Chapter 6
SIX
A single file folder was all it took to finish destroying Jacob Heming’s career.
He was the first to find out, and his reaction—to pour a nice stiff drink with shaking hands—was perhaps too cliché for his taste, but it went unwitnessed.
No, here he was in a crappy little apartment instead of his house on the bay, because Connie had gotten the house and alimony, most of every paycheck from even this cushy position, and even the dog, for God’s sake.
The windows here didn’t look out on anything but Sixteenth Street and headlights, the rumble of traffic a constant reminder that he’d married that bitch and was now taking his lumps.
He poured himself another two fingers of Glenfiddich. Might as well, what the hell. He turned around, a balding man with glasses wearing a pair of baggy boxers and lightly sweat-stained undershirt, the garters holding up his socks rubbing at his calves, a familiar, ignored irritation.
You weren’t supposed to take charts home.
Data breach, security issues, the whole nine.
But you couldn’t keep up with all the damn paperwork unless you spent hours in those cube offices, with Bronson breathing his halitosis over your shoulder and that ghostlike secretary of his moving silently in his wake, and the damn nurses skipping out on work to go do whatever it was they did—probably chase all the brawny military types.
Just like Connie and that tennis coach. He actually listens to me, Jacob.
Why anyone would pay attention to her cheese grater of a voice was beyond Hemings, despite the fact that he’d graduated summa cum laude. He’d left the university just before tenure because the offer from the defense contractor had been too good to ignore... and now here he was.
And there, on the bed, was a pile of innocent-looking file folders, all in the tasteful mauve that said patient.
It also said anonymized and safe, and while he might be reprimanded for taking those off the base to work on, he was sure some of the others had also taken one or two home to finish.
They weren’t the problem. The problem was that thin thread of crimson in the middle.
A red file, in the middle of the stack. How the hell had it gotten there?
Red files were scan-counted at the end of the day, they would know one was missing.
Good luck slipping it back in, too—they’d be on high alert.
Donna at the front desk would begin checking IDs and passes again, like the officious little cocker spaniel she was.
No, Dr. Heming, I’m afraid I can’t go with you Saturday. Thanks for the invite, though!
He scratched under his belly, sipped at the scotch.
God’s perfect drink, full of wonder. It never let you down, like a basketball scholarship gone because of one little hazing incident, or a tenure position because someone else had slept with a board member or two, or a blonde, bubbly trophy wife who forgot her proper place.
There were all sorts of things that... bothered him.
Something military—the men were all young, strapping and added sir to every sentence.
The tolerance tests were thought-provoking.
Allergy tests, the higher-ups said. As if allergies were a threat big enough to warrant these kinds of resources thrown at them.
Really, Heming was a glorified PA in this job; the research facility was in White Oaks.
Or at least, that’s where the samples were sent for processing.
All Heming did was take the vitals, ask the checkup questions, and write the prissy little reports to Bronson’s exacting specifications.
They were his patients, right? Four, Six, Seven, Eight, Twelve and Fourteen—where were all the other numbers? And those scratches and scrapes on them, healing up so nicely.
So quickly.
They were his patients, and he had a right to educate himself, didn’t he? It would make his treatment more effective.
He turned back to the dresser, poured himself another scotch.
The silver-framed picture next to the bottle was the wedding photo—oh, the cash he’d shelled out for Connie to have that white dress and flower-decked venue she wanted.
Two wide, fake smiles glared at him from under a few months’ worth of dust.
“I’m a doctor, dammit.”
Nobody spoke up to disagree.
Jacob sighed, strode across the room and settled on the creaking bed.
The folders slid around sloppily on the crocheted bedspread his own mother had given him.
Brown and yellow and blue, and tacky as hell.
But a man’s arthritic mother had made it — he couldn’t very well throw it out like Connie had wanted, could he?
He pulled the red file out, lingeringly, from the middle of the pile. Classified stamped across its cover, the black ink faintly smeared. Maybe that weed-smoking, perpetually lazy bitch nurse Fleming had just grabbed a stack in a hurry. Who knew?
What mattered was, it was here now. Why couldn’t a doctor take a look? There wasn’t any harm in it. Maybe tomorrow he could slip it somewhere, or even throw it away.
You’re an idiot, Jacob. It was Connie’s voice, loud and nasal. She was so pretty, and had been so sweet in the beginning. A little two-bit horse doctor.
Well, he’d graduated top of his class. He could find a way to get rid of some paper.
He flipped the folder open and began scanning.
A few minutes later, the scotch tipped out of his hand and splashed onto the cheap carpet. His heart beat, a harsh thin tattoo in his ears and throat and wrists.
Virology control, one sheet was titled. Tolerances, another. Infection vector, a third.
He kept reading, mouth dry and heart pounding, while the stink of spilled alcohol simmered in his lonely apartment.