Don’t we all?
“I’ll be in touch as soon as I can, but it won’t be today.”
The words burst out, proving a new truth Flora hadn’t realized until that minute. It could be today, but that would mean canceling dinner so she could talk to the trustees about this new appointment. She needed a new receptionist...but she wanted to spend time with Leon more.
Chapter 5
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
