshipped him, wanted to be just like him.Eventually I was approached to join the same practice he worked for, and became a full partner, that’s when things started to change.I noticed discrepancies in his patient records.Unnecessary procedures being performed.Shortcuts that endangered patients.”
Nica watched him, her face unreadable.“And Melissa Carpenter?”
The name still had the power to make him flinch.“Richardson was her physician, scheduled to perform her surgery.It was a routine procedure, gallbladder removal.But he called in sick at the last minute, and even though it wasn’t part of my specialty, which is—was—cardiothoracic surgery, I was fully qualified to perform a simple laparoscopic gallbladder procedure.He asked me personally to handle her case.Everything was going fine until suddenly it wasn’t.My coordination went off.My vision blurred.I knew something was wrong.Everything about the whole room seemed skewed, like I was looking at things in a funhouse mirror.The monitors started alarming because the patient’s blood pressure crashed.I couldn’t understand what was happening—to her or to me.I started getting shaky on my feet, but I kept going.Couldn’t admit something was wrong, because I’d never walked away from a surgery, especially after it started.My vision got blurry, all fuzzy around the edges.Because I couldn’t see, I nicked a major artery.Before I managed to get it under control, she went into cardiac arrest and couldn’t be resuscitated.She basically bled out before the hemorrhaging could be stopped.And it was all my fault.”
He forced himself to meet Nica’s eyes.“I was reported to the Chief of Surgery by both the anesthesiologist on the case as well as the Director of Nursing.Humiliated at being called out.I’d never had any kind of incident throughout medical school or after going into private practice.I was put on administrative leave while an investigation was carried out.They tested me immediately after the case for drugs and alcohol.They found a high dose of ketamine in my system.Someone drugged me—put it in my coffee before the surgery.Which was a huge mistake, a red flag, because everyone on staff knew I never took drugs of any kind, not even aspirin.Wouldn’t tolerate it in my operating room.It was well known that if you did any kind of drugs, stay out of my OR.”He scrubbed a hand over his face before continuing.“It was discovered that Richardson had been using another surgeon as a scapegoat for his mistakes for years, until she finally moved across the country to get away from him.She hadn’t been able to get enough evidence to report him, so she left.This was his attempt to do the same to me.”
