Lori returned with three coffees in paper to-go cups. Theodore took his with a polite smile and placed it down to the side. I sipped mine: strong and black. Lori sat down and glanced between us, but didn’t say anything.
“Theodore was just telling me that he knows Caroline and Robert Tippett are trying to set me up,” I said.
“I didn’t say that.” He frowned only a touch, but I noticed that he didn’t disagree with my statement.
“You know those notes are faked,” I said. “I don’t know how you figured it out, but you did. And you were headed to Caroline to, what, confront her about it?”
“I wanted to talk to her,” he said. “That’s all. I wasn’t sure what I knew, at least until right this second.” He let out a bitter laugh, like it clawed its way up from his throat. I could only guess at how he felt: foolish, angry, and worse. If I could see how Tippett was going to throw him under the bus, then I was sure he could see it, too.
“You believe me,” I said.
“I do.” He looked at Lori. “You believe him too, don’t you?”
“I know he didn’t make those notes,” she said. “He had me mess with his filing system early on during my residency, and I’m absolutely positive he wouldn’t have made any inappropriate comments.”
“That’s the impression I got as well,” Theodore said. “You might be difficult to work with, but you’re meticulous.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I am extremely careful.”
“It’s strange, really,” he said, leaning back in his chair and seeming to loosen up a touch. “Why would they choose you, of all people?”
“I could guess,” I said. “But I think you know better than I do.”
He laughed softly. “You overestimate me.”
“You’ve been following me around. Take a guess.”
“You’re not well loved at the hospital,” he said. “Although I noticed that you’ve been trying to do better. I applaud that.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“Few people would stick up for you though,” he continued. “You act as though professionalism is below you—although I’m aware that only extended to your coworkers, and that your bedside manner was surprisingly good.”
“That’s a good analysis,” Lori said, “but I think you’re missing one important thing.”
He raised an eyebrow. “What’s that?”
“He’s very, very good at his job,” she said, glancing at me, then back to Theodore. “Of all the doctors, this would affect him the least. He’d be able to find a new position somewhere else, and the sting of getting thrown under the bus would be a little less sharp.”
“That’s a good point,” I said. “Except they underestimate how badly I’d want to stay.”
Theodore pursed his lips and studied the two of us. I tried not to look at Lori, but I couldn’t help myself. I kept thinking if she hadn’t shown up when she did, I think I would’ve walked away already. Nothing would’ve kept me at the hospital, nothing important, anyway. My routines, my patients, they were important, and I’d fight for them, but to a point. Sooner or later, I would’ve given up, found a new job, and moved on. It wouldn’t have been so hard, not really. She was right, I was very good.
And that was a benefit to the administration.
But then she came into my life, and she showed me there was more to being a doctor than performing operations. She was the wild card. Caroline never should’ve allowed her cousin to place her beneath me.
I’d have to thank him for that one day.
“This leaves me in a tricky position,” Theodore said. “It’s against my code to turn my back on an employer. I’m not supposed to go against them, not for any reason. Except right now, I feel as though I don’t have much choice.”
“They’re the ones falsifying documents,” Lori said. “You didn’t have a hand in that.”
“But they’ll say you did,” I said, and I saw a flash of recognition in Theodore’s eyes. He knew it, I was sure, and now it was only a matter of time, of hammering out the final details, but he’d come around.
“They might,” he agreed, and we lapsed into silence again. I let him chew on that, let him picture what might happen if he didn’t take steps to protect himself. Robert Tippett, destroying his career— that rich, smug bastard, getting away with destroying lives in order to get whatever he wanted, as if he didn’t already have enough.
There was a part of me that knew how Theodore must’ve felt about rich clients like Tippett. It was probably how I felt about my own rich patients: a sense of distance, as if they were different kinds of humans, from a whole different world.
“What can we do about it?” he asked finally.
“We need proof that they faked the documents,” I said. “You’re the person closest to them. Robert would trust you.”
He shook his head. “Robert’s smart. If he caught me sniffing around, he’d figure it out.”
“Gina then,” Lori said.
I frowned at her. “Really?”
She nodded, glancing at me. “Think about it. Caroline is close enough to Robert that she might be aware Theodore doesn’t know about the documents. But I doubt they’re telling Gina much of anything. I bet if Theodore asked her about what she knew, she might spill something without realizing, and I bet she’d give him whatever he asked.”
“I think you’re right,” I said, glancing back to Theodore. “Can you do it?”
“Wouldn’t be hard,” he said. “I wouldn’t even have to lie. She’d make her own assumptions.” A short pause as he picked up his coffee and took a sip. “But it’d be a risk for me.”
“Bigger risk then letting Tippett do whatever he wanted?”
He shook his head. “Hard to say.”
“What do you want, then?” Lori asked, surprising me. I didn’t think she’d go right to trying to buy him off, but
