Page 24 of Safe With Me

“Nurses and interns I guess. I…didn’t treat them well.”

“Would they know at what point in the surgery you did something wrong?”

“When blood started to spurt out of the artery. I was snipping vessels and must have nicked it.”

“Must have?”

“I assumed I did. All that blood….”

“What did the autopsy show?”

He froze for a minute. “I never saw it.”

“Why?”

“The head of surgery called me in soon after it happened. When I got to her office, I was so abhorred by what I did, I quit, walked out and fell off the grid.”

“So you don’t know what action they were going to take.”

“Noreen Shannon, the head of the department, recently told me she was planning to temporarily suspend me until further investigation could be done.”

“That’s something we can work with. I’ll need her contact information.”

“She came to the clinic not long ago. She wanted a job.”

Nick sat back. He was a big man, easy with himself. “Well, that’s good news. She wouldn’t work with someone she was sure was guilty of negligence.”

“I don’t know if that’s true.”

Redmond held his gaze. “Pax, the witnesses were never cross-examined.”

“You really think you can prove I wasn’t guilty?”

“Nope, but I can prove there’s reasonable doubt that you were negligent. This charge has so many holes it’s like a sieve.”

* * *

Nick Redmond left the clinic and forcefully suppressed his pity for the doctor he’d visited. For the last two years, he’d been blocking his feelings about anything. If one snuck through, the entire dam of denial would burst. He couldn’t afford that. He had to keep going.

His offices were in Syracuse and he drove his BMW to them. He parked in his reserved spot, then took the elevator to the tenth floor. The firm now had twelve lawyers and the status of working for Redmond Associates had elevated them, too.

His secretary greeted him. “Hello, Mr. Redmond. Did you have a productive meeting with Mr. Kane?”

“Actually, it turned out to be with a friend of his. I’ll have some notes on what I need from you in an hour or so.”

“You have a deposition at noon.”

“That’s right. Thanks for the reminder, Ms. Montgomery.” He insisted they keep everything formal from the top down. Consequently, he knew nothing about his assistant of two years except for the work she did here and what her application revealed.

Once in his office, which had a view of Onondaga Lake’s southwestern shore, he steepled his hands and stared out his wall of windows. The situation with Pax Barry was messy and Nick didn’t do messy well. But Jackson Kane was his best client and he’d take care of this business before doing work for anyone else. So he slid the papers the doctor had received out of his briefcase and combed through them. Just as he thought, the lawsuit was weak. And it was his job to explore those weaknesses. First up, he’d file a response to the allegations. He took out the small recorder where he’d taped Barry’s retelling of what happened.

Next he recorded the firm’s response—which amounted to not guilty of wrongful death due to negligence—and a motion to dismiss, enumerating why. He sent both to his assistant to type up.

When that was finished, he made a list on his tablet of what he would request after they received an answer to the filing. First up would be the names of the witnesses.

His cell phone blared. He recognized the ring tone. If he didn’t answer, she would come here. His heart started to beat at a clip. He couldn’t get away from this reminder. “What can I do for you, Audrey?”

“You bastard. A realtor came here and put up a sign that my house is for sale.”

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