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“Got it.”
Lainie clicked to the camera where she thought he might exit, but the door never opened. She started scanning the other floors, but it was like looking for a needle in a haystack. He knew the hospital and was dodging the cameras, but ... she thumbed the button on the radio. “He may still be in the stairwell. I can’t find him on the cameras.”
For the next ten minutes, they went back and forth until Jared finally returned to the office with a disgusted curl to his lips. “Lost him.”
She nodded. “I know.”
Her phone rang and she glanced at the screen.James!“Hello?”
“What’s going on there? All I could hear was your end of the conversation.” She explained and he huffed a long sigh. “But you’re all right?”
“I’m fine. I’m still in the security office.”
“Stay there, will you?”
“Yes, but when you get back here, I want to get my bag out of my locker.”
“I’ll be there in about thirty minutes and we can take care of all of that.”
“Fine. I’m still going through the M&M patients.”
“Anything ring a bell?”
“Not really. I mean, I could probably come up with a few who weren’t happy with some aspect of their loved ones’ care, but for the most part, I don’t see anything.” Yet. She still had files to go through.
“Make note of them anyway,” he said.
“I am.”
“See you in a bit.”
She hung up and went back to her cases, and lo and behold, she found one. Julie Darwin. She called James. “Hey, I found something.”
“What?”
“A woman by the name of Julie Darwin.” She read through the case even though she remembered it clearly. “Julie was twenty-seven years old and had an ectopic pregnancy. She’d waited too late to get help and her tube had ruptured. I diagnosed the issue and sent her to surgery where they removed it—and saved the woman’s life. Unfortunately, the other tube had been completely damaged with scarring, and when Julie woke up from the surgery, she was faced with the knowledge that even with surgery on the remaining tube, she’d probably never be able to have children.”
“Heartbreaking,” he said, his voice soft.
“It shattered her and she blamed the entire surgical team, but focused most of her bitterness toward me. I guess because I’d reassured her that she’d still be able to have children with just one tube.”
“You couldn’t have known.”
“I know, but she accused me of lying to her.”
“She was hurting.”
“And hurting people often hurt others,” she murmured. “What if...”
“Yeah. How long ago was this?”
“About six months.” She paused. “Why wait this long to do something? But get this. She worked at the hospital for a while. After her surgery, she never came back. Her reasoning was that it was too painful to be in the same building where she lost her child. I can’tbelieve I didn’t think of her until now, but her name never crossed my mind until I saw it.”
“It’s okay. It’s not like you haven’t been under some stress. But that’s a good lead. We’ll chase it down. I’m getting close to the hospital. Stay put and I’ll come to you.”
“All right.” She hung up and went back to work, looking for anything else she could find. Time passed as she lost herself in the files.
“Lainie?”
