Page 6 of Doctor Enemy

“My second,” I tell her. I can still hear the heart monitor droning in my ears.

“I haven’t lost one yet.” She leans over and raps her knuckles against the coffee table, which is crowded with newspapers and magazines. “Knock on wood.”

Cara straightens up, her dark eyes filled with sorrow. “I’m sorry that they didn’t make it.”

My lips draw into a tight line. “It was Lockwood’s fault. We wouldn’t have lost the kid if he hadn’t been out drinking last night. He would haveseenthe problem.”

Cara asks, “Kurt Lockwood? Like, the neurosurgeon?”

I nod.

She reaches out and puts a hand on my shoulder. “Lori, I’m sure that it wasn’t Kurt’s fault. I’ve worked with him before. He’s a good doctor. Like, he’s a really great one.”

“No, he’s not,” I argue.

I’m not being fair to the man, and I know it.

I’ve got a lot of personal issues with Kurt, between the fact that he bought into his position here as head of the neuro department and the fact that he’s always sleeping around.

Neither of those things change the fact that he’s, you know, smart.

But today, all I can think about is that we just lost Sawyer. I’m desperate for any sort of an explanation for why someonethat younghad to die.

Blaming it on Kurt, when I already don’t like the man, is a lot easier than it should be. “He doesn’t put any effort into his work. All he does is ride the coattails of his family name and–and he gets away with it!”

“Look, I know that the Lockwoods are a family of surgeons, but that doesn’t mean Kurt doesn’t know what he’s doing,” says Cara, clearly trying to reason with me. “He’s always seemed super invested in his patients. We worked together on the team that studied Margur’s.”

My lips purse. “I know.”

Cara continues, “The only times that Kurt wasn’t in that research lab were when he was out on the floor handling a patient, or when he and Jackson were having a tiff about what direction the studies needed to go in. He’s rich, but he doesn’t let that stop him from working hard.”

“Someone that was invested in their patients wouldn’t always be out drinking. I’ve seen him come in with hangover’s before, you know? You can’t think straight when you're like that,” I say, and I can’t help but think about the very first time that I worked with Lockwood.

It had been a fourteen-year-old girl, Sadie, and she was a budding gymnast that had taken a serious fall during practice. She had not only fractured her neck but had suffered enough trauma to the head—her brain had started bleeding.

So in came Lockwood, totally taking overmycase.

He didn’t run anything past me, even though I had been with Sadie from the start, and he came insecond. Lockwood was full of himself, had no respect for the other doctors that he was working with, and was aknownplayer.

As someone who’s been cheated on in the past, I can’t stand people who think that one-night stands are the epitome of a relationship.

Cara doesn’t answer right away.

I don’t know if she’s trying to let me have a moment to cool down, or if she’s trying to gather her own thoughts.

Either way, I appreciate it when she finally breaks the silence. “I don’t know what the case was, or who your patient was. But they must have been in seriously bad shape for Kurt to be called in with you. I doubt thateitherof you are at fault here.”

“You’re right,” I admit, sullenly. “You don’t know what happened. But— Can we just go back to talking about something distracting?”

Cara is clearly not thrilled by my dismissal of Kurt’s defense, but she doesn’t argue with it either.

She just launches back into another story about her uncle and his Little Lady. It starts with a check that’s supposed to go into the kid’s college funds and ends with averyunhappy wife.

By the time Cara is finished with her story, I’m feeling a bit more composed. I stand up, giving her a smile. “Thanks for sitting with me.”

“Heading to get the paperwork taken care of?” Cara asks.

I nod. “I don’t want to do it but… Hey, who does?” I try to crack a smile, but it’s watery and weak. “I figure that it’s only going to get worse the longer that I put it off.”

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