Tess Geritsen - Under The Knife

“And you told her everything was.”

“Yes. Including the EKG.”

“Then you obviously made a mistake.”

“I just told you, Mr. Ransom. I don’t make stupid mistakes. And I didn’t make one that night.”

“But the record shows—”

“The record’s wrong.”

“I have the tracing right here in black and white. And it plainly shows a heart attack.”

“That’s not the EKG I saw!”

He looked as if he hadn’t heard her quite right.

“The EKG I saw that night was normal,” she insisted.

“Then how did this abnormal one pop into the chart?”

“Someone put it there, of course.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know.”

“I see.” Turning away, he said under his breath: “I can’t wait to see how this plays in court.”

“Mr. Ransom, if I made a mistake, I’d be the first to admit it!”

“Then you’d be amazingly honest.”

“Do you really think I’d make up a story as—as stupid as this?”

His response was an immediate burst of laughter that left her cheeks burning. “No,” he answered. “I’m sure you’d come up with something much more believable.” He gave her an inviting nod. In a voice thick with sarcasm, he jeered, “Please, I’m dying to know how this extraordinary mix-up happened. How did the wrong EKG get in the chart?”

“How should I know?”

“You must have a theory.”

“I don’t.”

“Come on, Doctor, don’t disappoint me.”

“I said I don’t.”

“Then make a guess!”

“Maybe someone beamed it there from the Starship Enterprise !” she yelled in frustration.

“Nice theory,” he said, deadpan. “But let’s get back to reality. Which, in this case, happens to be a particular sheet of wood by-product, otherwise known as paper.” He flipped the chart open to the damning EKG. “Explain that away.”

“I told you, I can’t! I’ve gone crazy trying to figure it out! We do dozens of EKGs every day at Mid Pac. It could have been a clerical error. A mislabeled tracing. Somehow, that page was filed in the wrong chart.”

“But you’ve written your initials on this page.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Is there some other K.C., M.D.?”

“Those are my initials. But I didn’t write them.”

“What are you saying? That this is a forgery?”

“It—it has to be. I mean, yes, I guess it is….” Suddenly confused, she shoved back a rebellious strand of hair off her face. His utterly calm expression rattled her. Why didn’t the man react, for God’s sake? Why did he just sit there, regarding her with that infuriatingly bland expression?

“Well,” he said at last.

“Well what?”

“How long have you had this little problem with people forging your name?”

“Don’t make me sound paranoid!”

“I don’t have to. You’re doing fine on your own.”

Now he was silently laughing at her; she could see it in his eyes. The worst part was that she couldn’t blame him. Her story did sound like a lunatic’s ravings.

“All right,” he relented. “Let’s assume for the moment you’re telling the truth.”

“Yes!” she snapped. “Please do!”

“I can think of only two explanations for why the EKG would be intentionally switched. Either someone’s trying to destroy your career—”

“That’s absurd. I don’t have any enemies.”

“Or someone’s trying to cover up a murder.”

At her stunned expression, he gave her a maddeningly superior smile. “Since the second explanation obviously strikes both of us as equally absurd, I have no choice but to conclude you’re lying.” He leaned forward and his voice was suddenly soft, almost intimate. The shark was getting chummy; that had to be dangerous. “Come on, Doctor,” he prodded. “Level with me. Tell me what really happened in the O.R. Was there a slip of the knife? A mistake in anesthesia?”

“There was nothing of the kind!”

“Too much laughing gas and not enough oxygen?”

“I told you, there were no mistakes!”

“Then why is Ellen O’Brien dead?”

She stared at him, stunned by the violence in his voice. And the blueness of his eyes. A spark seemed to fly between them, ignited by something entirely unexpected. With a shock, she realized he was an attractive man. Too attractive. And that her response to him was dangerous. She could already feel the blush creeping into her face, could feel a flood of heat rising inside her.

“No answer?” he challenged smoothly. He settled back, obviously enjoying the advantage he held over her. “Then why don’t I tell you what happened? On April 2, a Sunday night, Ellen O’Brien checked into Mid Pac Hospital for routine gallbladder surgery. As her anesthesiologist, you ordered routine pre-op tests, including an EKG, which you checked before leaving the hospital that night. Maybe you were rushed. Maybe you had a hot date waiting. Whatever the reason, you got careless and you made a fatal error. You missed those vital clues in the EKG: the elevated ST waves, the inverted T waves. You pronounced it normal and signed your initials. Then you left for the night—never realizing your patient had just had a heart attack.”

“She never had any symptoms! No chest pain—”

“But it says right here in the nurses’ notes—let me quote—” he flipped through the chart “—‘Patient complaining of abdominal discomfort.’”

“That was her gallstone—”

“Or was it her heart? Anyway, the next events are indisputable. You and Dr. Santini took Ms. O’Brien to surgery. A few whiffs of anesthesia and the stress was too much for her weakened heart. So it stopped. And you couldn’t restart it.” He paused dramatically, his eyes as hard as diamonds. “There, Dr. Chesne. You’ve just lost your patient.”

“That’s not how it happened! I remember that EKG. It was normal !”

“Maybe you’d better review your textbook on EKGs.”

“I don’t need a textbook. I know what’s normal!” She scarcely recognized her own voice, echoing shrilly through the vast room.

He looked unimpressed. Bored, even. “Really—” he sighed “—wouldn’t it be easier just to admit you made a mistake?”

“Easier for whom?”

“For everyone involved. Consider an out-of-court settlement. It’d be fast, easy and relatively painless.”

“A settlement? But that’s admitting a mistake I never made!”

What little patience he had left finally snapped. “You want to go to trial?” he shot back. “Fine. But let me tell you something about the way I work. When I try a case, I don’t do it halfway. If I have to tear you apart in court, I’ll do it. And when I’m finished, you’ll wish you’d never turned this into some ridiculous fight for your honor. Because let’s face it, Doctor. You don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell.”

She wanted to grab him by those pinstriped lapels. She wanted to scream out that in all this talk about settlements and courtrooms, her own anguish over Ellen O’Brien’s death had been ignored. But suddenly all her rage, all her strength, seemed to drain away, leaving her exhausted. Wearily she slumped back in her chair. “I wish I could admit I made a mistake,” she said quietly. “I wish I could just say, ‘I know I’m guilty and I’ll pay for it.’ I wish to God I could say that. I’ve spent the last week wondering about my memory. Wondering how this could have happened. Ellen trusted me and I let her die. It makes me wish I’d never become a doctor, that I’d been a clerk or a waitress—anything else. I love my work. You have no idea how hard it’s been—how much I’ve given up—just to get to where I am. And now it looks as if I’ll lose my job….” She swallowed and her head drooped in defeat. “And I wonder if I’ll ever be able to work again….”