Page 18 of Silent Deception
Senator Gallagher followed him, leveled a cold look at Kristin, and folded his arms. “I have a cardiologist in San Antonio.”
“But you haven’t seen him in almost two years, and he’sover an houraway,” Ryan said evenly. The set of his jaw suggested that the trip into town hadn’t been easy. “You need a local doctor, too.”
“Come on back, Senator. This won’t take long.” Facing the man who had nearly destroyed her years ago, Kristin dredged up a weak smile.
I believe someone forced your dad’s truck off the road—and I think I know who it was.Though Nora had refused to elaborate, it didn’t take much imagination to guess who that someone was.
When she was younger, Kristin had discovered just how cruel and domineering Clint could be...yet it hardly seemed plausible that an influential senator would jeopardize his privileged status with murder.
“We have some old records from the Dr. Grady days, but I’m sure we’ll need to update your history, sir. We’ll also need a release so we can get copies of your current records from your cardiologist.”
Ryan turned to look out the window of the clinic as Kristin led his father down the hall to an exam room. Clint took a chair in the corner instead of the exam table, his face impassive.
His responses to her questions were cursory at best—and likely not entirely accurate, given the stubborn jut of his jaw. Fortunately, he signed a release for the transfer of his medical records in San Antonio. While he was disrobing, she faxed it to the cardiology clinic and then called them to ask if the records could be faxed back ASAP.
Back in the exam room, she found Clint sitting on the exam table, his shirt off. He sat in silence as she took his blood pressure both sitting and standing, then listened to his heart and lungs. “You said you weren’t on any medications. Is that correct?”
His mouth tightened. “Nothing I need to take.”
“I’m hearing some PVCs—an irregular beat. I’d like to do an EKG while you’re here.” When he bristled, she added, “It’s apparently been a while since you’ve been to a doctor, so it’s good to have a baseline.”
“Who reads it,you?”
His derisive tone rankled. “Yes, and then I’ll send it on to Dr. Hernandez and the cardiologist in San Antonio.”
She rolled the EKG machine from its place in the corner and attached the leads, then watched the tracing of a telltale pattern confirming her initial diagnosis.
He apparently noticed something in her expression, because his eyebrows drew together. “Normal, I suppose.”
“Not entirely,” she hedged. “Though in a man your age we can hardly expect a twenty-year-old heart, right? We’ll have a report back from the cardiologist by tomorrow, and we should have your old records by then, too.”
He looked wary as she prepared to draw blood samples. “Are you okay with this? Do you want to lie down?”
“No,” he growled. “Let’s just get this farce over with.”
She bit back the impulse to defend her training and experience as she applied the tourniquet, swiftly found a good vein, and drew two test tubes. He turned slightly ashen, and his skin felt damp by the time she finished.
When he started to climb off the table, she held him gently back. “Do needles bother you? Maybe you’d better sit for just a minute. You’re a little pale.”
He jerked his arm away. “I don’t need your advice, missy. Now leave me be so I can dress.”
She lingered close by, anyway, as he stood, wavered a little, then seemed to regain his color. “I’ll go on out to the front desk and see if your records have come yet.”
She’d gathered her lab tray and was almost to the door when he barked her name. “Yes?”
He’d shrugged into his shirt and was starting to do up the first button, but his gaze was pinned on her face with an intensity that made her shiver.
“I don’t know why you’re back in town, and I don’t much care. But you keep away from my son, you hear?”
