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Friday morning, I was awoken by a cloud of cat fur landing on my face. It tickled my nose until I had to regain consciousness merely to sneeze. Afterward, I considered going back to sleep, but, with the sun shining between the cracks in the blinds and one of Helen’s talk shows blaring from the living room, I changed my mind. Plus, I felt surprisingly refreshed. I attributed my good night’s sleep to the absence of Helen’s cats. Despite the wayward fur ball, they were nowhere in sight.
Determined to make some progress with my musings concerning Options and Carly’s abortion, I propped myself up in bed and leaned against the wall. With everything I’d learned about the clinic, I should be able to make some sense out of their operation.
I plucked an unpaid bill off my nightstand and wrote “Options/Carly” on the back. Next, I jotted down everything bothering me about the clinic and the circumstances leading to Carly’s overdose. I included anything that popped into my head, even facts that might not mean anything but struck me as vaguely unsettling.
Unlabeled prenatal vitamins
Religious obsession with doctor-patient confidentiality
Carly’s abortion – why?
Carly’s missing file – where?
Not enough patient files – 23 versus 22 adoption profiles
Adoption profiles – fake mother names
Keisha sedated to run tests on normal pregnancy symptoms
Semiweekly visits – why so frequent?
I paused, then scanned through the items. Everything blurred into one confusing jumble.
I needed some order, I decided. I’d start from the beginning, then work my way toward her overdose.
But what constituted the beginning?
I pulled Carly’s journal out from where I’d stashed it in my nightstand and reread her early entries. Before she’d even had regular appointments scheduled, Options had ordered an amniocentesis.
I scribbled another note at the end of the list: Amniocentesis
What about Carly’s baby had caused concern? From her October 22, 2012 entry, the amniocentesis occurred before she’d even had her first real ultrasound. In fact, unless Carly had neglected to write about some other procedure, the amnio was the first test the Options clinic had suggested after confirming her pregnancy.
Dr. Patrick even performed an amnio during one of my early visits, Keisha had told me, commenting on her own experience with the procedure.
Both girls were young, too young for the amnio to be standard practice. And Carly’s amnio had occurred when she was only eleven weeks pregnant, several weeks before the test was typically administered. Plus, the results hadn’t included the sex of her baby. Patrick had excused the omission by claiming he hadn’t known she’d wanted the sex revealed, but what if he’d fed her a story?
What if she hadn’t actually received an amnio at all?
The idea caused a deafening roar of blood to gush through my ears. I gripped the bedsheets to steady myself.
Was it possible Options had done something besides an amnio, letting both Carly and Keisha believe they were undergoing a common—maybe not for girls their age, but common enough nonetheless—test when really that needle had been inserted for another purpose?
But what could have been done? Had something been extracted? Or injected?
Shivering, I changed my latest note to: Amniocentesis – something else?
Whatever had been done or discovered, it had merited ensuing semiweekly visits from both girls.
What about Carly had spurred the need for twice-weekly visits? Had Options been monitoring something about her baby’s progress even though they’d told her everything looked normal?
Carly had mentioned in her journal that ultrasounds were done during her Monday appointments and another machine collected images of the baby during her Thursday sessions. I’d heard of an ultrasound, but what was the other machine? What kind of images did the second machine capture that the ultrasound failed to pick up?
I conjured up mental pictures of the two devices I’d seen in Patrick’s exam room yesterday. One connected to a monitor, leading me to believe it was the ultrasound device. The black box with the attached paddle must be the imaging machine. Based on Carly’s description, I guessed the images were transferred to the Options computers for analysis.
I woke up Carly’s iPhone to see what I could find online concerning the imaging machine and its function, only to give up after twenty minutes of fruitless searching. But I did add the item to my list: Imaging machine
I skimmed through Carly’s journal entries covering the next couple months. She’d written about prenatal vitamins, but not how she’d come in possession of them. I presumed at some point Options had told her to take them twice daily as they’d told Keisha. The unmarked bottles still nagged at me, but I hadn’t yet figured out if the lack of a label resulted from carelessness or something more sinister.
Nothing else jumped out at me in Carly’s journal until I reached her final entries about the baby’s lack of movement and her appointment to visit Options the day she’d died.
And, of course, her subsequent abortion.
I set the journal aside, trying to collect my thoughts. Something had happened to Carly’s baby. Either a problem had developed and nobody had detected it in time, or Options had somehow contributed to the problem.
What procedure had been done instead of an amniocentesis?
A headache began to pound behind my forehead. I found several aspects of Carly’s experience troubling, but nothing that pointed conclusively to foul play by the Options clinic.
It occurred to me that I could be focusing on the wrong thing. I’d been fixated on the fact that Carly had chosen Options for her prenatal care, not that she’d been treated specifically by Patrick.
Adelaine’s experience had been quite different from Carly’s and Keisha’s.
When we’d met, Adelaine had mentioned an early pregnancy complication that cleared up later. Carly’s baby had only developed problems toward the end, when he’d stopped moving. And Keisha complained of a lot of pain, yet her checkups didn’t show anything amiss. But the girls’ complications didn’t seem to be the deciding factor for their different prenatal programs. Otherwise, Adelaine would have garnered the most attention up front.
Adelaine had also never received the vitamins that both Keisha and Carly were ordered to take regularly. My prenatal vitamins are green and a lot bigger than that, she’d said, pointing out the distinction between her pills and Keisha’s. And Adelaine’s reaction upon learning about Keisha receiving vitamins directly from Patrick suggested she had purchased her own. But if Options ordered vitamins in bulk, why did they only distribute them to certain patients?
Adelaine received her care from the other doctor, Cal. Carly and Keisha were both patients of Patrick. Could two doctors operate so discordantly within the same clinic? With only the two of them to coordinate, couldn’t they easily implement some quality-control procedures?
I reminded myself that the doctors’ routines could differ simply because of their generational differences. I didn’t know much about Cal, but he must be significantly older than Patrick if he was semi-retired, looked like “an old anteater,” and recommended pills popular forty years ago. Cal had likely started his career when women of Jan’s generation gave birth, back before technology had become so prevalent. Patrick, however, looked to be in his forties and would have gone to medical school more recently.
Of course, Cal’s partial retirement and a wife with cancer kept him away from the office except for a few hours every morning. Maybe Adelaine had spoken some truth when she’d joked that his main priority wasn’t the clinic. Maybe he lacked Patrick’s level of concern about his clients’ welfare.
Or maybe Patrick was up to something behind his partner’s back.
I checked the time on my phone. My heart sank when I saw that Cal would have already left the clinic for the day. I had yet to meet the second doctor, but vowed to visit him first thing Monday morning.
It was time to see if he could shed any light on what was going on.
* * *
That evening, I parked outside Barely There a few minutes before five. As I emerged from my car, a flash of movement caught my eye. I spun around, my jaw dropping open when I saw Bongo approaching.
My heart kicked into overdrive. Strangely, though, I only felt nervous. I should have been fearful, or at least concerned, that the bouncer planted near the employee entrance hadn’t made any move toward us. Maybe he’d picked up on the same vibe I had, that Bongo hadn’t come here to hurt me.
“We meet again,” he said, smiling when he reached me. He leaned against my car, crossed his boots at the ankle, and looked me up and down. “You’re dressed casual today. I like it.”
I glanced at my jeans and tank top, if only to verify that I had clothes on at all and this wasn’t some horrible teenage nightmare about running into a crush while buck naked.
A crush? I thought, feeling a ping of alarm. Where had that come from? This was nothing like that, I silently scolded. To calm down, I reminded myself that Bongo was only a drug dealer whom I’d somewhat tossed out of the club yesterday. He certainly wasn’t a crush.
I pushed the thought aside in order to focus. Now that I had a second chance, I was determined to make up for yesterday by adopting a speaking role in today’s conversation.
“I’ll be changing inside,” I informed him.
“Ah. You keep your suits in the office.”
Before I had time to think, I blurted out, “I’m dancing tonight,” then immediately regretted the admission. No good could come from Bongo watching me run through my performance. If I caught sight of him in the audience, I would be so flustered I’d fall on my face.
He arched an eyebrow, then ran his blue eyes over my outfit before locking gazes with me. “I can see that.”
“No,” I said, startling myself with my firmness. I tore my eyes away from his before he hypnotized me. “No, you can’t see. You’re not welcome here.”
“By you?”
“By management,” I clarified, feeling ridiculous.
But Bongo evidently didn’t know how ill qualified I was to be speaking on behalf of club management. He shrugged. “I don’t want to see you dance anyway.”
I couldn’t help but feel hurt, and stupid that I felt hurt. After all, I was the one who didn’t want him to see my act.
I just wanted him to want to see it.
“Some things are better left to the imagination,” he continued. His gaze captured mine again. “At least until you can partake in the whole experience.”
A flush crept up my neck and into my face. Bongo couldn’t possibly miss my reaction. Still, my only option was to ignore his obvious effect on me and pretend he was just another out-of-line client developing an unhealthy fixation. Lord knew I’d dealt with enough of those over the past four years to be familiar with my lines.
“You need to leave now,” I said robotically.
“I know.” He pushed himself away from my car, but didn’t make any motion to actually go. “Management’s orders, right?”
I nodded, feeling numb.
“Tell me, does management have a name?”
I opened my mouth to tell him John, but stopped in time from making an even bigger fool out of myself. “Megan.”
“Megan,” he said, testing it out himself.
A small thrill shot down my spine. My name sounded amazing coming from his mouth.
Bongo tilted his head. “Tell me, Megan, when do you get a night off from this place?”
“Sunday,” I said, thinking of my special arrangement with John this week.
“Would you like to have dinner with me Sunday?”
My heart executed a somersault. I wanted to scream yes even as my better judgment told me the correct answer was no.
One date with a felon didn’t make me a felon, I rationalized. But did I really want to enjoy one date when the next might be held in a prison visitation room, both of us holding phones to our ears behind the plexiglass barrier separating us? Still, so what if one night I just happened to eat a meal at a table where a criminal also happened to be eating a meal? It wasn’t as if that was a crime. But why would I put myself in that sort of situation in the first place? Did I really want to get involved with someone who might soon have housing provided compliments of the federal taxpayers?
The two sides warred within my brain until my head spun.
“You’re a drug dealer,” I finally said, hoping I was wrong, that Keith had made an error, that Bongo was often mistaken for that drug dealer down the street with the same snake etched up his arm.
“Does that scare you?” he asked.
I bit my lip, not wanting to admit that yes, his profession scared the hell out of me. Carly had turned to drugs once in her life, after a particularly tough moment, and now she’d never have the luxury of making another mistake again.
He spread his palms. “I promise I won’t try to sell you anything.” He stated it as a simple fact, his tone devoid of condescension or one-sided amusement.
I weakened a fraction. With the drugs off the table, dinner with Bongo could end up being like a normal date. I at least wouldn’t need to worry about him sweet-talking me into buying his merchandise, which came as a huge relief. He had some sort of power over me. I quite possibly would buy a jockstrap from him if he asked me using those coercive blue eyes.
I shifted my weight to my other foot, evaluating his dinner offer anew. I was actually considering it, even though I knew accepting would be completely irresponsible. Where could a relationship with this man really lead me? Probably right to the witness stand, where I’d be forced to testify about his illegal activities.
“Drug dealers need to eat too,” he added.
Of course, that was hardly the point. I doubted Bongo would waste away if I refused to have dinner with him. But somehow him being right about that simple fact had me fixated on it, as if it alone should drive my answer. In fact, I felt myself nodding my acceptance even as I prepared how to explain this dinner date to the grand jury.
“Do you like Italian?”
Was he Italian? I wondered before it dawned on me that that wasn’t what he’d meant.
I coughed. “Um, yes.”
He slipped his hands into his jacket pockets. “How about I take you to Circo? Sunday at seven?”
“Okay.” Then, to add at least a tiny drop of caution to this whole arrangement, I said, “But I’ll meet you there.”
He smiled. “Okay, Megan. It’s in the Bellagio. Their pasta is excellent.”
Mention of pasta reminded me of my huge portion of it at Carly’s vigil this past weekend.
I straightened, a memory of Keisha pulling out her unlabeled pill bottle flashing through my head. I squeezed my purse, which currently contained Carly’s own pill bottle.
If I gave one of the pills to Bongo, would he have the connections to test its ingredients? If it turned out to be illegal, would that make me guilty of executing a drug deal?
I pondered over how to even bring up the subject. But really, how had I ended up in the parking lot agreeing to a date with a drug dealer in the first place? One more strange turn of conversation wouldn’t even make a dent in this surreal encounter.
I glanced at Bongo. “If I give you a pill, can you tell me what it is?”
He rocked back on his heels, looking shaken by the question. His reaction erased some of my nervousness. At least I wasn’t the only one here easily flustered.
He eyed me sideways. “I might.”
From the note of distrust in his voice, I gathered he suspected I might be setting him up. Maybe he thought I’d somehow worked out with the police that he wouldn’t be able to resist my managerial charms after our first meeting and would undoubtedly seek me out the next day in search of a date when—bam!—I’d trick him into accepting an illegal substance, and the planted evidence would secure the conviction the police had been working on for years.
Before he could bolt, I opened my purse and rummaged through the contents until I located Carly’s pills. I opened the bottle and held it out to Bongo.
He darted a glance at the bouncer manning the employee entrance, as if questioning whether he too was part of the setup and might start snapping pictures.
“My roommate received these from a pregnancy clinic,” I told him. “I think they’re prenatal vitamins, but it would really help me out if you could verify.”
Bongo didn’t relax any.
“I know my request sounds a bit peculiar, but I really need to know what these pills are.” A sudden boldness washed over me, as if I were Mae West putting on a performance. I bumped my elbow against his forearm, hoping the contact swayed his decision in my favor. “I can explain everything over dinner.”
After a few more moments of quiet contemplation, Bongo pulled a small, empty baggie out of his jacket pocket. He held it open, his arm not quite fully extended. I poured a few pills into it, then capped the bottle and returned it to my purse.
“Thanks,” I said. “I really appreciate this.”
Without a word, he snapped the baggie shut, frowning as he stuffed it back into his jacket pocket.
“I’ll see you Sunday at seven,” I said. I flashed him a smile, then turned around and strode toward the building before he could regain his composure and lure me back under his spell.
