Читать книгу Undercover M.D. - Marie Ferrarella, Marie Ferrarella - Страница 10

Terrance frowned slightly as he set down his tray on the table and slid into the corner booth in the hospital cafeteria. The vantage point allowed him a full view of the area just beyond the entrance.

Things were going slower than he wanted. He’d been at Blair Memorial for almost a week and had learned nothing.

No, that wasn’t strictly true, he amended silently. He might not have gotten anywhere in his investigation, but he had learned that his first career choice did hold an attraction for him, even after a self-imposed absence of six years.

He’d learned, too, that the woman who had been so important to him while he was studying to be a doctor most definitely still held an attraction for him. Time had done nothing to diminish that. But then, he hadn’t left her because he’d lost interest in her the way he had with medicine. Alix hadn’t been the reason he’d gone numb inside, becoming all but clinically dead yet still somehow going through the motions. Medicine had done that. Or rather, medicine’s failure had done that to him.

The inability of medicine to save his father’s life after Jake McCall had been shot during a DEA stakeout had shaken the very foundations of Terrance’s world, had made him question everything that he felt he was about.

The moment his father had taken his last breath, medicine had ceased to hold any allure for Terrance. He found he had to get away, to think, to somehow try to reinvent himself. That meant leaving his old life behind.

That meant leaving Alix behind, as well, because she deserved someone who was whole—not him. She deserved someone who could love her, and he no longer knew if he was capable of the kind of love she needed.

So he’d left Bedford and Alix and refused to look back. Left her without saying a word. It was the coward’s way out, the only time he’d taken it, but it was the only way he could have walked away.

Now he wasn’t so sure that he had done the right thing.

Too late for second thoughts now, McCall. She’s married to someone else.

That meant that he’d lost the right to let that bother him, certainly lost the right to try to reaffirm his position in her life. Even if he were so inclined, which he wasn’t.

He was what time and circumstances had forced him to become. A loner. In his chosen profession, that was viewed as an asset. No wife to worry about, no family to slip into his thoughts at the wrong moments, taking his edge off, blurring his focus. The best agents were the ones who were married to the job, not to a flesh-and-blood person.

He knew all that, and yet…

And yet nothing, Terrance thought. He was here to try to get close to William Harris, the grandson of the founder of this hospital, not to conjure up regrets and fantasize over what might have been.

He was familiar with the hospital, the first in Bedford. Known then as Harris Memorial, the eight-story, multiwinged edifice had only recently been renamed Blair Memorial in honor of the woman who had bequeathed her entire fortune to the hospital upon her death.

Terrance smiled to himself. For a fifty-million-dollar bequest, he would have allowed himself to be renamed Shoe.

“Mind if I join you?”

Terrance roused himself from his thoughts.

You’re not doing your job, he admonished himself silently. Looking up, he saw the chief of staff standing beside his table, holding a tray in his hands. It contained a single plate of deep-dish apple pie.

Terrance indicated the empty seat opposite him. “Please.” He tried not to notice that easing his considerable bulk onto the booth bench took a bit of maneuvering for Beauchamp.

The older man slid his plate from his tray onto the table and smiled a little self-consciously. He rested the tray against the side of his seat, out of the way.

Beauchamp picked up a fork with enthusiasm. “Yes, just dessert. I really set a poor example, I’m afraid.” He sank the fork into his serving. A look of anticipation entered his eyes. “I know I should be eating better. ‘Physician, heal thyself,’ and all that, but quite honestly, come midafternoon all I want to do is eat something sweet.” The first mouthful had him sighing with pure contentment and pleasure.

Terrance grinned at the unabashed display. “I wasn’t looking at your choice, Dr. Beauchamp. I was just surprised to see you here. I didn’t think you frequented the cafeteria.”

“Oh there’s a small dining hall across the way reserved for doctors only, but I find I like getting down in the trenches with everyone else. We all put our pants on the same way,” he said lightly. Another forkful disappeared into his mouth before he asked, “So tell me, how is it going? Fitting in?”

The pie was disappearing at an impressive rate, yet the man seemed to be slowly savoring every bite. Terrance marveled, watching him. “I’d like to think so.”

“I’ve been hearing good things about you from the staff,” Beauchamp informed him. “You seem to have gotten on Wanda’s good side.” He nodded his whole-hearted approval. “Always a good thing. She can be a formidable adversary if she doesn’t like you.”

Though no pushover, the head nurse had been nothing but amiable to him. She made him think of a mother hen. “I can’t see Wanda actually giving anyone any grief. She seems fair enough.”

“Oh, she is, she is,” Beauchamp agreed enthusiastically, then confided in a lower voice, “But she doesn’t like people who think they know it all.” The older man shook his head. “She and young Harris have never gotten along, I’m sorry to say. But then, he does seem to have a problem.”

Beauchamp suddenly looked startled, as if he’d just heard his own pronouncement. “Don’t get me wrong,” he said quickly, launching into damage-control mode. “William Harris is a good doctor and all that, it’s just that—” It wasn’t in him to lie. “Well, he could stand to have his ego taken down a notch or two. But that’s what comes of having everything handed to you, I suppose. A little hard work is good for everyone.”

Terrance estimated that he probably knew far more about William Harris than the man sitting opposite him. There was a two-inch-thick file on the man on his desk back at the agency. But it was one thing to have information before you and another entirely to listen to it being rendered firsthand. Sometimes, that kind of insight was just the thing to break an investigation wide open.

He looked at Beauchamp innocently. “If you feel that way, why keep him on?”

“Oh, it wouldn’t do to release the grandson of the founder of the hospital. The money might be coming from other sources these days, but the waves something like that might generate—” Beauchamp shook his head, finishing his statement silently as he retreated into another bite of his pie. “Well, it just wouldn’t do, that’s all.” He peered at Terrance, wanting to change the subject. “Getting along well with Dr. DuCane?”

Terrance wondered if he was actually being grilled a little. The man had an innocent face, but Terrance was willing to bet Beauchamp wasn’t as guileless as he seemed. “Yes.”

“She’s a wonderful woman. And dedicated.” Beauchamp nodded as he recalled past events. “Refused to take any time off after that terrible accident. She was in the very next week, acting as if nothing had happened. She’s a strong, strong woman.”

Terrance looked at him. He’d deliberately refrained from looking into Alix’s past, feeling as if he were taking advantage of his position and invading her privacy. But now that Beauchamp had drawn back this curtain to reveal her life, he had to know. “What terrible accident?”

“Why, the one that took her husband, Jeff,” Beauchamp said, then seemed to realize Terrance’s confusion. “Jeffrey Caldwell. He was on staff here, too. Just like Dr. DuCane not to mention anything. For a bright, sunny woman, she doesn’t talk about her own life very much. Me,” he confided, “I tend toward ear bending, but Dr. DuCane is more concerned with listening than talking—other than to bolster spirits, of course. They don’t make them like her anymore,” he said wistfully.

No, Terrance thought, they didn’t. But then, he already knew that. He pressed for more information. “How long has her husband been dead?”

“Jeff? Let me see.” Beauchamp paused as he made a few mental calculations. “It’s been almost two years—no, wait,” he corrected himself, “a little more than that. Yes, two years ago in April.” His head bobbed up and down in confirmation. “It was a boating accident. One of those freak things you don’t believe is happening until it’s over.”

“Was she there?” Terrance couldn’t think of anything worse than Alix witnessing her husband’s death.

“No, she was home with her little girl,” Beauchamp recalled. “Julie had a cold.” Intent on the last of his pie, he didn’t see the look that suddenly came into Terrance’s eyes.

Julie. She’d named her daughter Julie. Was it a coincidence or had she deliberately named the child after his late mother? The two women had gotten close when he’d been seeing Alix. He’d always had the suspicion that it was because Alix was hungry for a mother’s affection. Her own mother had died when she was very young.

“I didn’t know she had a little girl,” he said quietly to the other man.

“Now that I’m surprised about. Dr. DuCane does like to show off pictures of her daughter.” Beauchamp pushed the empty plate away and looked at Terrance, studying the younger man. “Are you two getting along?”

“Yes,” Terrance assured him. “We’re getting along.” As well as could be expected, he thought. “I have no complaints.”

Beauchamp seemed pleased. “Good, good. Let me know if there’s anything I can help you out with.”

You already have, Terrance thought. But now it was time to get down to the crux of why he was here in the first place. “I was just wondering, have I seen this Dr. Harris you mentioned?”

Beauchamp shook his head. “Ordinarily, Dr. Harris would be on now, but he’s taken a few days off. Something about needing to catch a breather.” Terrance thought he detected a note of disapproval in the jovial man’s voice. “Does most of his breathing in Las Vegas, I hear. At the blackjack tables.” Beauchamp banished the slight purse of his lips. “Never liked to gamble myself. I go with sure things. Like this hospital,” Beauchamp said with no small pride. He seemed to make it his business to know the comings and goings of all the doctors on staff. “To answer your question, though, Harris should be back tomorrow.” He cocked his head, curious. “Why?”

Terrance shrugged carelessly. “Just wondering what the man who ruffles Wanda’s feathers looked like.”

“Oh, he ruffles more feathers than just Wanda’s, but like I said, good will is worth a great deal and everyone likes the man’s father.” The senior Harris had preceded Beauchamp as chief of staff and was now chairman of Blair’s board of trustees. “Arthur Harris is one of the most respected doctors in the West.”

Terrance merely nodded, as if all this was news to him. He couldn’t help wondering what the man sitting opposite him would say if he knew Terrance’s real purpose for being here.

Terrance glanced at his watch. “I’d better get going.” He rose, picking up his tray. “I don’t want to get on Dr. DuCane’s bad side.”

Beauchamp laughed. “Good thinking.”

Terrance’s afternoon was taken up by a man who came in complaining of chest pains which turned out to be a case of indigestion. He’d also had two cases of otitis media, the latter coming via a set of twins. It wasn’t until almost three o’clock before Terrance had a chance to catch up with Alix.

“Why did you tell me you were married?”

Alix made a notation on the chart of a girl who’d come in with an ectopic pregnancy. They’d had to rush her into surgery.

She didn’t bother looking up. “Because I am,” she replied mildly.

He knew he should drop it, that he was only getting in deeper, but the fact that she’d lied to him, or at least misled him, bothered him. It just wasn’t like her. “Doesn’t being married require that there be two living people in the union?”

She closed the chart and glared at him. “Who told you?”

He leaned against the side of the desk. “Dr. Beauchamp likes to socialize over apple pie.”