Richard Mabry - Medical Error

Anna stretched and yawned. It was good to wake up in her bed. She luxuriated in the feel of fresh sheets, crisp and clean against her skin. She inhaled the aroma of the coffee that the automatic timer on her coffeepot had already started brewing. Mike Simpson wanted to keep her in the hospital for another day, but she pleaded with him until he gave in, extracting a promise that she take it easy for a few more days. Her definition of taking it easy would probably be different from Mike's, but she had things to do and not even a concussion would stop her. Some coffee and a couple of Tylenols should get her going. Then she'd see where the day took her.

Anna sat in her robe at the kitchen table and nibbled on a toasted English muffin spread with cherry jam. Her mind was already busy trying to decide where in the tangled skein of her problems she might find a loose thread to pull. Repair her credit? She needed to take Ross the paperwork she'd started, but that wasn't urgent. Clear herself with the police and the DEA? Right now, the DEA seemed content to let her alone. As for the police, Green and Dowling had grudgingly agreed to put offthe interview until tomorrow, and there was no use worrying about that until she knew what they wanted.

Then there was the Hatley case. She was sure now that his death wasn't due to malpractice, but rather a terrible accident directly attributable to someone using Hatley's identity to put false data into his medical records. Ross had warned her away from digging further into the Hatley case, at least until they saw whether a malpractice case was truly forthcoming. But Anna couldn't get over the feeling that she and Eric Hatley weren't the only two people who'd suffered misappropriation of their medical insurance information. If she could somehow find a pattern, she might be able to trace the enterprise back to its perpetrators. And if she could do that, she'd solve a lot of her problems.

After breakfast, Anna sat down at her desk and went through the mail that had accumulated during her brief hospitalization. She set a few bills aside to be paid and tossed the junk mail into the wastebasket. Then she recalled her intention to get a shredder, something else that had fallen through the cracks, something more for her "to do" list. Anna retrieved the mail from the wastebasket and shuffled through it to find everything that had her name and address on it. By the time she finished tearing the documents to shreds, her wastebasket looked like the aftermath of a snowstorm.

Maybe she'd better check her bank balance before she paid the bills. She logged onto the bank's website, entered her user name and password, and frowned when she saw the amount shown in her account. That couldn't be right. What had happened?

She clicked on "transactions" and ran her finger down the list on the screen. She didn't recall writing the last three checks that were listed. Matter of fact, she was certain she'd never bought anything from those stores. Was someone… did this mean…? No, there was no question. Identity theft and its effect on her finances had just jumped to the head of her to-do list for the day.

Nick Valentine sensed movement in the doorway of his office. He looked up to see Anna standing there, holding two cups of what appeared to be Starbucks' best.

"Hey there. How are you feeling?"

Anna handed him one of the cups and settled into the chair across the desk from him. "Still a dull headache. Sometimes I feel like I need to brush some cobwebs out of my brain. But all in all, not too bad."

He motioned her to a chair. "What are you doing here? I thought Dr. Fowler told you to take a few more days off."

Anna shook her head, sending her red hair left and right, revealing a few gold highlights Nick hadn't seen before. "I came by to get some papers I left in my office. I need to take them to my attorney." She smiled. "While I was in the building, I thought I'd come by and share some coffee with you."

"That's great." He took a sip. Perfect. Just like the beautiful woman sitting across from him. "Anna, I think we're getting to be more than friends. At least, I hope so. And I hope you feel that way too."

Anna gazed at her coffee cup as though it were a crystal ball. "Nick, I like you a lot. But right now my life is so messed up, I don't think there's any way I can get into the kind of relationship I think you want. Maybe, after things straighten out, that's a possibility. In the meantime, can we continue to be good friends?"

Nick forced a smile. "Sure. And friends help each other. Is there anything I can do?"

Anna rose and dropped her half-full cup into the wastebasket."Thanks, but I'm not sure myself what my next move needs to be. I'm on my way to meet with Ross Donovan, and we'll map out our strategy then."

The name brought bile to Nick's throat, and he tried to push it down with a sip of coffee. "Don't forget that I'm here to help. Ready, willing, able… and sober."

"Nick, don't be that way. Ross has had some problems with alcohol, but he's doing okay now. And don't be jealous that I'm seeing him. I'm in legal trouble, and he's my attorney. If I were in medical trouble, I'd turn to you."

"I just don't want you hurt." Nick wondered if that wasn't a half-truth. The truth was that if Anna began to develop feelings for her attorney, there was a chance it would end in heartbreak for her. But Nick's heart might be broken as well.

Ross Donovan reached for the manila folder Anna held out.

"This is what I put together," she said. "I was on my way to the medical school to make some copies when my car died. By the time I got to the school, something else came up, and I just threw this into a desk drawer and forgot about it." She grimaced. "Sorry."

Ross dropped the folder onto the corner of his desk. "No problem. I'll look through this to make sure you have all the paperwork done right. You can sign the forms, and we'll send them to your credit card companies and the credit-reporting bureaus. I'll help you make sure there's no permanent damage to your credit."

"Unfortunately, something else happened today. I guess you need to know about that too."

He listened, occasionally jotting a note, as Anna told him about her discovery of the checks someone had written on her account. "Have you spoken with the bank?" he asked.

"I stopped by and talked with one of the officers at my local branch. There's no question the checks were forged. What confuses me is that they were written on my own blank checks. The name, the address, even the style of the check-all the same as the ones I've always used."

"Easy enough for someone to get hold of one of your checks and have new ones printed, you know."

"I know," Anna said. "But the sequence of numbers corresponded to my own checks. These followed the last check I wrote. Matter of fact, I haven't written any checks in the past four days, not only because I've been in the hospital, but because I ran out of checks. In church last Sunday, I saw that my checkbook was empty, so that evening I went online and ordered a new batch. They haven't come yet, though. Guess I need to check on that."

Ross was shaking his head before Anna finished. "Here's what probably happened. The online order was picked up first thing Monday and, unfortunately for you, they got right on it and printed them. The checks were mailed out Tuesday morning and arrived at your place Wednesday, while you were in the hospital. Someone stole the order from your mailbox and had a whole day to write checks before you came home on Thursday."

"I never thought about that. I've always had the checks sent to me by mail."

"You've been lucky so far. Doing it that way is fine if someone has to sign for them, but it's risky if they're simply left in your curbside mailbox. Ideally, you should have them delivered to your branch bank for you to pick up. It's even better to get a post office box and have all your secure mail sent there." Ross leaned across the desk. "Is the bank crediting your account?"