Doing Harm (47 page)

I grimace.
Marriage counseling.
Sally wasn’t kidding when she said I wasn’t off the hook. I hate counseling, but it sure as shit beats divorce.

I check the time again, now growing well and truly pissed, and fire off an angry text to the junior resident. He responds that he’s on his way, and I snort in exasperation.

He’s not half the doctor Luis was.

My gaze falls on a large, flat-screen TV affixed to one of the opposite walls, on which CNN is recapping yesterday’s events in the case of the Med Student Murderer.
The Med Student Murderer.
I shake my head. It’s kind of a confusing moniker, if you ask me. Sure, it’s got a certain ring to it, from the alliteration. But for the uninitiated, it’s hard to tell if the murderer happens to be a med student, like GG, or if it’s the other way around, and the murderer is killing med students. Whatever. It’s the name that’s stuck. Besides, Dr. Death was already taken.

Nancy, the lead prosecutor, stands before the judge making a statement, looking attractive yet formidable in a conservative gray pantsuit. Kind of like a cross between Hillary Clinton and an underwear model. She’s got to look good: After all, it’s the case of a lifetime.

The camera cuts abruptly to the defense table.

Prison has not diminished her.

In fact, clad in a bright orange jumpsuit, wrists chained, and hands sitting on her lap, she seems much bigger than either the stern-faced defense attorneys flanking her or the armed guards in uniform standing just behind her. Her ponytail is gone; her long brown hair has been shorn short, and she wears it in a plain but attractive style, in a bob that frames her serene visage. It makes her look older. She stares calmly forward, back erect, chin thrust out, betraying not a shred of emotion.

She turns and stares directly into the camera. For some indefinable reason, I can’t help but feel that she’s looking at me.

And me alone.

She smiles.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

KELLY PARSONS is a board-certified urologist with degrees from Stanford University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Johns Hopkins, and he is on the faculty at the University of California, San Diego. He lives with his family in Southern California. This is his first novel.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

DOING HARM.
Copyright © 2014 by Kelly Parsons. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.stmartins.com

Cover design by Ervin Serrano

Cover photographs by
Shutterstock.com

The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

ISBN 978-1-250-03347-5 (hardcover)

ISBN 978-1-250-03346-8 (e-book)

e-ISBN 9781250033468

First Edition: February 2014