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I frowned, then went back to my desk. Where could Alicia be if she wasn’t on a plane? What would she be doing that meant she wasn’t answering her phone?
Was she with her doctor?
I looked at the bills Alicia had got the company to forward to me. I’d offered to pay for any medical care she needed. The bills came from a clinic calledGynecology Institute of ChicagoI didn’t recognize the name, even though something about it seemed familiar.
I was going to have to go down there and get Alicia myself. I called Jim Jennings.
“Good morning, Jake. Or is it afternoon now? I’m too jet-lagged to tell.”
“Jim, are you flying the HondaJet today?”
“To Grand Cayman? Wasn’t planning on it. I had Johnny down for it. He’s got three hundred hours so far, but he’s really good. Kid’s pretty talented.”
“Well, Johnny’s gonna have to wait for us. One of the passengers is AWOL.”
WhenIgottothe clinic, the secretary stood up to shake my hand, but I told her to sit down.
“Hi, I’m here to meet with Ms. Matlock, is she in there?”
The secretary nodded. I went to go in, but she waved her arms at me. “You’ll have to wait. Dr. Knightly’s seeing her in a private consultation.”
“The patient,” I said through gritted teeth, “is supposed to be flying out to Grand Cayman with me. Wait, did you sayKnightly?”
I sat down while the secretary buzzed through. In five minutes, Alicia came out of the room. When she saw me, she sighed in relief and ran to me.
“I’m fine. Dr. Knightly just had to run some more tests.”
“Okay,” I said. I realized that I was breathing fast and that I’d been nervous for Alicia and the baby. Calming down, I asked her to go wait in my car for me outside. “We’ll be leaving shortly,” I said.
I went through the double doors into the doctor’s office.
Inside, by the folding examination table, Patricia used for patients, she was sitting, filling in figures on a clipboard.
She looked up at me.
“Hello, Jake,” she said. “I was wondering when you’d stop by.”
“Can we talk?” I asked quietly, trying to hold in my anger.
Patricia looked up at me. I could tell her smile was fake. It was in her eyes. They didn’t widen or crease. Instead, the smile slowly spread across her face, and she put down the board and the pen, removing the purple gloves from her hands.
“To what do I owe the pleasure, Jakey?”
“Don’t call me that. Why did you bring Alicia down here?”
Patricia grinned. “I’m her physician, Jake.”
“That’s a pretty big coincidence.”
Patricia watched me warily before she stood up and walked around the hospital bed. “What have you been up to?” she asked, leaning back and putting her hands on the bedframe. “We haven’t seen each other in ages.”
“There’s a reason for that, Patricia. It’s because whatever existed between us is over. And that’s not going to change. I’m finding Alicia a different doctor.”
“No you aren’t,” she replied. “Not unless you want her to find out how you know me.”
I gritted my teeth. What thehellkind of game was she playing?
“I think we both know that would go against your Hippocratic oath.”
