The Missing Year (17 page)

“You sure the appointment is at nine?” Ross eased into the driver’s seat, his back aching from sleeping in the soaking tub rather than on the hardwood floor.

“Positive,” Camille said, fastening her seat belt.

Ross turned to grab his and a pain shot up his spine. “Damn Honeymoon Suite.”

“You could’ve slept in the bed, you know.”

“Yeah. I know.” Ross had seen the wine-soaked version of Camille before. No matter how comfortable they were with each other, he had made a judgment call.

Camille grabbed the end of his seat belt from him and fastened it. “You look more like a patient than someone ready to take on the illustrious Dr. Davis.” She handed Ross two pain relievers and her coffee cup.

“Thanks.” Ross swallowed the pills, praying for them to act quickly. “And I’m not taking anyone on, Camille. It’s a doctor’s office, not a gladiator arena.” He pulled out of the bed and breakfast’s parking lot, wincing when he checked over his shoulder for traffic.

“You could have at least let me drive.”

“Not a chance.” He accelerated. “Listen, we need to review the plan.”

“Again?” They had covered it twice the night before.

“Yes, Camille. We can’t screw this up. When the nurse calls you back for the appointment, we’ll both go. We’ll wait for the doctor to come into the room and once he’s inside, you’ll excuse yourself to go to the bathroom.”

“
That’s
your big plan?”

“That’s my plan as far as you go, yes. Why?”

She seemed disappointed. “I’ve been running lines in my head for two days.”

“Let me hear.”

“What’s the point if I don’t get to actually say them in character?”

“Will you at least tell me what cover story you came up with?” He took another sip of her coffee.

“I told the receptionist my philandering husband gave me and STD he picked up from a hooker.”

Ross nearly spat. “You
what
?”

“And when that didn’t convince her, I told her I took a home test and found out I was pregnant. People can’t resist helping a baby.”

“A pregnant STD patient.
That’s
your medical emergency? You expected me to go along with that?”

“I thought it’d be fun to watch you try.”

“That’s great.” Ross couldn’t see the humor in the situation. He was tired, in pain, and sweating profusely.

“What’s going on with you this morning?” Camille used the vanity mirror to apply a light coat of lip gloss. “Are you still mad at me for this Mattie thing?”

“No.” Ross softened the edge off of his tone. “It’s not you. I hate confrontation.”

“I know.”

Camille didn’t have to say how she knew.

Ross could tell she had heard it from Sarah.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“Me, too, but you
did
say to get an appointment within forty-eight hours, and I got one. I couldn’t think of anything that would get me in to a doctor’s office faster than an STD and a baby.”

“Why do I not believe you?”

* * * * *

The waiting room of the Edinburgh Family Practice bustled with patients ranging from infancy to old age. Coughs and sneezes hung in the air, encouraging Ross to sit as far away from the others as possible.

Camille checked in as Adele Clements and leered at Ross to keep up the ruse. The three receptionists behind the glass window scowled at him as well.

“Nice work,” Ross said when Camille sat two chairs away.

“Thanks,” she whispered, checking to see that no one was looking first.

Ross stared at the clock, watching the minutes pass and wondering if they were ever going to be called back. An elderly lady with a walker took the seat between them. She wore plate-thick glasses and reeked of Jean Nate, a pungent, bug spray-like perfume his grandmother had worn when he was a child.

“Bet you’re wishing you sat next to me now,” he said, leaning forward with his hand cupped over his nose and mouth.

“Adele Clements,” a woman wearing pink scrubs called from the far side of the room.

“Finally,” Ross said.

He and Camille got up at the same time and made a beeline across the waiting area.

“Adele?” the woman verified Camille’s assumed identity.

Camille nodded. “That’s me.” The accent was back.

Ross went without acknowledgement, other than the sideways glance he’d been trying to get used to.

“I’m Nicole, Dr. Davis’s nurse.” Nicole handed Camille a plastic cup and a stack of wipes for a clean catch urine sample. “I’m going to have you start with the bathroom and then we’ll head to the exam room.”

Waiting for Camille to produce the urine specimen that would undoubtedly prove her to be a liar or, at the very least, a poor home test taker, Ross thought of all the ways things could have gone wrong up to that point. Patient security and identity theft precautions being what they are, he was amazed no one had asked “Adele” for identification. He chalked the laxity up to them paying cash and counted his lucky stars to have gotten as far as they had.

Camille returned and held the half-full cup of urine out to Nicole.

“We’re going to go right here into exam room five.” Nicole led them across the hall to a pediatric suite. The circus animal décor had Camille’s eyes shifting from the wall to Nicole and back again. “You can put on this gown and can keep on your socks and underwear.” She handed Camille a blue cotton gown large enough to fit them both. “Dr. Davis will be with you in a minute.” Nicole closed the door, but from the sounds of crying babies and plain-as-day conversations through the paper-thin walls, Camille expected the wait to be longer.

“I’m
not
putting that on,” she said.

“I don’t want you to.”

“How am I supposed to explain leaving my own doctor’s appointment now that I already went to the bathroom?” Faint sweat rings formed at Camille’s armpits.

“You can still use the bathroom excuse. Say you have to go again.”

Camille drew a deep breath, let it out, and began counting. “One, two, three—”

“What are you doing?”

“Doctors offices make me anxious.”

“Now is a hell of a time to tell me that.”

“I thought I’d be fine.”

“Maybe you should go out to the car now. When Jeremy comes in, I’ll tell him you’re in the bathroom. That way you won’t have to say anything. You won’t even see him.”

A knock came at the door.

“Come in.”

“Camille!” Ross stared at her, wide-eyed.

“What did you want me to say?”

The bespectacled Dr. Jeremy Davis walked in, laptop in hand, wearing a white lab coat, blue shirt, and red tie. Close-cropped brown hair gave way to a hint of gray at his temples.

“I’m sorry. Didn’t the nurse give you a gown to change into?” Jeremy was about to head back into the hallway when Camille stopped him.

“She did.” Camille’s voice cracked. A cotton gown dangled from her shaking hand.

Jeremy set his laptop on the counter and held out his hand. “I’m Dr. Davis,” he said. “I’m sorry, Adele, is it? I can see you’re nervous.”

Camille nodded. “Very.”

“Maybe you should go to the bathroom and splash some water on your face,” Ross said. “She’s terrible with new people.”

Jeremy gave Ross a version of the stink-eye the office women had perfected. He, too, had apparently heard the cheating husband bit. “She’ll be fine.”

“Actually, I do have to go to the bathroom.”

“That’s okay. Go ahead and I’ll be right back.”

Jeremy turned to grab his laptop.

Ross waved for Camille to hurry out.

She hopped off the examination table, narrowly missing the foot stool to her right. The end of the crinkled white paper runner caught on her shoe and unraveled behind her.

Ross stepped on the paper to free her and handed her the car keys on her way out the door. Her departure wasn’t nearly as smooth as Ross had planned, but now that he was alone with Jeremy, he took his shot.

It was his turn to do some acting.

Ross closed the door behind Camille, stuck his hand in his coat pocket as though he were packing a small pistol, and said, “We need to talk.”

“What’s going on?” Jeremy cast back and forth glances between Ross—who had never considered himself intimidating—and the wall-mounted phone, too far out of reach for him to easily grab.

“Please,” Ross said. “Sit down. I need to talk to you about Blake Wheeler.”

Jeremy sat, white-knuckling the exam table’s edge. “This is how you go about asking?”

“I tried calling.”

“You’re that doctor from upstate, the one taking care of Lila, aren’t you?”

Ross didn’t like the way Jeremy said the word “doctor,” as though it weren’t true. “I
am
Lila’s treating psychiatrist, yes.”

Jeremy scoffed. “Ironic, don’t you think? Seems like you may need some help of your own.”

“Why wouldn’t you take my call?”

“Did you leave a message?”

“I tried
leaving a message, but your receptionist hung up on me.”

“Hard to get good help these days.”

“Listen,” Ross said. “I don’t want any trouble. Cooperate and this will be quick and painless.” Ross considered pushing the fake gun bit to intimidate Jeremy further, but decided against it. As it stood, if Jeremy were to call the police, Ross was only a man with his hand in his pocket. “Tell me how you became the admitting physician of record for Blake Wheeler’s hospitalization.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t you? I have a copy of his medical records from after the shooting. You still want to play stupid?”

“How—”

“It doesn’t matter how I got them. What matters is that I know you’re lying. I also know you lobbied to have Blake started on an ASO trial, and that your request was denied. When did you first know he was sick?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re a terrible liar. You trying to get Blake on an ASO trial could mean only one thing. Huntington’s Disease has a fifty percent chance of being inherited. Blake’s father died from Huntington’s. Why wait until Blake’s hospitalization to try and treat him?”

“You had to have known Blake to understand.”

“I
need
to understand if I’m going to help Lila, or don’t you care what happens to her?”

“Of course I care. What Lila did, that stunt with the car, none of us saw it coming. She isn’t irrational, which is more than I can say for you.”

“What does that mean?”

Jeremy shook his head. “It means you have a hell of a way of treating people. I’m not sure I’d be holding someone at gunpoint for any patient.”

Ross pulled his hand out of his pocket. “What makes you think I have a gun?”

Jeremy deflated. “Seriously?”

“All kidding aside, I need your help. Lila won’t tell me the truth.”

“She’s what one might call loyal to a fault.”

“How so?”

“If Blake wanted something, Lila wanted it for him. Blake insisted we not tell anyone about his disease, especially not his mother. Lila won’t tell you why she removed him from life support because she won’t break her promise not to tell anyone he was terminal in the first place.”

“Then I’m going to have to find another way. Tell me what you know, anything that can help me get through to her. You were friends, right?”

“Blake and I were friends since we were twelve-years-old.”

“And you were never
more
than friends with Lila, right?”

“Of course not. Are you crazy?” Jeremy gestured at Ross’s pocket. “Obviously you’re a little
off
, but Blake and Lila were like family.”

“Then you knew Blake’s father?”

“I did, and his mother, Ruth, too.”

“Then explain all this secrecy.”

“I have patients waiting.”

“Patients wait, that’s what they do. You’ll tell them you had an emergency after we at least cover the highlights. When did Blake test positive for the Huntington’s gene?”

“About a year before the shooting.”

“Was the test predictive or diagnostic?”

Predictive tests were for when people had a reason to believe they carried the gene, like Blake after his father’s diagnosis. Diagnostic tests were for patients showing symptoms.

“Diagnostic.”

“How is that possible?”

“He chose not to be tested until—”

“Until he lost his patient.”

“Blake started having tremors maybe a month or so before that, but when his patient died he knew he was done.”

“Tough way to learn a lesson. How did Blake handle the news?”

“How does
anyone
face being terminal?”

Ross thought of Sarah. “I imagine he was angry.”

“At first, but he accepted it faster than I expected, which was odd for Blake. He wasn’t a ‘sit back and let things happen’ type of person. He was action-oriented by nature. When Blake found out his father was sick he spent the entire summer studying the disease at the library.”

“How old was he?”

“Fourteen. We were about to go into high school. Blake’s father’s diagnosis is what made him decide to be a doctor.”

“But not a neurologist?”

Jeremy shook his head. “Blake said he never wanted to have to give anyone the news they had Huntington’s, and he didn’t want to get it. Ruth pushed him but he refused predictive testing.”

“He was only a child. She could have made him get tested.”

“She could have, but she didn’t. Blake said he wanted to live, that if he was carrying the gene, he didn’t want to know until he had to. In a way, everything he did—becoming a surgeon and even marrying Lila—was in spite of the disease.”

“Did Lila know?”

“Which part?”

“All of it,” Ross said. “Did she know what she was getting into?”

“She did. One of the conditions of their getting married was Blake’s vasectomy, which I think was the first time they really talked about the odds. Lila wanted children, but Blake refused to risk passing the gene to a child. It was hard on Lila, but she agreed, and do you know what she said to me at the hospital?”

“What?”

“She said, ‘Even if I knew how short his life would be, I’d marry him all over again.’”

“They really were a perfect couple.”

“As perfect as any.”

“Then how do you explain the drinking?”

“She told you about that?”

“She told me Blake had pushed her.”

“Once, and he felt terrible. Lila can be the most persistent person, not that her personality excuses anything, but Blake was dealing with so much that he snapped. I think he was farther along in the disease process than we realized. He wasn’t himself. Huntington’s affects cognitive abilities, as I’m sure you know being a psychiatrist. Blake
hated
himself for what happened. He came to me the day after for help.”

“What kind of
help
?” 

“The kind of help you can only get from another physician.”

“New York doesn’t recognize the Death with Dignity Act,” Ross said.

As far as he knew, only Oregon, Washington, and Vermont did. In those three states, patients who were within six months of their natural death could request a prescription from a participating physician for a life ending drug, typically secobarbital or pentobarbital, for the purpose of ending their suffering.

“I know that.” Jeremy sighed. “He wouldn’t have met the criteria anyway. Huntington’s works at its own pace, sometimes taking years.”

“Then what did he want?”

“Prescriptions for opioids and benzodiazepines,” Jeremy said. Ross was familiar with the fatal combination. “He’d have written them himself, but the pharmacy would have red flagged them.”

“What did you do?”

“I referred him to a specialist and told him if he ever came to me asking for anything like that again, I’d tell Lila. I never heard another word about it.”

“And his hospitalization?”

“Blake was initially admitted through the ER, but he had worked at the hospital for years. Lila knew people there and managed to get him treated without anyone finding out about the Huntington’s, other than the select few in administration that authorized me to be the admitting physician of record. I coordinated his care, and yes, I went above and beyond. Blake didn’t want to be experimented on. He had seen what his father had gone through and had confided in me that, if given the option, he’d rather die in peace.”

“In your medical opinion, was he terminal?”

“He was shot in the head.”

“That wasn’t the question. Why push for the ASO protocol to possibly delay the Huntington’s symptoms if Blake had no chance of surviving?”

“How do I answer that without making you think less of Lila?”

“Try.”

“There’s an effect losing everything has on someone. Blake defined himself as a surgeon. Lila defined herself as Blake’s wife and she was ready to take care of him up until the bitter end.”

“Is that why she enrolled in nursing school?”

Jeremy nodded. “But Blake didn’t want her help. He had watched his father’s deterioration, saw what it did to his mother taking care of him, and he didn’t want that for Lila or for himself. You want my honest opinion? Blake didn’t value his life as much as he should have. As much as
I
valued his life. I thought if I could get the ASO approved, that if I could prove to Blake that it could help, maybe get rid of the tremors, he’d come around. He’d fight.” 

“You felt Blake could have pulled through after surgery?”

“Medically, there was reason to believe he might survive, yes. But he clearly didn’t want to.”

“Lila supported that?”

“Until the bitter end. She knew what Blake wanted.”

“What about Ruth? After Blake died, did anyone tell her he was sick?”

Jeremy shook his head.

“No one said
anything
, not even when this advance directive showed up?”

“What good would it have done to break Blake’s trust at that point? The hospital made it clear they intended to side with Lila.”

“Ruth tried to stop them.”

“She did, but Blake had signed the paperwork months before the shooting. Lila had lawyers and administration on her side. Ruth was fighting a losing battle.”

No wonder she was so pissed.

“Look, I know you don’t owe me anything and that we got off on the wrong foot, but since you’re a friend of the Wheelers, do you think you can convince Ruth to see me?”

“You aren’t going to tell her about Blake, are you?”

It was his only in, but he didn’t plan to tell Jeremy that. “Of course not. No,” he lied.

“Then why should I help you talk to her.”

“For Lila. It seems she and Ruth have some unfinished business.”