Chapter Twelve
AS LEXI AND Trent pulled up in front of the hospital, her heart was thumping a thousand miles an hour, and it had nothing to do with the five-year-old kid they had in the back with first degree burns to his legs and hands. Instead, she was freaked out over the possibility of having Dr. Patton get anywhere near their patient. She’d left half a dozen messages with Logan, praying the detective had already arrested the doctor, but the detective hadn’t called back yet. She knew it was wishful thinking to hope the legal system worked that fast.
Lexi had told Trent everything she knew about Patton on the drive to the hospital. He’d been shocked as hell, but he’d agreed to help her, first by trying to get dispatch to let them take the kid to a different hospital claiming there was excessive traffic, then promising to stay with the little boy until the parents arrived when the dispatcher refused to reroute them.
“This isn’t like the other patients,” Trent reminded her. “This kid has family to keep an eye on Patton. He’s not going to try anything with witnesses around.”
Lexi knew he was right. Wayne, Debra, and Jessie had all been on their own with no one to make a fuss when they turned up dead. But that still didn’t make her feel any better, especially since they were still only guessing when it came to how the doctor chose his victims. She didn’t feel good about the fact that the three victims they knew about had all died at night, well after visiting hours. The kid would be as alone then as all the others.
So when she saw Melinda in the hallway leading to the ER examination area, she pulled her roommate aside. Melinda hadn’t come home last night until late and Lexi had left early, so she hadn’t been able to tell her friend anything about Patton yet. That needed to change.
“Is Patton working tonight?” she asked urgently.
Her roommate nodded. “Yeah. The guy practically lives here. Why?”
“Have you seen the police talking to him recently?” Lexi prodded.
Melinda looked at her in obvious confusion. “What? No. Why would the police be talking to him? He’s a rude asshole, to be sure, but I don’t think they can arrest you for that.”
Lexi sighed. That really wasn’t what she’d wanted to hear. She grabbed her friend’s arm and pulled her farther away from the crowd of people streaming through the ER.
“Melinda, I don’t have time to get into the details, but I’m pretty sure Patton is addicted to pain meds. The police are currently investigating him in the deaths of those three patients I brought in. It’s also possible that he stole the bodies to hide the evidence of what he did to them. Or, worse, to sell their body parts.”
Melinda gaped at her.
Lexi would have liked to give her friend a moment to process that bombshell before hurrying on, but there wasn’t any time for that.
“The police should be showing up soon to arrest Patton,” she continued. “But until that happens, you have to be on him like a shadow. Don’t let him give anyone any drugs unless you know what it is.”
“What? Lexi, I’m a nurse. How am I going to stop a doctor from giving a drug to a patient?”
“I don’t know, but you’re going to have to figure out something,” Lexi said urgently. “We can’t let Patton kill anyone else.”
Melinda took a deep breath then nodded. “I’ll do what I can, but what we really need to do is get a senior doctor involved. Someone who has the authority, knowledge—and the nerve to stop Patton if he tries something.”
Lexi wasn’t sure if that was a good idea. What if one of Patton’s fellow doctors asked why the police were investigating him? Who knew what Patton would do then?
But they had to try something.
“Is there a doctor on duty that you trust implicitly?”
“Dr. Lambert,” Melinda said without hesitation. “He’s the best doctor we have. If you tell him what’s going on, he’ll help.”
Lexi nodded, remembering their meeting the other day. “Where is he now?”
Melinda gave her directions to an office complex on the second floor. “He runs his research projects out of there, so you might have to look around in some of the labs.”
Lexi turned and ran for the stairwell. She found Dr. Lambert in one of the labs down the hall from his office. He was studying a rack filled with test tubes and medicine vials, humming to himself as he wrote down some notes. On the table beside them was a small cage with two mice in it.
She knocked on the open door then walked in. “Dr. Lambert, may I talk to you? It’s urgent.”
He turned, a warm smile spreading across his face. “Ms. Fletcher, isn’t it? The paramedic?”
Lexi nodded, relieved he recognized her. That might help when it came to believing the insane story she was about to tell him.
“That’s me,” she said. “Melinda introduced us.”
“I remember.” His smile broadened. “What can I help you with?”
