Page 32 of Fractured Reunion

“Jack is your cop friend, right?”

“Yeah, Jack Waldon. Anyway, he is very familiar with that address. The building houses low-income rental units, and while there are plenty of good people who live there, Jack said they’ve responded to multiple calls related to drug deals and prostitution.”

Somehow, Aaron wasn’t surprised by that. “But no arrests where Oliver Chism was involved?”

“No. But I told him to keep an eye out on the guy.” Alec shrugged. “Maybe Chism will screw up.”

“Yeah, maybe.” He wasn’t about to bank on it, though. Especially not when Chism is seeing dollar signs related to Joey’s accident. He was cynical enough to think that the potential settlement along with governmental support were the main drivers behind Chism’s actions regarding his son. “Thanks, Alec. I appreciate your buddy keeping an eye out for this guy.”

“I can always follow him if needed,” Alec said with a grin. “It might be fun. I enjoy my new role as being a detective, but I wouldn’t mind getting back out on the street.”

“No need,” he said. “I’m sure you have plenty of other stuff to do.”

“If you change your mind, let me know.” Alec pinned him with a serious gaze. “How are you really? I’m surprised Maggie is here in town.”

Aaron grimaced. “Yeah, her showing up was a shock. Seeing her is reopening old wounds.” Thankfully, his pager went off. “I better take this.”

“Yeah, sure.” Alec turned to head back inside.

For the next couple of hours, Aaron fielded several calls. Nothing that required him to head back to the hospital, which was probably a good thing.

After brunch, he went home to pull his notes together on Dale Fullerton in preparation for the Monday morning meeting. By the time he’d finished, he felt confident he had more than enough proof of Fullerton’s dereliction of duty.

The question remained, though, whether Chief of Staff Rob Kent would agree with his recommendation to take formal action against Fullerton. Obviously, that was not a step to be taken lightly. And physicians had to be offered due process according to the medical staff bylaws.

Yet Aaron kept coming back to the potential impact to patient care. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if one of their small patients suffered because Fullerton didn’t bother to answer his pages.

And waiting until they had a medical malpractice case hanging over their heads was not an option.

The following morning, Aaron made sure to get to the hospital early. For one thing, he wanted to check on Grace, but he also suspected Fullerton would show up early for their meeting.

He was right. At six forty, there was a knock at his door. Steeling himself for the upcoming unpleasant discussion, Aaron stood and opened the door.

Dale Fullerton was freshly showered, shaved, and dressed to kill in an expensive suit.

“You’re early,” Aaron said. “Rob Kent isn’t here yet.”

“I was hoping we could talk first without him,” Fullerton said. “I think you’re blowing this incident way out of proportion.”

It wasn’t just once incident, but he planned to wait until Rob Kent was there to go through everything. “Sorry, I have a few calls to make. You’ll need to wait here for Rob.” Aaron gestured to the pair of chairs off to the side of the outer office area. Normally, his receptionist would be there to help manage things, but Hannah didn’t come in until seven thirty.

He hoped the meeting with Fullerton and Rob was over by then.

Maggie was right, he did not like conflict.

“I only need a few minutes,” Fullerton insisted.

“Have a seat,” Aaron said. “If my calls finish early, I’ll let you know.”

“But—” He didn’t give Fullerton a chance to finish. Instead, he stepped back into his office and closed the door.

Just so that he wasn’t lying, he made a few calls. One was to the seventh-south nursing station to see if Kyle was up there making rounds. The other was to the nurse at Grace’s bedside in the PICU. Even though he’d checked in on the little girl, she had been scheduled to have a chest X-ray done.

“Yes, Dr. Monroe, the radiology tech has been here to take the X-ray,” the nurse confirmed. “I’m sure the results will be available soon.”

“Thank you.” He hung up the phone, then logged into the patient medical record system. He took a few minutes to look at the chest X-ray for himself, more to buy time than anything.

Grace’s lungs looked clear, and that meant she could be transferred out of the PICU to a regular floor later that morning. Satisfied Grace was on the mend, he logged off.

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