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“I haven’t noticed.”
“Respectable advertising, that’s what we need.”
“A good accountant too,” I remind him. I glare at the numbers.
“Yes, that too,” he agrees.
When I look up, Mark glances down at his watch. “I gotta run. That file there,” he points. “It has everything you need on your marks.”
“Of course.”
In two short strides he’s halfway out the door. Finally, I exhale.
Mark stops abruptly and pauses just inside the doorway. He turns and leans against the doorframe. “David will pay you a visit later, should you have any questions on specifics.”
I expected as much. Mark rarely does his own bidding.
“Oh—and Tom?”
I raise my brow.
“Please don’t force my hand on this. I’d hate to have to handle this matter myself.”
I salute him.
Mark smiles. “Been there and done that, remember?”
I nod. I remember, all right.
I’d only stepped away from the hospital to take care of a few things at the office. Work was piling up, and certain things had to be dealt with. Already, I’d been out quite a bit with June following her surgery. The infection on top of it all was unexpected. She hadn’t recovered well from the beginning, and now that she was back in the hospital, she didn’t want me to leave. June swore they were out to get her. She was never very specific about who “they” were, unfortunately, and I was too preoccupied to dig very deep. But the doctors all agreed, the infection combined with the medications was enough to cause paranoia.
“It’s okay, Tom. Just go,” Dr. Dunn advised me when he made his rounds. “I’ve given her something to make her sleep.” I looked on as he checked my wife’s chart. “I’d say you have a few hours at least.”
“I don’t know. If she wakes up—”
“She’ll never even know you left.”
“It’s good to see a familiar face among so many,” I told him. Grant Dunn was second in command at New Hope and our resident plastic surgeon. One rank above me, we weren’t exactly close friends—I don’t have many of those—but as experts in our respective fields, you could say, we regarded one another with a professional affinity. In other words, we stayed in our lanes. Which is exactly why when he told me to go, I trusted that I could.
“You don’t think she’ll wake up?” I asked again. I knew what he would say, which is at least half of the reason I asked the question. I was looking for reassurance. I hate hospitals, and I was looking for any reason possible to get out of there. I couldn’t put off things at the office any longer. That, and Melanie was blowing up my phone. She’d started to get antsy with me spending so much time with June. The truth was, I wasn’t good at juggling multiple women. It was never my intention. In reality, I got mixed up in something I was having a hard time getting out of. In reality, a one-night stand turned out to be something else and that something else was more than I’d bargained for. Really, I just wanted her to go away. But she had other plans.
“It’s good stuff we’ve given her,” Dr. Dunn assured me. “Trust me, she’ll hardly know you’re gone.”
I stood and quietly stretched. “The infection is improving, Dr. Comey says.”
“Comey?” Dunn cocked his head. “The infectious disease doctor?”
I nodded. “That’s how he introduced himself.”
Grant Dunn scratched at his jaw. “He’s not supposed to be on this case.”
I didn’t ask what he meant. All I could think about was the work back at the office that had piled up. The work that was continuing to pile up. And the mistress I needed to get off my back before she did something stupid.
He walked to the door, opened it, and motioned for me to follow. “Yes, Comey is right,” he told me as he led me out of the room. We walked down the hall. “Her numbers look good. Very good.”
Dr. Dunn walked me all the way to the end of the corridor. I was grateful when we came to the entrance of normal life, to life outside those hospital walls where time stood still. “Don’t worry,” he assured me. “I’ve got things handled here.”
That was all I needed to hear. I hadn’t even bothered to tell her goodbye. I hadn’t wanted to disturb her. Work was waiting, and I had other things on my mind.
