After the seventh patient of the morning, Mitch needed a
break. He took the stairs to the eighth floor, where he wanted
a decent cup of coffee and a little time in the doctors’ lounge up
there. He was still bothered by seeing Adam Young—and that
he was clearly filming what was going on in triage. Mitch knew
exactly what Adam saw. He wasn’t worried; he was just pissed.
In the stairwell, he heard someone running the stairs, breath
ing heavily. He looked down from the seventh floor and saw
Adam running up from the ground floor. He was doing laps:
up two flights, down one, up two, down one. When Adam was
between the sixth and seventh floors, Mitch stood in the middle
of the stairs, blocking his path.
“Excuse me,” Adam mumbled, still focused on the stairs he
was climbing as he tried to go around. Unable to get by, he finally
looked up to see it was Mitch who was in his way. “Oh, hey, Dr.
Wagner,” he panted, trying again to go around him.
“Hi, Adam. Can I see your phone?” Mitch asked.
Adam looked up at him. “No. Why?”
“I think you know why. What were you doing with your
phone in triage?”
“I was looking for Sophie’s planner.”
“Well, in that case, you have nothing to hide. Let me see
your phone.”
Adam hesitated, then slowly pulled his phone from his pants
pocket.
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THE VERY BEST OF CARE
“Give it to me!” Mitch’s voice bounced loudly off the stair
well walls.
Adam handed it over.
Mitch looked through the photo and video library. He looked
through sent texts, sent emails, anywhere on the phone that
Adam could have kept the video. Nothing. He wanted to break
the phone in half but restrained himself.
He handed it back to Adam. “You have no business being
in triage. If I see you in there again, I’ll have security personally
remove you.”
Mitch continued down the stairs.
In the doctors’ lounge, Mitch rehashed last night’s New York
Rangers game with one of the senior residents. The door opened,
and he looked up to see Amanda poking her head around the
corner.
Mitch jumped up and pulled her back out into the hallway.
“We can’t be in there together, you know that.”
“I need to talk to you. I ran into Sophie Young, and she had a
lot of questions about you and all the preterm deliveries.”
“What’d you tell her?”
“I told her she was barking up the wrong tree and that she
was imagining things. But her antennae are up. She smells some
thing. Maybe we should back off for now.”
“No way, Amanda, I don’t want to piss off Charlie. They told
me I need to fix the damage I’ve done with that breech baby. We
need to be pushing forward, not backing off.”
“She’s going to be onto you real soon if she isn’t already. You
need to figure it out.”
“Don’t worry. I have a plan for Mrs. Young. If she starts get
ting too close, I know how to get her to back off. I am the doctor,
after all. Go on, get out of here.”
Amanda crossed her arms, making no move to leave. “Oh
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JULIE HATCH
yeah? What kind of plan? How far are you taking this charade,
Mitch?”
“You don’t need to know the details. You just keep showing
up for work, take care of the patients, and do what I tell you to
do.”
“What happened to the simple project of delivering mothers
a couple of weeks early? Why have you let it get so out of hand?”
“Shut up! It’s not out of hand. I’ve got it all under control.”
Then Mitch softened and smiled at Amanda. He teasingly
touched her nose and gave her a pat on the butt.
“Now please, leave me alone,” he said as he went back into
the lounge.
He pulled out his cell phone and dialed. He listened for a
moment, then said, “We have a problem. Get the message across
that they need to mind their own fucking business. And use the
good stuff.
