Her hand jerked back like I’d slapped it. “Why are you being an asshole?”
I closed my eyes, knowing she was right and hating that I had totally lost control of my sanity. “Sorry. Did you need me for something?”
She huffed out a breath. “I want to know why the tests on Ms. Mason weren’t done.”
12
Mia
After working on one of the vendor contracts first thing in the morning, Dick had called me into his office. He wanted to know what I’d learned so far about Ms. Mason’s death.
“We’ve gotten calls from the local paper wanting to know what happened. Of course, I told them we’d done all we could. But we’ve also gotten some calls from residents asking if Dr. Foster was negligent.”
I flinched. “There’s no evidence that he did anything wrong.”
“Good. Tell me what you do have.”
I explained to him what the pathologist had said about it might have been too late for her even if the diagnosis had been made sooner.
“That’s hard to prove though, isn’t it?”
“Nick … er … Dr. Foster ordered tests that would have found the problem, but they hadn’t been done.”
“Do we know why?”
I shook my head. “Not yet.”
“Are you sure they were ordered? Did Dr. Foster just write it down in the notes or did he actually send up the order?”
I frowned. “He sent up the order. I haven’t verified that it was received yet, though.”
He waved a hand. “If he sent it, they received it. The more common problem is a doctor not hitting the final send button. If they do that, then the order is sent.”
There was a tone in his voice that had me thinking he needed to believe what he’d just said. Or actually, that I needed to believe what he said. That the error was on the doctor’s side, not the lab or the software.
“We need to find out why the tests weren’t done sooner,” I said.
He nodded. “See what you can learn. But we need to keep this all on the downlow until we have answers.”
“I know the drill,” I said sardonically.
“I know it sounds callous, but we can’t have false accusations hurt this facility. If Dr. Foster is to blame, we’ll take action, but right now, we have no proof that anything he did or didn’t do lead to her death.”
“Or the lab?” I asked, a little concerned that he seemed to be focused on Nick being in error.
“Or the lab,” he agreed.
I left Dick’s office and headed down to the emergency room. When I didn’t see Nick there, I found Peggy. “Have you seen, Dr. Foster?”
“Ah … no. I think he was with the guy Dr. Balding is with now.”
Why the switch in doctors? I went over to Dr. Balding and motioned for his nurse to come to me. “Have you seen Dr. Foster?”
She made a strange face. “He took off. This patient made a comment about Dr. Foster killing Ms. Mason and he got all shaky. I’ve never seen him like that.”
“Do you know where he went?”
She shook her head.
I stood for a moment while she went back to help Dr. Balding, trying to determine where Nick might go. I checked the staff lounge, but he wasn’t there. Deciding he might like fresh air, I headed out to the side patio. He was standing with his back to the building and his hands on his hips, taking in deep breaths.
“Nick?”
He whipped around like I’d invaded his space. “What do you need?” His voice was annoyed.
Something was wrong. Had the patient’s comment rattled him that much? “I need to know you’re all right before you go back and work on anyone.”
He ran his hands through his hair. “You and ole bubba seem to think I killed Ms. Mason.”
“I never said that.” I moved to him as a friend, not the hospital lawyer. I reached to put my hand on his arm.
He pulled away. “You gonna fuck me again to make me feel better?”
I jerked back, feeling his comment like a slap. “Why are you being an asshole?”
He closed his eyes as if he knew he was being a jerk. “Sorry. Did you need me for something?”
I huffed out a breath, trying to keep from getting too annoyed. This couldn’t be easy for him, and what I came to talk to him about was only going to make it worse. “I want to know why the tests on Ms. Mason weren’t done.”
At first, he just stared at me. “How the fuck do I know? I ordered them. Is Dick or the board trying to pin this on me?”
“No one is blaming you, Nick.”
He scoffed. “That’s not true. Goldrush Lake is blaming me. That dickwad who probably has a urinary tract infection is blaming me. Hell, I’m blaming me, although I can’t figure out why. I keep going through it and can’t figure out what went wrong.” He turned away. “I shouldn’t be saying that to you. I keep forgetting how much you can fuck me over … legally, not literally.”
I hated that he saw me like that, but he wasn’t wrong. My fiduciary responsibility was to the hospital. Dick had already made statements that suggested he’d toss Nick under the bus if necessary.
“Chances are nothing went wrong, Nick, except that Ms. Mason didn’t come in soon enough.” I wanted to alleviate his torment over her death, even though the unanswered questions were driving his unease. I didn’t have answers to them yet.
“There’s no way to know that for sure.”
“Even if the tests were done, the time to run them and analyze them, it would have been too late,” I said.
“Had I stayed with her, I might have figured it out sooner and started treatment.” He shook his head. “Jesus, I must want to be fired.”
“No one is talking about firing you, Nick. But we have to figure out what happened and if there’s something that could have been done differently, make adjustments.”
He took in a breath and then started back to
