Page 28 of Daddy's Double Surprise

“Sunny, babe, call me. I know you’re sick, but I just need to know you’re okay and that you’re doing alright with this news…” I paused, thinking of what else I could say to her to help her come out of this shell she’d hidden in, but I had nothing except, “I love you.” Maybe it was dumb of me to say that on a voicemail and not in person, but I felt it, and I learned the hard way to never let anything go unexpressed because life was too short.

“Doc!” Jackson called, looking for me, and I sighed. It was time to get back to work, but I’d carry the weight of that interaction with Rick the rest of the day.

I rose and slid my phone into my pocket to return to work, but it started buzzing, an incoming call. As I strolled back toward the reception area, I pulled it out, thinking it might be Sunny calling me back finally, but the number and caller ID were from Joseph. I looked up at Jackson, who had a haul of patients headed for exam room one.

Narrowing my eyes at him in question, I cocked my head and he said, “Family—same symptoms.”

“Ah,” I told him as he ushered them into the room. He stood in the hallway looking back at me.

“One sec,” I told him, then answered the call. “Yeah, it’s Price.”

“Carter, I need you to come down here. Just drop everything you’re doing. I have the two doctors who’ve been doing the baiting, and I want you here when I talk to them.” Joseph sounded rushed, almost out of breath, and it made my heart jump.

“Crap,” I hissed, knowing the work load we were already under. “I’ll be there as fast as I can.”

Jackson cast a doubtful look my way and asked, “What is it?”

I moved toward him, already feeling bad for what I was about to ask him, but this couldn’t wait. We’d been looking into this for weeks now, and with the development happening in our branch in Florida, we had to move on this when we could. The last thing we needed were more patients being poorly screened and having issues. These people were sometimes desperate to make a little extra cash.

“Remember what I told you about those doctors in other clinics baiting patients to join trials?” My eyebrows rose as I pocketed my phone again, already wondering what traffic would be like.

“Yeah, what’s going on?”

“Well, Joe needs me at headquarters. We’re gonna talk to them in person. I gotta go man. I’ll be back as fast as I can, but this is super important.” I loosened my tie and ran a hand through my hair, and he nodded.

“Yeah, yeah…go, man. I got this. No problem.”

Another glance through the pane glass window at the waiting area told me he most definitely didn’t have this, but I had no choice. “You’re a lifesaver, man.”

I rushed out and into my car. In fifteen minutes, I was exiting the elevator sending Joseph a message that I was there. He met me down the hall from the conference room. His hair was disheveled like he’d been pulling it, and I felt just as frazzled as he looked.

“So have you been in to see them? What did you tell them they were here for?” My words were rushed, and I understood why he was flustered. I felt flustered too—confronting them wouldn’t be easy.

“I just asked them to come down. They don’t know. And no. I haven’t been in to see them at all. I was waiting for you. I’m not sure how to approach this all.” He stuck a finger in his collar and tugged on it.

These guys probably thought they were doing the company a service, and they’d be shocked to learn that we weren’t so happy about what was happening. They were part of the problem, but not the whole of it though, and we had to find out who was at the top of this to put an end to it. If we punished the doctors and not the recruiters in charge of the payouts, we’d have to come back to this situation in different clinics with different physicians later on.

“Let’s go in then,” I told him, sucking in a breath to help myself remain calm. The frustration over Rick’s insult was still swirling in my chest. I wanted to be levelheaded about this and not go off the rails because my friend was a total jerk. PTSD triggers aside, this was a challenging conversation to have.

Joseph opened the door and we breezed in. I’d never met these two doctors, didn’t know them from Adam, but they both knew me. I was certain of that. There was recognition on their faces as they stood and extended their hands in greeting.

“Thank you for coming in,” Joe told them as we shook hands, and then we all sat down around the oblong table. Waters had been set out by someone, condensation clinging to the glasses. I massaged the bridge of my nose before beginning what might be a very heated conversation.

“Gentlemen, I appreciate you coming in to have a discussion with us. I’m sure you are probably wondering why you’re here.” My phone buzzed in my pocket, but I ignored it in favor of getting to the truth. “It’s come to our attention that both of you have been working with our recruitment team to invite people to join our recent drug trials.”

The men exchanged confused and nervous glances. One of them, whose name tag readDr. Peters, said, “Yes, that’s right.”

I cleared my throat; it felt constricted like a snake had coiled around it choking me. “We are concerned about the ethics of inviting low-income patients into paid drug trials. We feel it’sunethical and that we are putting patients’ lives at risk by not carefully considering them.”

“With all due respect, Mr. Price,” the other man, Dr. Wilkinson, said, “It’s not our job to vet the people for the trials. We’re just paid to tell them about it.” His eyes were firm, but the man next to him looked a little squeamish.

“You’re not in trouble here,” I told them, though I didn’t care for how he disrespected me by not using my proper title. “We’re just trying to get to the bottom of this so we can improve our methods and ensure every person in the trial is qualified and not at risk.” Sunny’s words about Kira not being screened properly ate away at my conscience. That never should’ve happened, but it was a whole different problem. We shouldn’t have been preying on low-income individuals and their need for financial stability with untested drugs.

“What Dr. Price is trying to say, gentlemen, is that we’re doing our own internal process for quality assurance.” I hated how Joseph boiled it down to how business was run, but that was his job. Make the business run smoothly. “We’d like the name of the men you are working with. Nothing more.”

The true test was if they’d cough up the names. Now that they knew we were looking into things, they probably could deduce that we were cutting off the cash flow and their moneymaker would go up in smoke. Both of them stared at us, tight-lipped and silent.

“We’re not on a witch hunt to punish anyone; we just want to do what’s right,” I told them, but I could tell by their expressions they weren’t going to give up information so easily. I settled in for what could be a very long conversation and pulled my phone out to see what notification I’d missed.

---