Savage (Iron Rogues MC #12)

Chapter 1

1

TAMARA

T he final patient of the day gave me a crooked smile as I slipped the blood pressure cuff off his arm.

“All done, Mr. Jenkins.” I typed the last of his vitals into his chart. “Your numbers look better than last week.”

“Must be all that green stuff the pretty nurse told me to eat,” he grumbled, trying to sound annoyed but not quite pulling it off.

I shook my head with a grin. “Spinach isn’t the enemy, no matter what you tell yourself. And don’t forget to drink more water, not soda.”

He waved me off with a shaky hand, already reaching for the can of Mountain Dew in his walker basket. “I’m eighty-two. If soda kills me, it’ll just mean I went out happy.”

It was hard to argue with his logic, so I kept my thoughts to myself as I helped him out of the mobile clinic’s exam room and down the ramp, watching to make sure he made it to the sidewalk safely before heading back inside.

My legs ached from being on my feet all day, and my stomach gave a low growl of protest. Lunch had been a granola bar around noon that I’d eaten standing up between patients. That was pretty typical for a Monday.

“Hey, Tamara. That was the last one, right?” Marcy asked.

I flashed a tired smile at the nurse who worked most of the same shifts as I did. “Yup, I’m just getting ready to wipe everything down and finish charting.”

“Great. Thanks, girl. You’re the best.” She disappeared again before I could say anything else.

I sank into the rolling chair at the computer station and pulled up Mr. Jenkins’s chart, fingers moving from habit. The hum of the AC unit mixed with the occasional creak of the van’s frame as it shifted on its tires. Normally, I liked the end-of-shift quiet. But something tugged at the back of my mind.

A weird feeling I hadn’t been able to shake all weekend.

It started with a patient whose name I couldn’t find in the system. Then a follow-up that never got scheduled. Today, it was a file that had been there on Friday and was suddenly gone when I looked for it this morning.

I clicked over to the database again, hoping I’d just been tired and misspelled the name all three times I typed it in. But I still couldn’t find anything as I backtracked through the patient list. There was no trace of her visit. No intake notes, no vitals, no discharge summary. It was as though she’d never stepped foot in the clinic, but she definitely had. I’d taken her pulse myself.

My fingers tightened on the mouse. This wasn’t just a typo. Someone had erased the record.

And it wasn’t the first time a patient’s file had mysteriously vanished.

The chair behind me squeaked. I spun around to find the head physician assistant watching me with narrowed eyes.

“You’re still here?” Barbara asked.

I nodded, trying to keep my expression neutral. “Just wrapping up my charting.”

Her gaze darted toward the computer monitor. “Having a problem?”

“No.” I shook my head and wiggled my hands. “My fingers are moving faster than my brain apparently. Just fixing a typo so I can add a couple of notes to Mr. Jenkins’s chart.”

“Okay.”

Barbara was my supervisor, so I should have asked her about the missing files. But she was quick to write people up for the tiniest mistake. And something about the suspicious gleam in her eyes made me wonder if she had a feeling that I had lied.

She disappeared down the narrow hall that separated the exam area from the mobile clinic’s admin side. I waited until the sound of her heels faded before turning back to the computer.

I searched for a few other names I could remember. Two more came back blank, and a third had a discharge summary, but it was dated two days before the appointment. That kind of mistake was hard to make since the calendar automatically chose the current date. Someone would’ve had to manually change it.

My stomach knotted. I clicked over to the shared folder and scrolled until I found a file labeled Transfers—Internal Use Only. I’d never seen it before.

Inside were spreadsheets of patient IDs, medical testing codes, and off-site transfers. Most of the names were replaced by alphanumeric strings.

I copied everything I could onto my flash drive. It was a cheap plastic thing I kept clipped to my badge for backup copies of clinic protocols. My hands were clammy on the keyboard, but I forced them to keep moving, glancing toward the hallway while I waited for the transfer to finish.

When the files finally finished copying, I clipped the flash drive back onto my badge. Then I shut down the screen and logged out like nothing was wrong.

My heart raced like I’d just run a marathon when I stood and grabbed my bag. I tried to look as normal as possible as I headed for the side door, which was closer to the parking lot and my car. But just as I reached for the handle, Barbara’s voice rang out behind me.

“Tamara?”

I turned slowly, pasting on a polite smile. “Yeah?”

She approached with that same neutral tone that always made me feel like I was about to be written up. “Any chance you can cover the morning shift tomorrow? Janie called in sick.”

Normally, I would’ve said yes. Extra hours meant more money for nursing school, so I never turned down an extra shift. But every instinct I had screamed at me to get out and stay gone for as long as I could without losing my job.

I tucked a piece of hair behind my ear. “Sorry. I have to head back to my hometown tonight for some family stuff. Otherwise I’d cover, I swear.”

Barbara’s eyes narrowed a fraction. “I see. Well, safe travels.”

“Thanks.” I nodded and bolted before she could say anything else.

As I crossed the parking lot, I glanced back just once—just in time to see her standing near the side door, phone pressed to her ear. Her gaze was fixed on me, and the look on her face wasn’t friendly.

My hands didn’t stop trembling during the ten-minute drive to the apartment I shared with my best friend Lainie. We’d known each other since kindergarten, so it had been an easy decision when she asked me to look for a job up here and move with her. Even before I found out that I wouldn’t need to pay rent because her big brother had paid for the full year in advance so she wouldn’t have to worry about money while she should be focused on her studies.

I fumbled with the keys twice before I managed to unlock the door. The second I stepped inside, Lainie popped up from the couch, a throw blanket sliding off her lap. “Whoa. What happened?”

I shut the door and threw the lock, then leaned back against the hard surface, trying to breathe. “I think I found something I wasn’t supposed to see.”

Her expression flipped from curious to worried in a heartbeat. “You look like you’re about to pass out. Sit down and talk to me.”

I crossed the room and dropped onto the couch beside her. “I think there’s something shady going on at the clinic.”

Lainie’s eyes widened. “Like what?”

“I couldn’t find one of my patient’s files this morning. It was there on Friday. Then it was just…gone. So I checked some more. It wasn’t even that many because I was worried about getting caught. But two others were missing, and another had a discharge summary that was timestamped two days before their appointment.”

She frowned. “Couldn’t it be a system glitch, human error, or something like that?”

“That’s what I thought. Until I found a hidden folder in the shared drive.” I leaned forward, burying my face in my hands for a second before forcing myself to meet her gaze. “The files inside were full of medical testing data and redacted names.”

Lainie bit her bottom lip. “There’s probably not an innocent explanation if someone’s compiling data in a hidden file.”

“And Barbara caught me on the computer. She didn’t say anything, but I could tell she knew something was off. Then she tried to get me to work tomorrow, so I told her I was leaving town for family stuff tonight.” I paused. “When I walked to my car, she was watching me while she was on the phone, and she didn’t look happy.”

“Okay, that’s officially creepy.” Lainie shoved the blanket off and stood. “Get changed. Pack a bag. We’re going to turn your excuse for not picking up that shift into the truth.”

I blinked up at her. “What?”

“You know my big brother is an Iron Rogue, but I don’t think you get what that means. They don’t play when it comes to protecting people.” She stood and tugged me to my feet. “Beck will know what to do. And if he doesn’t, one of his club brothers sure as heck will.”

“But—”

“No buts,” she snapped, eyes flashing. “You’re scared. Do you really think going back to that clinic before you know what’s going on is a good idea?”

I swallowed hard. “No.”

“Then get your stuff.” Her voice softened as she reached down and squeezed my hand. “I’ve got you, okay? We’ll figure this out together.”