Emergency Doctor and Cinderella (13 page)

Eamon chose his words carefully. ‘So what you are saying is you are not sure if you signed for it or not?’

She bit her lip again. ‘I don’t know what I’m saying. I just can’t explain how patients have ended up without the pain-relief I thought we’d administered. It doesn’t make sense.’

Eamon let a small silence pass. He wanted to believe her. Was he so in love with her that he couldn’t be objective any more? ‘Do you have any explanation for what’s happened with these patients on transferral to Mr Gourlay’s care?’ he asked.

‘Tom Brightman suggested something just before I came to see you,’ she said. ‘He said maybe something was wrong with the batch of pethidine.’

‘If so then why are only select patients you have treated experiencing inadequate pain-relief?’ Eamon asked. ‘There have been no other cases outside these.’

She chewed at her lip again. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Is there anyone who you suspect who could be using you as a shield?’ he asked after another pause.

She frowned at him. ‘What…you mean like forging my signature or something?’

‘It could be done, Erin. You don’t have a particularly complicated signature. I could do it myself at a pinch.’

Her eyes moved away from his. ‘I’m not sure. Why would someone do that?’

He let another silence pass, watching as she shifted her weight from foot to foot as her hands fidgeted in front of her body.

‘Erin.’ He drew her gaze and then locked down on it with his. ‘Why didn’t you have any narcotics in your trauma kit?’

Her eyes widened and her face blanched. ‘Wh-what are you suggesting?’

Eamon tightened his resolve.
Keep it professional. Forget the personal. This is about patient care.
‘It is your responsibility to make sure your kit is fully stocked. You know the protocol—you sign for the drugs at the pharmacy, documentation is kept on all that are issued and all that are handed in past their due-by date.’ He waited a beat before adding, ‘It can all be checked by a simple phone call.’

Her body stiffened. ‘You think
I
am taking drugs from the department? You think I am using drugs from my
own
bag?’

He folded his arms across his chest. ‘You tell me.’

She blew out a forceful whoosh of air. ‘I can’t believe you would think that. What sort of person do you think I am?’

‘Dr Taylor, these are very serious accusations that I—’

‘So it’s back to Dr Taylor, now, is it?’ she asked with a flash of her toffee-brown eyes. ‘That’s quite a change from last night, isn’t it?’

Eamon drew in a calming breath. ‘I have to investigate this situation without allowing my personal feelings to get involved. I’m sorry, but that’s just the way it is.’

She set her mouth. ‘I quite understand, Dr Chapman. But let me assure you I am not stealing drugs from the department. The drugs from my trauma bag were stolen.’

Eamon kept his eyes trained on hers. ‘Did you report it?’

She dropped her gaze, and he felt an arrow pierce his heart. ‘No.’

He tightened his folded arms but the pain in his chest didn’t lessen. ‘Why not?’ he asked. ‘It’s a reportable offence, Dr Taylor. Those are restricted drugs. If they are in the hands of someone who doesn’t have the authority to use them, who knows what could happen. If someone dies you could be held responsible.’

She brought her gaze back to his, flashing with defiance. ‘I didn’t report it because…because I knew who took them.’

‘Are you going to tell me who that was?’

Her mouth tightened like a knot in a piece of string. ‘No, I am not.’

Anger filled Eamon’s body at her intractable expression. ‘Then I am afraid I am going to have to suspend your contract until this is cleared up,’ he said.

Her eyes flared in outrage. ‘You’re firing me?’

He kept his gaze hard on hers. ‘You heard me, Dr Taylor. I cannot have someone working in my department with the suspicion of drug use hanging over them. Your contract is suspended until such time as you feel able to explain to me where the missing drugs are.’

She pulled her slim shoulders back, her eyes shooting daggers of hatred at him. ‘You don’t have to suspend my contract, Dr Chapman.’ She all but spat the words at him. ‘I am resigning as of this very minute.’

Eamon watched as she spun on her heel and stalked out of his office, the door slamming in her wake, making the qualification certificates he’d only just hung on the wall rattle in their frames.

He raked a hand through his hair, a deep, ragged sigh deflating his chest. In spite of her reaction he made a
vow to himself he would do everything in his power to clear her name. She couldn’t possibly be responsible. He knew it in his gut. She was a perfect foil for such a scam—already known for being difficult and touchy, she would be an easy target to lay the blame on. No one would question it. Her career would be ruined while the real culprit escaped the hand of the law.

At least he would be able to see her away from the hospital—perhaps then she would open up to him, trust him enough to tell him who she was protecting. Who could it be? She lived alone, she didn’t socialise and she’d never had a serious boyfriend.

His stomach clenched as he thought of the intimacy they had shared the night before. He let out another rough-around-the-edges sigh. He only hoped she would come to see he had no choice but to suspend her over the allegations. Otherwise the first relationship he had considered to be one he wanted to last for ever was going to be over before it had a chance to begin.

As much as it pained her to do it, Erin booked Molly into a pet boarding centre so she could escape for a few days. The thought of running into Eamon in the lift or in the street was unbearable. She couldn’t believe he hadn’t trusted her. Sure, perhaps she should have told him about her mother, but she had felt it was too soon in their relationship to reveal the still-living skeleton in her family cupboard.

She had not long returned from dropping Molly off at the boarding centre when the phone rang. She looked at the receiver as if it was a bomb about to go off, but when she picked it up it turned out to be the lesser of two evils, for once. ‘Mum,’ she said, laying on the
sarcasm without restraint. ‘How nice of you to call. Is this call to apologise for raiding my doctor’s bag, or is this a request for more?’

‘Get over yourself, Ez,’ Leah slurred. ‘You weren’t using them, why shouldn’t I?’

‘Because it’s against the law,’ Erin bit back. ‘I could get you arrested. Do you realise that?’

‘You wouldn’t do that to your own mother.’

‘Oh yeah? Well, what sort of mother are you?’ Erin asked, as tears burned at her eyes. ‘You’re as high as a kite and you’re drunk. And I lost my job because of you.’

‘Told you not to sleep with the boss,’ Leah said.

Erin gritted her teeth. ‘What do you want?’

‘I want to stay at your place for a few nights.’

‘No. Absolutely not.’

‘You don’t mean that,’ Leah said.

‘Yes, I do.’

‘But where will I go?’

‘How about rehab?’ Erin suggested coolly.

‘Rehab sucks.’

‘So does being stoned and drunk when you’re forty-seven years old.’

‘I’m your mother, Erin. You should respect me. I gave birth to you, didn’t I?’

Erin felt like screaming. It was as if every childhood hurt and disappointment had gathered in her chest. It felt like a pressure cooker about to explode. She loved and hated her mother at the same time. She wanted her mother to die. She wanted her mother to live. She wanted to save her mother, and yet she wanted to be relieved of the responsibility she had been carrying for so long alone. ‘Mum…’ Her voice came out hoarse. ‘Please don’t do this to me. Not now. You can’t stay
here. I’m going away. I’m leaving town for a few days, maybe a few weeks.’

‘Then let me house-sit for you,’ Leah said. ‘But before you go can you stock up on some of that brandy you had in the pantry the last time I was there? It was real special. Much nicer than the stuff I usually get.’

Erin bit the inside of her mouth to control her spiralling emotions. This was too much. Why was her life so complicated? Why couldn’t she have had a milk-and-cookies mum? If destiny insisted her life had to be tough, why not just an alcoholic or just a drug user for a mother, why did she have to have both? ‘Mum, I don’t think you heard what I said,’ she said as if speaking to a particularly inattentive child. ‘I am going away and I might not be coming back.’

There was a long silence broken only by the sound of Leah sipping something from a bottle.

Erin closed her eyes against the stinging tears. ‘Mum?’

‘Can you lend me the money for my fare back to Adelaide, then?’ Leah asked. ‘I’ll pay you back as soon as I get back on my feet.’

Erin let out a sigh that shredded her chest. ‘I’ll transfer the funds right now.’

‘Thanks, Ez. I knew I could rely on you. You’re the best daughter a mother could have.’

Long after her mother had hung up, Erin held the receiver against her cheek. The cold, hard phone was no substitute for the loving touch of a mother but for now, as always, it would have to do.

E
RIN
spent two weeks at a cottage on the Central Coast. She missed Molly dreadfully and she missed Eamon even more. She walked for miles each day, no matter what the weather dished up, trying to restore some peace to her troubled mind. She turned her phone off and resisted every temptation to switch it on to see if Eamon had tried to call her. Every way she looked at the situation, she began to see the difficult situation he’d been in as unit director. If she had told him of her worries over the second pethidine shot in the beginning, perhaps he might not have been so hasty in suspecting her. And of course if she had trusted him enough to tell him about her mother he would have seen what an impossible situation she was in. Her pride had ruined everything, just as it always had.

Maybe her mother was right: she needed to get over herself. Running away wasn’t going to achieve anything. She had been running away all her life, and look where it had ended up. It was time to face things like the professional adult she had worked so hard to become. Someone was trying to sully her name and reputation and she was hiding away up here, letting them get away
with it. No wonder Eamon thought she was guilty. She was acting it, and had done so from the outset.

Erin quickly packed her bags, paid her bill, left the cottage and was home with Molly within the space of a couple of hours. She went out on the balcony but her heart sank like an anchor when she saw Eamon’s flat was empty. The furniture was gone, everything no doubt shifted to his newly renovated house at Balmoral Beach. She bit down on her lip until she tasted blood, the thought of having to meet him at the hospital with all those accusatory stares and whispers taking all the courage she could muster.

Somehow she managed it. She held her head high and walked through the hospital entrance and down the corridor past a couple of nurses who turned their heads as she went past to Eamon’s office. It was only as she raised her hand to knock that she realised she should have phoned first.

The door suddenly opened and Eamon almost knocked her over. ‘Erin!’ He grasped her by the upper arms to steady her. ‘Where have you been? I’ve been calling you for the last two weeks. Why haven’t you had your phone on? I’ve been out of my mind with worry about you.’

Erin blinked back tears. ‘I had to see you.’

He pushed open his office door and led her inside, closing it firmly behind him. ‘Sweetheart, can you forgive me for how I handled things? Pulling rank on you like that.’ He scraped a hand through his hair. ‘God, what a jerk I’ve been. I should have been concentrating on getting to the bottom of this, not pointing the finger at you.’

Erin blinked at him in surprise. ‘You don’t suspect me any more?’

‘I didn’t suspect you at all, not really. I just wanted you to tell me your side, but you refused to do so. I felt I had to take a stand before things got out of hand. You know what hospitals are like. Your career would be over if word got out about this.’

She frowned at him. ‘You mean it hasn’t already been ruined? It’s been two weeks. Surely everyone’s been talking about me by now, especially with me leaving like I did?’

‘Erin, I did what I could in terms of damage control,’ he said. ‘I had a word with the CEO and somehow managed to get Arthur Gourlay off his high horse. I pointed out to him how he could find himself with a slander case on his hands if some other explanation came to hand. The staff have been told you took some much-needed leave. You had a month owing to you in any case.’

Erin was overcome with emotion. ‘I should have told you right from the start. I feel so stupid now. I should have trusted you.’

‘Trusted me with what?’ he asked.

She looked down at her hands clutching the strap of her handbag. ‘My mother is a drug addict,’ she said. She lifted her gaze back to his and continued, ‘All my life I’ve been covering for her drug and alcohol problems. I’ve spent more time in foster care than with her, but she’s my mum and I love her. She’s not ever going to be shortlisted for Mother of the Year or anything, but she’s had a tough life and I can’t give up on her.’

‘Oh, baby.’ That was all he said. Two little words, softly delivered, but they contained a wealth of support and understanding.

Erin dropped her bag and stepped into his outstretched arms, the feel of those strong, protective limbs
coming around her making her feel as if she had finally come home. ‘I should have told you. I was just so embarrassed. I can’t remember a time when I haven’t been embarrassed by her. I feel guilty about it. Perhaps if I was a better daughter…’

Eamon cupped her face in his hands. ‘Don’t blame yourself, sweetheart,’ he said. ‘You’re a wonderful daughter. It’s about her issues, not yours. Has she ever told you why it all started? Why she began drinking and doing drugs?’

Erin looked into his sea-green eyes. It felt so good to have someone to lean on for once, someone to listen to the pain of her childhood without judging. ‘I think I might have told you earlier, she got pregnant with me while she was still at school. I realise it must have been tough for her. She came from a strict, conservative family. My grandparents kicked her out of their home, but I’m not sure if it was because she was sleeping around or pregnant or because of the drugs. I suspect all three.’

‘Was she using before she got pregnant?’

‘She was using before and during pregnancy. I was born addicted to heroin. I was in Intensive Care for three weeks. Apparently I almost didn’t make it.’

His thumbs stroked her tear-stained cheeks. ‘Darling girl, you really didn’t get the best start in life, did you?’

She gave him a wry look. ‘It gets worse.’ She took a little breath and told him of the repeated stints in and out of foster care, the unsavoury boyfriends her mother had surrounded herself with, the dealers, the addicts, the drunks and the violence. Even as she told him she wondered yet again how she had survived it.

‘You’re an amazing person, Erin,’ he said, his voice
warm and full of admiration. ‘You’ve had so much thrown at you and yet you’ve risen above it. You’re a brilliant doctor; you’ve devoted your whole life to helping people. So many others would have gone the other way, following the bad example set by their parents, but you broke the cycle.’

Erin felt comforted by his words. It helped her to finally accept what she could change and what she couldn’t. ‘I haven’t quite given up all hope for my mother,’ she said. ‘I would like to think that one day she’ll be able to get her life in some sort of order. It’s just so hard doing it all alone. She’s like a child. I feel like I’ve been the parent all along.’

‘In many ways you have,’ he said, taking her hands in his. ‘Is that why you are so against having children?’

She looked into his eyes for a long moment. ‘Yes and no.’ She sighed again and looked back down at their joined hands, her fingers so small encased in his. ‘I guess I was scared about her influence on any children I might have. What if her addiction is genetic? It’s also one of the reasons I haven’t dated. How do you explain to the person you’ve just met that your mother’s a drug addict?’

He gave her hands a squeeze. ‘No one should judge you for what your mother does. I certainly don’t.’

‘Thank you for saying that,’ Erin said. ‘I can’t tell you how much it means to me.’

‘Erin, darling.’ His forehead creased in a frown. ‘Does anyone at the hospital know about your mother’s issues?’

She shook her head. ‘No, I’ve never told anyone. You’re the first person I’ve ever trusted enough to tell.’

He placed his hands on the tops of her shoulders. ‘I’m going to get to the bottom of this drug thing, Erin. You have my word on that. I’ve been thinking it over,
going through every possible scenario. But first I want your permission to have your signature analysed.’

Erin frowned. ‘You mean by a forgery expert or something?’

He nodded. ‘I have a mate in the police force. He specialises in this sort of thing. It’s a pretty exact science. He’ll be able to tell if it was you that signed for that second shot of pethidine or someone else.’

Erin was still having trouble realising he believed her to be innocent, but the more she thought about it the more it looked like she had been deliberately targeted. But who hated her that much? She knew she wasn’t best friends with everyone on staff, but surely no one would set out to deliberately sabotage her career? She said as much to Eamon, but he reassured her again that he wasn’t going to rest until he had cleared her name. He had already tried so hard to keep her name from being dragged down. Why had she run off without speaking to him first? She should have known he would handle the situation with the professionalism she had come to admire in him.

‘Go home and rest,’ he said. ‘I’ll drop by later tonight and take you out to dinner. I want to show you my new place. I moved in a couple of days ago.’

‘I felt so disappointed when I came home to find your place empty,’ she said. ‘It’s not going to be the same without you there.’

He kissed her in the middle of her forehead. ‘There’s one way to fix that, you know.’

She looked at him quizzically. ‘How?’

He kissed her on the mouth this time. ‘I’ll tell you later.’

A couple of hours after Erin had left, Eamon looked back through the stack of patients’ notes yet again. He
had already faxed through the information for his friend in the police force and now wanted to check and double-check in case he had overlooked anything. It was nearly seven o’clock, and Erin would be expecting him to pick her up, but he just couldn’t rest until he was absolutely certain he hadn’t missed anything.

And then he found it.

It was so obvious a ten-year-old child could have solved it. He could have kicked himself for missing it. Two whole weeks had passed, and he should have picked up on it on day one when he’d first gone through the files.

How could Erin have signed for pethidine on a day she hadn’t even been on duty?

His mobile buzzed on his desk and he picked it up to answer it. ‘Eamon Chapman.’

‘Eamon, it’s Matt. I’ve done that analysis for you. Your girl is all in the clear. Someone’s been forging her signature.’

‘Yeah, I know,’ Eamon said, clicking his pen on and off. ‘Now all I have to do is find the real culprit.’

‘Our people will have a look through the CCTV tapes,’ Matt said. ‘It might take a few days but something should come up.’

It had better,
Eamon thought as he ended the call. Otherwise he hadn’t got a hope of keeping this thing quiet for too much longer. If word started to spread, it would be like wildfire and Erin, although innocent, could get seriously burnt. Her career could be totally ruined by this type of allegation. If someone wanted to destroy her, they couldn’t have thought of a better way to do it. The only question that begged to be asked was who hated her
that
much?

There was a knock on the door and he sighed as he
closed the documents in front of him. It was probably Rob Craig, the CEO. No doubt he had heard something in the loop and was coming to warn him the news was about to break in spite of his best efforts to keep things quiet.

But to Eamon’s surprise it wasn’t the CEO who came in and nervously took the seat opposite his desk.

‘Dr Chapman? I’m sorry to disturb you, but there’s something you should know about the question over pain management…’

Erin was trying to cajole Molly into forgiving her for sending her to cat crèche, but to no avail. Molly pointedly ignored the treat Erin hovered under her uptilted nose, her whiskers twitching in affront.

The doorbell rang and she left the treat on the carpet next to Molly and went to answer the door.

Eamon was standing there with a huge bunch of red roses. ‘Hey, gorgeous,’ he said, swooping down to plant a lingering kiss on her mouth. ‘How’s my girl?’

Erin could feel herself glowing at being ‘his girl’. It made her feel secure in a way she had never felt before. ‘I’m fine,’ she said, feeling a shy blush steal over her cheeks.

He brushed one of her cheeks with his fingertips. ‘God, I love it when you do that,’ he said. ‘It’s so adorably sweet.’

Erin placed her hand over his and held it against her face. ‘It’s so good to see you.’

He turned over her hand and pressed a gentle kiss to the middle of her palm. ‘It’s good to see you too, sweetheart.’ He put the roses down and pulled her into his arms, kissing her until she was breathless.

‘Wow,’ she said as she leaned back in his arms. ‘That was certainly worth waiting for.’

‘Erin.’ His hands slid down her arms and encircled her wrists as if he was physically warning her that what he was about to say would be painful to hear. ‘I got word back from my mate in the police force.’

She felt her breath screech to a halt. ‘And?’

He gave a heavy sigh. ‘Someone has been forging your signature. Just a couple of times, but it’s a serious offence, given the circumstances.’

Her stomach felt queasy as she saw the gravity of his expression. ‘You know who it is, don’t you?’

He gave a single nod. ‘I went through every roster, hoping I would find something to narrow it down, and then I saw it. I don’t know why I didn’t pick up on it the first time I looked. You know when you abruptly changed to night duty?’

She nodded.

‘Well, that first day—in the morning, actually—your signature was on a patient’s file for pethidine. But you weren’t at work that day. I went through the duty roster and finally it came to me. I was about to confront the person when they came to me and confessed. That’s why I was late. She came to my office just as I was leaving.’

Erin’s heart gave a little lurch. ‘She?’

‘Lydia Hislop,’ he said.

She swallowed tightly. ‘Lydia?’ She swallowed again. ‘
Lydia?’

‘I’m sorry, Erin, I know you are fond of her. And she’s a damn fine nurse. But it seems she didn’t do it to bring any disrepute on you. Your signature was the only person’s she felt she could successfully imitate.’

‘But why?’ Erin asked in a cracked voice. ‘Is she using? She doesn’t seem the type. She’s so competent. I’ve never seen her miss a step. Not once.’