I pull out my phone and dial her number, but it just goes to voicemail.
Something’s wrong.
There’s no reason she should be this far over her time unless something’s wrong. Even if her appointment went late and she didn’t want to stop by the office because she didn’t want to risk anyone catching onto what’s going on between us, she could have stepped outside the hospital for a minute and given me a call or sent me a text.
Now, her phone is off. Sure, it’s possible that her battery is dead, but — I’ve just got to get out of here.
I leave the papers where they are on my desk and it’s all I can do to remember to turn the lights off on my way out.
My keys are in my hand and I open the door to the outer office just in time to see Dr. Preston, Dean of Medicine, coming down the hall toward my office.
“How are you today, Dr. Preston?” I ask, locking my door.
“Would you mind if we talk for a minute?” he asks.
“You know,” I tell him, “I was just heading out-”
“Let’s talk in your office,” he interrupts. “It’ll only take a minute.”
I quickly unlock my office door again and flip the lights back on.
“Does it matter which room we’re in?” I ask.
“Not particularly,” he says, closing the door behind him and locking it. “Do you have a patient named Grace Miller?”
“Yeah,” I answer. “Why? What happened?”
“I was hoping you could tell me,” he says. “I’ve been hearing all sorts of stories about what’s been going on in your office over the last little while, and I wanted to give you a chance to explain yourself.”
“What do you mean?”
“Jace,” he says, “now’s not the time to cover your tracks. Now is the time to be perfectly honest with me. Right now, I’m thinking that’s your best shot at saving your job.”
I sit down.
“What have you heard?” I ask.
“Why?” he rejoins. “So you can confirm everything I tell you and deny anything else?”
“I’m asking because I don’t know exactly what you’re talking about and I’d rather not go off on a tangent unless there’s some reason for doing it.”
“You’re sleeping with a patient,” he says. “Is that a fair statement?”
“She’s not a patient,” I tell him.
“Oh, I know she’s in our clinical trial on JH813,” Dr. Preston says. “From what I hear, though, the two of you had an inappropriate relationship before she was in the trial. Speaking of which, weren’t you her diagnosing physician?”
My blood runs cold in my veins.
I never thought I would actually get the question, but there it is, and I have to make a choice. Either I lie and put myself in even more jeopardy, not to mention throwing Dr. Marcum under the bus for doing me a favor, or I tell the truth, spare Dr. Marcum, and possibly lose everything I went to med school to accomplish.
“Yes,” I tell him.
“I see,” Dr. Preston says. “And how long have you been a doctor?” he asks.
“I got my license about two years ago,” I tell him.
“Are you aware that one of the stipulations for patients to be in that trial is that they must have had the disease for five years or more?”