Page 23 of Private Exhibit
Of course, what he really couldn't face was actually finding a cure now, when it would do his own son no good.
Andy muttered a curse. One way or another, he was going to have to fight this attraction. Keep himself distant.
He couldn't survive that kind of heartbreak and failure again.
Chapter 9
DEVON HAD to get up and stretch after he finally closed out the first file.
Gods. Dr. Gerard's record-keeping was an absolute mess. His penmanship was atrocious to the point that even the computer couldn't figure out what the man had been trying to write. Devon would scan a page from the file and import it to the digital record, except the computer would light up with all these little red spots where it couldn't make out a word.
And then Dr. Gerard had sometimes written things in the wrong fields. It looked like the man had been in such a hurry, he'd jotted down a note wherever was convenient: a comment about the heart in the field for a description of the brain, or a note about the feet where an analysis of the lungs was supposed to go. Devon had to go through and manually move things around until they were all in their proper places.
He eyed the stacks of tablets and files yet to be processed. Devon blew out a heavy breath. This was going to take a while.
But that was fine. He had a job. And this certainly beat waiting tables by a long shot. He didn't miss that kind of work at all. The crowds. The noise. The heat and the frenzied rush. Knowing that, at any moment, his arm might give out and cause him to dump a whole stack of plates on a customer. Devon shuddered, then closed his eyes. He felt a smile tug at his mouth, reveling in the silence and the crisp, cool air. He couldn't have planned a better workspace himself.
Other than all the morbid reminders that surrounded him, of course.
He went back to the desk and set the completed file aside, then reached for the next one. Devon paused there, eyeing the two neat stacks he'd made. He grabbed the next tablet, then flipped through the stack of paper files. Sure enough, the tablet had a patient record still open and incomplete when Devon switched it on, and he found a paper file to go with it.
Devon dragged the tablets closer and laid them all out across the desk surface, switching them on so he could read the patient names. Then he sorted through the paper files, matching them up. Every tablet had a paper file to go with it. Hells, some even had two. Devon chuckled. Had the doctor forgotten he'd started a file, then went and created another one? Devon shook his head and finished sorting. Once he was done, he made sure the patient information clearly matched for each one—both name and ID number—then he stacked up the paper files again, putting them to one side. He closed the patient file on each tablet and powered the devices down. He'd be able to access the files through the desk computer itself, all the information stored on the hospital's main server.
He simply couldn't resist a chance to really play with a computer that was wholly outside his price range.
Devon opened a screen on the desk surface and looked up the hospital's policy manual. He quickly searched the document, noting that tablets were returned to I.T. once a patient had been discharged. Or, in this case, had a completed autopsy. Devon carefully gathered the stack of tablets, prayed that he wouldn't drop them, and headed down the hallway to the elevator. Thank gods, he'd already been to I.T. once that day, so he knew where he was going. Less chance of getting lost or overwhelmed.
He reached the office without incident, the glass door sliding open automatically at his approach. Devon stepped up to thefront desk, behind which he could see enclosed glass cubicles where the rest of the I.T. staff worked, all of them able to see one another while also enjoying the peace and solitude of their own, defined spaces. A geek's paradise. Devon shook his head.Gods. This hospital had thought of everything.
Devon carefully set the stack of tablets on the counter and watched the receptionist's eyebrows go up.
“You finished already?” the guy asked.
“Only just begun, really,” Devon admitted. “But the files are mostly on paper, so these were just cluttering the desk.”
“I feel that,” the receptionist said with a laugh, dragging the tablets across the counter and setting them on a rolling cart. He turned back, grabbing something off his tidy desk. “This is perfect timing, actually. I was just about to call you.” He held out a key card. “Bokin wanted me to give you this, but he said he wants to talk to you about it first.”
Devon took the card. “What is it?”
“Key to Doctor Gerard's old office.” A phone rang, so the receptionist started to turn away. “Bokin's office is at the end of the hall,” he quickly said, pointing to his right as he snatched up the phone.
Devon eyed the card in his hands, then quietly left the room. He turned to the right and headed down the hallway, stopping when he reached an office guarded by a secretary.
But the secretary let him right in when he gave his name, and Mr. Bokin stood up from behind his desk with a welcoming smile.
“Devon! Come in. Come in.” Mr. Bokin shook his hand. “Are you settling in well?”
“Yes, thank you,” Devon managed.
“I see you got my message,” the man said, pointing at the card. “Why don't you have a seat.”
Devon sat, squeezing his legs together and trying not to rock.
Mr. Bokin sat across from him. “I apologize in advance if this is an inappropriate request, but it is part of the reason we hired someone for this position, so I'm going to ask anyway.” He paused. “That key is to Gerard's old office. When you're done processing all the morgue files, we need all of Gerard's old study files digitized so they can be boxed up and moved to storage.” Mr. Bokin paused again. “You know Gerard was studying Ashworth-Grahams?”
Devon nodded.
“If you're at all uncomfortable with–”
