An hour later, the mild optimism generated by Flora’s meeting with Eve was bursting like a bubble on a pin. Eve’s own appointment was to treat a minor, long-standing ailment. Then, at first sight, there was nothing about Lilith Bronson’s sweet, pleasant face to cause any disquiet. The acid reflux that had been bothering the patient after Eve was easily solved with a recommendation for an over-the-counter antacid. It was the last question that did it.
“Is there anything else I can do for you today?”
Flora always thought of that question as the “real reason.” Most times, her patients walked through the door with a minor ailment. Sore throat. Bad cough. Nasty rash. Can’t sleep. They went through the routine of dealing with those problems. Then she asked that question and—not always, but often—the “real reason” surfaced. Unexplained lump. No sex drive. Depression.
She could tell straight away that Lilith had a “real reason.”
“I don’t know where to start.” Lilith’s hands twisted together in her lap.
“Mrs. Bronson, there is nothing you could tell me that I won’t have heard before.” While she supposed it wasn’t strictly true, it was the message Flora liked to give, particularly to her older female patients.
It worked like a charm on Lilith, who sat up straighter in her chair, determination giving her features a previously unsuspected strength. “You think so?” Even though she had clearly been gearing up to this moment, her voice shook. “What if I tell you about a doctor who deliberately misdiagnosed me so he could make a profit from my treatment? Is that something you’ve heard before?”
Well, yes. Actually, it’s something I’ve heard very recently.
Taken by surprise, Flora remained silent for a moment. Although she kept her eyes on the computer monitor in front of her, she didn’t need to check the details of Lilith’s medical history. With a feeling of déjà vu and a sinking heart, she reviewed what she knew. Lilith was a widow in her mid-sixties. Before making the move to the Ryerson Center, she had been a patient at the Main Street Clinic. Where she’d been treated by Dr. Alan Grayson.
She drew a steadying breath. Lilith had come to her for help. Even though most of the facts were right there on the screen, she couldn’t betray to the woman sitting beside her desk that this story sounded horribly familiar.
“I’m going to make some notes about what you tell me,” she explained as she drew a pad and pen toward her. “But this will be unlike our other conversations. When you talk to me about your medical conditions, everything you say is confidential. If you reveal something now that leads me to believe a crime has been committed, I will not be able to keep that information to myself and I may have to inform the police.”
Lilith nodded. “Joy said that was what you’d told her.”
Flora had been in the process of writing the date, but she paused. “You’ve already talked about this before you came to me?”
Lilith’s eyes filled with tears. “Joy Valeski was my friend.” She hitched in a breath as the tears spilled over. “Yes, I spoke to her. We confided in each other. And now... I’m scared.”
I’m scared, too.
For a second, Flora’s thoughts veered in Leon’s direction. She was a professional and her job threw her into unexpected situations every day. Okay, so this was totally out of the ordinary, but that didn’t explain why she was experiencing a sharp rush of sensation, an urge to have him at her side. She’d been alone for so long, so why would she need someone else’s support now? And why would that someone else be Leon? She didn’t have time for an in-depth analysis of this inconvenient surge of emotion.
Determinedly pushing her own feelings below the surface, she plowed on. “How about you tell me the whole story and then we’ll discuss what we do next?”
“Okay.” Lilith clasped her hands tightly in her lap. “Ten years ago, I was suffering pain in my right wrist. I went to Dr. Grayson and he diagnosed rheumatoid arthritis. From that day on, I had every drug and therapy you can name. Seems like every time something new came on the market, I was the lucky person who got to try it.”
Flora could hear the slightly bitter note in the other woman’s voice as she said the word “lucky.”
“How did Dr. Grayson make his diagnosis?” she asked.
“Uh, he just looked at my wrist.”
Flora made some notes. “How did your wrist look at that time? Was there any swelling or redness?”
“Well, that was the thing,” Lilith said. “There was nothing to see. Just the pain. And it was particularly bad when I was working. Before I retired, I was a computer operator and some days it would be so bad, I could barely use the keyboard or operate the mouse.”
“And how does your wrist feel now?” Flora asked.
“Fine.” Lilith demonstrated by extending her arm and rotating her wrist. “No pain at all. Dr. Grayson told me that’s because the medication and treatments were working.”
Flora conducted a thorough examination of Lilith’s wrist. When she moved on to the other hand and began to also check the joints of her fingers, Lilith laughed. “It’s my right wrist that’s the problem, remember?”
Flora jotted down a few more notes. She didn’t have time to complete a diagnosis and she was reluctant to jump to conclusions. Even so, her instincts were telling her that, ten years ago, Alan Grayson had misdiagnosed a straightforward case of repetitive strain injury as rheumatoid arthritis, a chronic autoimmune disease. Even without Joy Valeski’s case, this was ringing alarm bells. Alan Grayson might be guilty of either negligence or fraud.
“Tell me about the conversation you had with Joy.”
“Joy and I have been friends for years. We were the founders of the Stillwater Dozen—” She broke off when Flora raised an inquiring brow. “It’s a baking club. You know the saying ‘a baker’s dozen’? The club meets every Thursday at the Clarence Delaney Hall. We each bring along something we’ve made. We have a tasting session and trade recipes. I don’t know how the conversation started, but Joy and I got talking about money. Specifically, we discussed how we never had any. One thing led to another, and we realized how much of our income we were giving to Dr. Grayson by seeing him, even with insurance.”
Flora sat back in her chair. Although she had her own reservations about Alan Grayson, she wasn’t ready to share them just yet. “It’s a big step from knowing you both spend a lot on medical care to suspecting a professional of malpractice.”
“It sure is and I don’t want you to think we reached that conclusion lightly.” Lilith clasped her hands beneath her chin and Flora noticed again the ease with which she moved that wrist joint. “But Dr. Grayson kept warning us against researching our disorders. He was really passionate about it. Joy had spent a long time believing she was suffering from Crohn’s disease. Then she met someone who had irritable bowel syndrome. The symptoms were similar, but, when she asked Dr. Grayson if there could have been a mistake in her diagnosis, his reaction shocked her. He was furious and refused to listen to what she was saying. But what made her suspicious was that she felt he was nervous.”
Flora knew the rest of the story. “Was that when Joy stopped taking her medication?”
“I did try to talk her out of it, but she could be very strong-willed once she made a decision,” Lilith said. “And, of course, she found it didn’t make any difference.”
“So, when this center opened, she decided to contact me.”
“Within days of doing that, she was dead.” Lilith choked back a sob. “I want to do the right thing...but I don’t want to be next.”
Flora focused on maintaining a professional manner to reassure the other woman. Even so, she was alarmed at what she was hearing.
When Joy had come to her—on the very day the Ryerson Center had opened—Flora had been concerned by what she had heard. But the leap from concern to accusing someone of malpractice was a big one. That was why she had arranged for Joy to see one of her colleagues. A second opinion would either validate or contradict her own findings. In a way, Flora had been hoping for an opposing view. Because confirmation of what she believed meant she had walked right into a huge scandal on day one of her new job.
She hadn’t gone to the police with Joy’s initial, unconfirmed fears about Alan Grayson. Besides, malpractice was generally dealt with through the civil courts. The problem had gotten bigger, of course, for different reasons, ones she could never have foreseen. Instead of a malpractice investigation, she had become embroiled in a murder inquiry.
Now, having taken down the details of Lilith’s story, she knew a different approach was needed this time. Leaning forward, she gripped Lilith’s hand. “We need to speak to Chief Delaney.”
Leon had been born in Stillwater. When he left at eighteen, he had taken a career path that had allowed him very few opportunities to return. College, followed by medical school, then entry into the army as a military doctor.
He and Karen had met when they were in college. They married while Leon was in medical school and she was working as a librarian. Since Karen had no family of her own, the wedding had been a low-key affair, just the two of them and a few friends. The summer after the wedding had been the first time Karen had visited Stillwater. Leon’s parents were still alive back then and the week they’d spent together stood out as a sweet, shining memory of his family and his hometown.
Now, his parents were both dead. His father had been carried off by a heart attack six weeks after that visit with Karen. Five months later, his mother had suffered a stroke. Leon had been racing to be at her side when he got the call informing him that a second stroke had killed her. Karen’s second and third visits to Wyoming had been to hold his hand at his parents’ funerals. In that time, Stillwater had started to feel like someone else’s hometown.
Then the unthinkable had happened. On a snowy New Year’s Eve four years ago, on his return from duty in Afghanistan, he had booked a surprise weekend break in the luxury mountain hotel where Karen had always wanted to stay. Leon blamed himself for the tragic chain of events that had followed. He had decided it was okay to drive in the snow. He had been the one who’d decided to take the steep mountain pass instead of the longer route through the valley. He had been the person at the wheel when the out-of-control truck had come toward them. If his reflexes had been faster...
No one had been to blame for what had happened on that icy patch of road. The other driver had not been drunk or reckless. It had just been an awful accident.
Karen, who’d been five months pregnant, had been killed instantly. Leon had escaped with minor injuries. Physically, at least. Unable to cope with the guilt and grief, he had commenced a downward spiral into depression that manifested itself in bouts of binge drinking. Given a medical discharge from the army for mental health reasons, he’d been able to keep his license to practice medicine because he had never been negligent in the performance of his professional duties.
With nowhere else to go, he had returned to the place he had once thought of as home. As he’d moved his few belongings into the house his grandparents had built and his parents had left him, Leon had thought about that word. Home. Like so many other things, it had become meaningless to him the day they’d placed Karen and their unborn child in that casket.
Family. Warmth. Companionship. Fun. Laughter... Love.
He’d lost them all, along with any concept of who he was. But that was okay because he hated who he was. The stammer that had plagued him as a child had returned, becoming so bad he had barely been able to make himself understood. The weight had dropped off him until he’d resembled a walking skeleton. His long hair and beard had turned him into the sort of person people side-eyed before crossing the street to avoid.
Leon hadn’t cared. He hadn’t seen Stillwater as the small Wyoming town where he’d been raised. Where everyone knew each other’s name and business. Back then, he’d only viewed it as the place he’d come to die.
Yeah, couldn’t even get that right, could I?
Now, he stood on his porch and tried to observe his house through another person’s eyes. How would Flora see this place when she arrived?
He took a moment to compare their situations. So alike in many ways and yet, at a certain point in time, they’d diverged. Flora had known the heartache of burying a partner. But the path she’d taken since was sunnier. It would be easy to say that was for her boys, and they clearly played their part in her choices. Leon gave a shrug. Possibly it just came down to personality.
The house itself was compact. A neat, two-floor, log-framed square with a wraparound porch. Leon’s mother had described it as “three bedrooms in the middle of nowhere.” He smiled at the memory of her standing in the big family kitchen, serving up wholesome food along with equally sensible advice.
But the surroundings made the building special. The Stillwater Trail and surrounding mountains rose protectively to the rear, but at the front and to the sides, as far as the eye could see, the land was Leon’s. A barn, two sheds, and the play area that his father had built for him when he was a child were located in a paddock to the right. To the left, also fenced off, was Bobcat Creek, the tumbling brook where Leon’s father used to take him fishing.
What would Flora think? He shielded his eyes against the early evening sunlight and watched a vehicle kicking up dirt as it approached along the drive. He was about to find out.
Since he’d spent most of the afternoon with his hand hovering over his cell phone as he rehearsed his reasons for calling off their dinner plans, the rush of pure joy he felt as Flora stepped out of the car almost bowled him over.
Perhaps he should have canceled, after all. She felt like a danger to the equilibrium he worked so hard to maintain. But it felt good. A high that was as natural as the one Flora’s smile gave him. Now, that had to be worth the risk. A little loosening of the rigid hold he kept on his emotions. Just this once.
When she stepped from the car, Flora turned a full circle, her eyes wide. As he watched her, Leon had no need of his earlier question. He could see her thoughts reflected on her face before she spoke, and his throat tightened. For a long time, he had taken this place for granted. For so long it had been just somewhere to eat and sleep. The land useful only because it gave him privacy, open spaces for Tiny to run off his excess energy, and wildlife spotting opportunities during the long, sleepless nights. Now, Leon really could see it through Flora’s eyes and it transformed once again into the unique, welcoming home of his childhood.
“It’s beautiful.” Her face shone with pleasure. “I would never tire of looking at those views.” She cast a nervous glance around. “Where’s Tiny?”
Before Leon could answer, a frustrated volley of howls rent the air. “In the dog run.” Leon jerked a thumb in that direction. “I thought it might be best if his first introduction to the twins took place with a fence between them. As you can hear, he’s not happy about the situation.”
“Oh, dear.” Flora bit back a smile. “I don’t want to blight your dog’s life.”
“Blight away.” He moved toward the rear of the car. “He’s in disgrace. Tiny has had a thing about one of the bushes that grows around the back of the house. After eating the leaves for months and making himself sick, he finally dug the whole thing up while I was at work and left it on the porch. Roots, soil, branches...but no leaves. Oh, no. He’d eaten every last one of them.”
When he’d arrived home to find the porch decorated with mangled horticulture and dog vomit, Leon hadn’t been amused. While he’d cleaned up, Tiny had watched him with a guilty expression and the occasional sorrowful belch. Now, Flora’s gurgle of laughter made him see the funny side of what had happened.
“Is he okay?”
He nodded. “Not only is he okay, he sneaked indoors and stole Bungee’s dinner while I was disposing of the mess. Which could have been the plan all along.”
As they opened the car doors, he was greeted with cries of delight. “Dr. Leon!”
“Hey, guys.” He studied the twin closest to him. “No, it’s no good. I can’t tell them apart.”
“Frankie has a freckle beside his right eye.” Since both twins were squirming to be released, it wasn’t exactly helpful. “Get ready to move fast.”
As they each freed a twin from the restraints of their car seats and set them on the ground, Leon realized what her instruction meant. With a speed that had to be seen to be believed, the two little boys took off across the grass in opposite directions. Leon managed to catch the child nearest to him with an effort and returned to where Flora was holding the other by his hand.
“Do they always do that?” he asked.
“Always. They think it’s funny. Almost as soon as they could walk, they worked out that I can’t catch them both—”
She was interrupted by the twin at her side. “Pony!” He pointed toward the paddock where Tiny was hurling himself against the fence. The yowls were becoming increasingly more frustrated.
“I think we should get the introductions out of the way before Tiny wins his battle with the fence,” Leon said.
Any concerns he had that the twins might be fearful of approaching Tiny scattered on the summer breeze as the two little figures darted toward the fenced-in area with cries of delight. As they approached the dog, they drew closer together and stepped up to the fence holding hands.
“Pony?” Stevie viewed Tiny doubtfully.
Frankie shook his head. “Big doggie.”
The “big doggie” thrust his nose through a gap in the wooden slats and the twins squealed in delight as he licked their fingers.
“Shall I let him out?” Leon asked.
When Flora nodded her agreement, he undid the latch on the gate and waited for Tiny to come bounding out. To his surprise, the oversized canine stepped carefully through the opening. Once he was on the other side, Tiny regarded the two little boys with an expression that Leon could only describe as wonder. His gaze went from them to Leon and back again as though inquiring whether the children were real. Then, as the twins rushed forward to pet him, he sat down, his big body quivering with pleasure.
“I think they’ll be okay.” Leon went to stand beside Flora, who was watching her sons as they hugged and stroked the huge dog.
“Okay?” She turned her head and gave him that smile again. The one that loosened something inside him and, just for a moment or two, took him back to a time before the scars, dents, and damage. “I may never get them to leave. Shall I start dinner?”
“Good idea.” They moved toward the house. Tiny, with the twins vying to get closest to him, trotted alongside them. “Then you can meet Bungee and tell me about the rest of your day.”
He was watching her face as he spoke, and he had never seen anyone’s expression change so fast. Flora went from carefree and smiling to chalk-faced and shaken in a heartbeat. He might be out of practice when it came to conversation, but Leon knew nothing he’d said had killed the mood so spectacularly.
Clearly, something else must have happened since he’d seen Flora earlier in the day. If it involved one of her patients, she was bound by confidentiality and would be unable to reveal the details. It was obvious that whatever had happened was bad news. Leon had never considered himself to be an intuitive person, but recent events had given him a sixth sense. All he knew was what his gut feeling was telling him.
If he was right, the stricken look in her eyes was connected to her job. Worse, it was linked to Joy Valeski’s death. And that meant a whole world more trouble was coming their way.