Chapter 4 #2
Webb’s office was a few floors above mine, housed among the frosted-glass doors that dotted the administrative suites.
Corner spot, naturally. Windows from floor to ceiling, sunlight pouring in and bouncing off his desk—a slab of mahogany so polished you could check your tie in it.
Leather guest chairs, diplomas on the wall in expensive frames.
A family photo was strategically placed on the credenza: Webb, his wife, and two college-aged kids, all beaming on some sandy beach.
I knocked, stepping inside when he called my name.
“Cole. Have a seat.”
He motioned to the chair across from him.
Webb was in shape, the kind of lean that came from swimming laps and riding the Peloton before most people hit snooze.
He still had a full head of hair but wore reading glasses on a chain around his neck.
He’d gone from the OR to admin without anyone calling him soft.
People still listened to and respected him.
“Morning, Dr. Webb,” I said, taking a seat.
“Morning. Sorry for the abrupt summons. How’d your meeting with Ms. Sutton go?”
I shrugged. “Fine. It was the first pass. We went through the paperwork, combed the notes, talked about what the family might say if they decide to push the issue.”
“Do they have a case?”
I shook my head. “I don’t see it. Ms. Sutton didn’t look convinced, either.”
He grinned, but it didn’t stick. “Well, we pay her well to be skeptical.”
Webb leaned back, crossed one leg over the other. “Risk and Legal are meeting with the Hart family soon. If it goes beyond the initial review, you’ll know.”
“Goes beyond how?”
“Litigation. Right now it’s just noise. A lot of questions, some complaints. A bit of a temper tantrum, honestly.”
“Am I being named in an action or something?”
“No,” he answered, too quickly to make me feel better. “You’re part of the care team. You’re the face, yes. But that’s it.”
I ran the scenario in my head. Part of the care team. Not responsible, but close enough to catch the heat if it came.
“What do you need from me?”
“Nothing yet. Just be available if they circle back with more questions.” His tone grew lower, quieter, heavier. “Dr. Vaughn, be careful. You know, how you talk about the case. Be careful who you talk to about this case, inside or outside the hospital.”
“Be careful? Meaning?”
“Meaning…” he said, drawing out the word as if I should know what he meant. “The family has retained counsel. Anything you say to anyone, even as a joke, could end up in a deposition. They can use anything. I need you on your best behavior.”
When I left his office, I was more tense than when I’d gone in.
Be careful, don’t say anything to anyone meant there was a live wire somewhere.
Don’t worry meant I should pretend not to notice the live wire.
I was behind, so I cut through the admin to the ICU. I needed to clear my head and focus on the job.
* * *
The ICU was a zoo, with several patients recovering from a multi-car accident. Monitors were blaring, nurses zigzagging from bed to bed, families hunched in clusters in the waiting areas, faces pinched with fatigue.
I scanned a patient chart, scribbling notes. The patient was stable, everything was on track. I was on my way out, already halfway down the hall, when I saw her.
Harper sat in a family room, knees squared, her body angled toward a woman who looked like she hadn’t slept for days. The woman’s eyes were rimmed red, hands tearing a tissue into thin strips. Harper didn’t lean in; she kept her posture open, but not soft.
I stopped just outside, where I could watch without being obvious.
“No one’s saying anything! No one will tell me what’s happening,” the woman said. “He’s my father. I have a right to know.”
“I’m going to get those answers for you,” said Harper, “but there may not be a good answer right now.”
“You can’t tell me he’s going to be okay.”
“I can’t make promises about outcomes, and no one should. What I can tell you is that the team is watching him closely, and if his condition changes, you’ll be updated immediately.”
“That’s what they said yesterday.”
“And I’m saying it again because it’s still true.” Harper didn’t blink. “That’s the only honest answer I can give you right now.”
The woman’s shoulders caved in. She looked past Harper, focused somewhere over her shoulder.
“I don’t know what to do,” she said. “What do I even do right now?”
“You can ask questions. You can get updates from the nurse every few hours. Make sure we have the right contact information for you.” Harper waited a beat. “And you can take a break. Go grab coffee. Step outside, get some air. You’ve been here since yesterday afternoon.”
“I don’t want to leave in case something happens.”
“His nurse and doctor agree he’s serious but stable. If anything changes, we’ll call you. I promise.”
The woman nodded, slow. Not really convinced, but not frantic either.
Harper stood, then put an arm around the woman’s shoulder. “Let’s check in with the nursing team and make sure they know you’re waiting for updates. If you need me, you can reach me through the main desk.”
“Okay.” The woman wiped her eyes. “Thank you.”
Harper walked her right past me. I watched them go, then turned back for the surgical wing.
An hour later, I spotted Harper talking to an attending I recognized, just outside the OR by the nurses’ station. He was in the middle of explaining something, hands flying as he talked, but Harper only listened, arms crossed and face unreadable.
Whatever she said next, it made him falter mid-sentence, head dropping, and then he nodded, slow, like he was swallowing a pill and didn’t like the taste.
Harper’s reply was clipped, and then she stepped around him. I caught up with him at the elevator, tapped his elbow.
“Stephens. You good?
He shot me a look, face flushed and twisted into a scowl so deep it looked like Harper had pressed it in by hand. “I’m fuckin’ sick of admin always down here, just waiting to make us look bad.”
I chuckled. “What she call you out on?”
He shook his head. “I told the patient I’d have a test result for them tomorrow. I mean, yeah, tests can take longer, but who cares if it keeps them off my back?”
I frowned, the answer obvious. “Families treat your word like gospel. And if Harper checking you annoys you? Man, wait until Webb gets in your ass when it goes up the chain.”
He arched a brow, a sneer in his voice. “Yeah? Like that death a few weeks ago?”
“You heard about that?”
He scoffed, pushing the elevator button. “What, are you new? Nothing’s a secret around here, Vaughn.” He watched the numbers light up. “Sutton’s not wrong, I guess. It’s just not that big a deal.”
The elevator dinged and he stepped in.
“It’s not that big a deal,” I echoed, “until it is.”
The doors slid shut. I had a department meeting in fifteen minutes. I had notes to write and patients to check in on. Any of those tasks would have been a better use of headspace.
Instead, I was thinking about Harper Sutton. Wondering if she was always that direct with staff, or if there was something about our conversation—and my situation—that she’d decided would be different.
* * *
Later that evening, Jasmine Keller, an ICU nurse, walked into the break room where I’d been catching up on my internet surfing.
She appeared to be surprised to see me; a smile spread across her lips. She poured herself a cup of coffee and leaned against the counter, her smile settling into a smug grin.
“Nurse Keller,” I said, from my seat at a round table .
“Dr. Vaughn. What’s uh…what’s up?”
“You tell me. You look like you’re busting at the seams with…something.”
“Uh, so did you know the day shift nurses have a group chat? And you’re a frequent topic?”
My head tilted. “Excuse me?”
She sauntered across the room and pulled out a chair at my table.
She settled into it, then leaned in. “The name of the chat changes depending on which part of your body they’re obsessed with.
I can’t tell you what last week’s chat was called, but this week it’s Dr. Vaughn’s Forearms. It’s a whole situation. ”
She sipped her coffee, painting on an innocent expression though her eyes were laughing.
“Jasmine, what the hell are you saying?”
“You’ve never seen how they stare at you? They’re not very good at hiding it. You rolled your sleeves up during a consult last week and Karina almost tipped a crash cart trying to look.”
If I could, I’d be blushing. “Jesus, Jas. I didn’t really need to know that.”
“I’m just saying. You’ve got adoring fans.” She studied me over the rim of her cup as she casually sipped, then added, “But that’s not why I’m glad I ran into you.”
I locked my phone and slid it into a pocket. “There’s more?”
“You’ve been on this floor a lot today. Hovering.”
I squinted, confused. “I’m down here all the time. This is where trauma patients are.”
“Mmmmm.” She smiled. “The group chat reports your eyes have been following Harper Sutton.”
My brows rose, but I said nothing.
“This is new behavior, Cole. One of the things the nurses notice is that you don’t pay anyone dust. You come in, you do your job, you get out. It makes them feel like you don’t favor one over the other, so there’s no hate or competition for attention. You feel me?”
I shrugged. “So now there’s hate and competition? Because I’ve been working?”
“We both know you’re a smart man, Dr. Vaughn. You been circling this floor like a vulture. And I want you to know I see you.”
Jasmine pushed off the table and stood, toting her cup with her. “I’m not judging. Just fair warning. Harper isn’t like the nurses who giggle when you walk by, who might have dreams of bagging a handsome doctor.”
“Watch it—my mother did that exact thing.”
“And I’m sure her husband is an amazing man, like his son. And I want his son to know that Harper Sutton is not someone to play with.”
“I’m not playing with anyone.”
“Good. Harper doesn’t need any distractions. And you—” She pointed at me, playfully smirking, “can be very distracting when you want to be.”
“But I’m not trying to distract anyone, Jas.”
“Oh, you sweet summer child. It’s cute how naive you are.” She winked, then headed for the door, then stopped. “You don’t have to try to be distracting, Cole. You just are.”
Then she walked out of the room.
Well. That was interesting.
I checked my phone. No new messages, nothing that demanded my presence in this building. No fires to put out other than the apparent slow burn of the nurses at each other’s throats.
I cut through the corridor to my office, grabbed my bag, shrugged into my jacket and fished out my keys, then slipped out the side door and took the stairs to the parking garage.
The place was desolate. My footsteps echoed, joined by the drone of the sodium lights. Halfway to my car, the crash of glass meeting concrete rang out, followed by a hissing “Shit!”
I turned toward the sound. Harper stood by her car, staring down at her phone—or what was left of it. The screen looked like a windshield after a head-on collision. Spiderwebbed, black and glinting.
“Need a hand?” I called.
She looked up. “Not sure there’s anything you can do for this, Dr. Vaughn.”
“DOA,” I quipped, cringing. “That’s not the phone my number’s in, is it?”
“Nah. This is my work phone. Brand new, too. I’ve only had this thing a few days.”
I walked closer, drawn like a moth. “Three days? And you’re out here raw doggin’ it with no case?”
She thumbed the power button. No response. “I’ve been busy.”
“Rough day?”
“Long day. Long week.” She slumped against her car, a late model Lexus. “At least now I have an ironclad excuse to ignore Dr. Rice for the next day or so.”
Her gaze locked on mine. “I would have thought you’d escaped for the day already.”
“Could say the same about you. Your work ethic suggests ain’t nobody at home waiting for you.”
“Bold, coming from a man who’s also just leaving work.”
We laughed, then fell into silence for a beat. Somewhere, a car alarm yipped, then fell quiet.
“I saw you today,” I told her.
“Saw me where?” she asked, dropping the dead phone into her bag.
“In the ICU. With the woman who was asking about her father and didn’t want to leave. You were good with her.”
Harper’s expression shifted, a ripple of compassion beneath the surface. “Well, it’s the job.”
“Yeah, but a lot of people do that job differently than you do.”
She laughed, pushing off her car. “A lot of people in my job are trying not to get the hospital sued.”
“True,” I said, conceding with a nod. “But most people in your job have a few standard phrases they keep in their pocket, then offer a pat on the shoulder and walk off. You seem to really care about the family, about the patient. Even that doc you yelled at today. Stephens—”
“I did not yell at him,” she interrupted. “I said he needed to stop trying to be a hero. He makes my job harder when the family comes to my office saying Dr. Stephens said this thing and it didn’t happen.”
“I get that. But I’m just saying—I’m trying to compliment you. Damn.”
A bubble of laughter spilled from her. I really liked the sound.
“Thank you,” she said when she caught her breath. “I’m fired up. I need a drink.”
“Now you’re speaking my language,” I said before I could stop myself. “Where you planning to get one?”
“You know Rafferty’s? On Fifth? It’s more of a lounge that serves wings, beer, finger food. But there’s no loud music and they have huge TVs to air a game or…whatever.”
“Sounds like a nice spot. Would you welcome some company? Or…” Feeling embarrassed now, I tried to backtrack. “I mean, if you wanted to be alone, that’s cool. I don’t mean to horn in on your Me Time or whatever.”
She pulled out her key fob and pressed a button. Her car turned on, the lights illuminating.
“I’m headed to Rafferty’s to pick out a table. Do with that info whatever you like.”
She slid into her car then. Her tail lights flared and I stepped back so she could pull out. I watched her thread down the ramp, red lights vanishing into the shadows.
Then I raced to my car, pulled out, and headed toward Fifth Street.