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"The ones sent from Lucas Deere? That was you?"
"That was just a fake name."
"Why did you do that? Was it the money? Were they paying you?"
"It was Dr. Hollander. Ethan asked me to do it."
Her heart flipped over. "Ethan is involved in this, too?" As soon as she asked the question, she wondered why she was surprised. The woman who had just left had been in his office.
"Yes. He asked me to send the emails under a fake name. That's all I had to do, and every time I did, he gave me a cash bonus. But I didn't just do it for the money. I did it because we weren't helping those patients. You know we weren't. They were frustrated and in pain."
"You're making excuses. You didn't send people to get treated. You sent them to get exploited."
"What are you talking about?" she asked in bewilderment.
"Waverly's treatment included drugging the patients in order to extract their memories about classified ops. It was basically a spy program, probably financed by a foreign country, or maybe by our own citizens willing to sell out our troops."
"That's not true," Naomi said slowly, but there was doubt creeping into her eyes now. "How do you know that?"
"Because we found Jack Barrone, and he told us what was going on. They almost killed him. He'd be dead if he hadn't escaped."
"You found him?" she echoed. "I thought you stopped looking."
"I told you that because I got a threatening note telling me to stop looking for Jack. Was that you, too?"
"No."
"But you know who it was," she said, seeing the guilt in her eyes. "Tell me. Was it the same person who took Jack out of the hospital?"
"It was Andrew."
She was shocked once again. "Andrew? As in Lily's boyfriend, Andrew, who's always in our breakroom? He's in on this? Is Lily also involved?" She felt overwhelmed by the betrayal of so many of her friends.
"No. Lily didn't know anything. It was just me and Andrew, working for Ethan. But Andrew sometimes got info from Lily about the patients in your practice." Naomi gave her a nervous look. "Andrew was working the night Jack came in. He reported it to Ethan, who told him to get Jack out of the hospital."
"And Andrew set the fire in the stairwell to distract everyone," she said, beginning to see how it had all played out.
"Yes. They just wanted to get Jack back into treatment. Ethan is a good doctor. In fact, he's a great doctor, and an even better man," Naomi said passionately. "He's someone I admire greatly. It's just not possible he's hurting anyone. He's too good for that. No one understands his drive like I do."
"Oh, my God. You're in love with him, aren't you?" She could see the truth in Naomi's eyes, and it was sad, because there was no way Ethan was in love with his PA. He was just using her.
"I care about him," Naomi said defensively. "He's brilliant."
"Maybe brilliantly evil. How does Ethan know Dr. Levitan?"
"They're related. Ethan's cousin, Jasmine, was once married to Neil. That's how they first connected."
Her brain clicked back to the conversation she'd overheard between Neil and his ex-wife. Maybe he'd been warning Jasmine to keep Ethan in line when he'd told her she owed him. "Is Dr. Levitan in charge? Does Ethan work for him? Or is it the other way around?"
"Ethan doesn't work for him. He just refers patients and sometimes consults. They're doctors. They're not trying to hurt people."
"Do you really believe that, Naomi? You're a smart woman. At least, I used to think you were." As she finished speaking, she suddenly heard a groan coming from behind the curtain on the other side of Naomi. She'd thought they were alone, but apparently not.
She moved around the curtain to see a heavily tattooed man with a beard lying on a table. The only clothing he had on was a pair of boxer briefs. It looked like he'd been hooked up to an IV that was now dangling on the floor. He had needle marks on his arms, just like Jack had. She was almost afraid to touch him, as she remembered what had happened when she'd tried to wake up Jack.
"Who is that?" Naomi asked in astonishment.
"I've never seen him before. Were you emailing patients who were seeing other physicians at East River?"