Paxton, page 7
She sucked in her breath and nodded slowly. “Yes, they would have.”
*
Paxton couldn’t get his mind wrapped around any of this. In his world, there should be a decent motivation for anybody to play that kind of game with somebody else’s life—not only their life but their livelihood. And yet this wasn’t even so much of a game because the gunman made it sound like Wesley was getting some kind of payoff for failing to release his clients for work.
But that would imply that more doctors were involved, plus the people who did the paperwork potentially as well, Paxton thought, as he cast a sidelong glance at Cherise beside him. He knew that even bringing up such a thing would likely get him an ugly stare. But then he’d never been deterred by anything like that before.
With half a smile he began, “At the risk of pissing you off, is there any way that the paperwork supporting our gunman’s accusation would involve anybody in your administration?”
She looked at him in surprise and then shrugged. “All we do is finalize approved paperwork or hold back incomplete paperwork,” she replied, raising an eyebrow. “But those are per orders coming from the doctors. It’s not as if we have the ability to make those decisions ourselves.”
“No, of course not,” he agreed, “but you do have the ability to change the information, correct?”
She studied his face for a long moment. “You mean online?” He nodded. “Yes,” she confirmed slowly. “But there are checks and balances, and there aren’t that many people who could make the changes.”
“Do you have a good-enough record system that it shows any changes made, who made the changes, and when?”
She frowned at that, then shook her head. “No, it’s not that sophisticated.”
“So, technically then, somebody could go in and make a change on someone’s records, without worrying about being caught?”
“Like what though?” she asked. “Because, with those records, just because we have access, that doesn’t mean we have any reason to change them.”
“But theoretically it’s possible, right?” he pushed.
“Yes, … but very few people have access to that. However, in theory, yes, somebody could go in and change the records. But it obviously wouldn’t stay hidden for long, and it would show that a change had been made, even if it didn’t note who made it.”
“So it won’t necessarily show by whom or when an edit was made, right?”
“What are you getting at here?” she asked suspiciously. “I can tell you that I’ve never made any changes like that. We input changes based on a doctor’s assessment, and that’s it.”
“Right, but, if somebody wanted to—or let’s say, somebody was pressured to—they could make that kind of change?”
She nodded. “Yes, in theory, particularly if it happened at the last minute and if nobody had been notified that such a decision had been made. Then, yes, in theory, that change could happen. But it still doesn’t do anything except potentially stop somebody from temporarily being able to get back to work.” She stared at him on that note.
He nodded. “Believe me. I’ve been sitting here racking my brain as to why that would matter.”
“Of course it would matter the most to the patient being denied work,” she noted. “The problem is, it just seems, well …”
“Petty?” he supplied.
“Yeah, petty. And is that really worth killing somebody over?”
“Potentially, especially if you’re the one who’s getting screwed over,” Paxton said quietly. “I mean, I’ve hit the tip of the iceberg, and I’m frustrated. Think about how it would be for somebody who’s been dealing with this for a few months or longer? It might have been just enough to tip Bolson over the edge.”
“But that would also show that potentially the doctors were correct in their assessment, how Bolson really wasn’t ready to go back to work.”
“And that is also true,” Paxton agreed. “But what if—and we’re just going on this one example, and, of course, it’s something we’ll have to take a further look at—but what if that were the case, and what if somebody heard about the shooting, realized what potentially had gone on, saw me there, and was afraid that the gunman had shared details with me.”
“But that would imply that they would get in trouble if the truth came out.”
“Right, so it would have to be somebody involved in the bribes or distorting the data or whatever the hell this ends up being.”
“Sure. But how many people are we thinking could be involved with something like this?”
“A very good question.” Paxton considered that for a moment. “Really, it’s potentially just the doctor, the physical therapist, and the psychiatrist, right? Does anybody else have the ability to keep a patient out of work?”
“Not the physical therapist,” she reminded him. “There had to be a doctor on tap.”
“Which is what Bolson implied.”
“Sure, but he was obviously struggling,” she reminded Paxton gently. “Do you really think we can trust anything he said this morning?”
“I don’t know, but I also don’t see how we can just walk away from it, can we?” he murmured.
“I still don’t see what the point is for denying healthy people permission to return to work,” she muttered. “It’s just too petty to be believed.”
Paxton asked her, “How can we check?”
She looked over at him and shook her head. “No you don’t.”
“Well, can you just cross-reference Wesley’s patients and see how many he has who are not signed off on?” he asked in a tentative, persuading voice. She stared at him. He continued. “I’m not asking for any privileged information, but, if you just do a cross-reference search, we would get an idea of how many Wesley said no to and whether they correlate to the same doctors or not.”
Her shoulders slumped.
“That’s not illegal, is it?”
“No.” She frowned at him. “I could search for those files easily enough.” He waited quietly, as she thought about it all in her mind. “Fine,” she said, “but I still don’t see the point.”
“I’m just wondering if Bolson was an isolated incident,” he noted quietly. “Like, for whatever reason, they didn’t want Bolson to go back to work, didn’t have enough justification for a release, were waiting on some sort of an assessment or whatever. Maybe they didn’t want to tell him, or told him and he couldn’t believe it, or something like that,” Paxton suggested. “I want to make sure this isn’t an ongoing issue, and I want to make sure that, if anybody else is potentially involved, we catch those patients before they snap.”
“The fact that this Bolson guy did snap,” she argued, “should be enough to tell you that he clearly shouldn’t have gone back to work.”
“In theory, that’s all great and fine,” Paxton noted. “But how do you explain these messages you’re getting?”
She stopped and stared at him. “I can’t explain that. At the same time, I also can’t say for sure that it’s connected to Bolson.”
“No, and I get that,” Paxton agreed. “Still, it’s just a little hard to believe that anything else would be going on in your world today that would suddenly cause this.”
“And yet …” She stopped and frowned, looking at the mess that had been made of her living room, seemingly because she went and got a coffee with him.
“And yet?” he asked, turning to look at her.
“I guess it’s possible,” she agreed. “You’re right. It’s not likely to be unrelated to Bolson.”
Just enough reluctance filled her voice at having to say the words that he could see she was starting to get it. “I’m not trying to make something out of nothing,” he told her gently. “And I don’t want anything to get ignored, like it may have been this whole time.”
“Anything other than this being a mistake or some kind of prank,” Cherise said, “would be absolutely inexcusable.”
“And that’s why we’ll do a quick check to make sure that nothing else is here.”
She sighed. “Won’t the police be involved in this? Won’t they look at it?”
“Look how much it’s taken to convince you that there could be something here worth making a few clicks on a computer for,” he noted. “Chances are, nobody’ll look at this very intensely.”
“So, about my apartment. No need calling the MPs?” she asked him.
Paxton held up his phone. “I’ll take some photos and send them off to Mason, just in case.”
“And is it always you who ends up looking into this stuff?” she asked quietly.
“If it’s up to me, yes,” he stated. “I care.”
“I get that, but caring really doesn’t sound like a good answer right now.”
“Maybe not, but it happens to be the only answer I can focus on,” he admitted. “I do tend to get fairly obsessive.”
“Really?” she asked in feigned surprise. He just turned and gave her a look. She raised both hands in mock surrender. “Fine, I’ll do that cross-check you requested, but I can’t access everything from here.”
“So, I guess”—Paxton frowned—“tomorrow is Saturday, isn’t it?”
“Yes, and sometimes I go in on Saturdays. So, yes, I can potentially go in tomorrow.”
He beamed at her. “That would be awesome. If nothing else, just to put my mind at ease.”
“But putting your mind at ease,” she added, “isn’t necessarily what I’m all about.”
He smiled. “I get that, and I really appreciate your going the extra distance.”
She groaned. “Now you just made me feel like an idiot.”
“Well, if you find something, you won’t feel that way.”
“No, I’ll feel like a bigger idiot because you’re right. It did take a lot for you to convince me. It’s just so far-fetched, you know?”
“Why don’t we just wait until we see in the morning?”
“Okay, so no conspiracy theories tonight?”
“Nope. I need a good night’s sleep, and so do you. At least let me give you a hand cleaning up the mess they made.”
She stopped and sighed. “Damn, this is depressing.”
He nodded. “Do you want to call your insurance company?”
“I don’t have any insurance,” she said, groaning. As they got started, cleaning up, she had a somber realization to see just how much damage had been done. “At least it appears to be largely superficial,” she stated.
He nodded and went to work straightening up the couch and cushions. And picking up things he thought would have been on the coffee table. By the time he was done, he stood back and looked at their progress. “This looks much better.”
“Yeah, it does.”
“So, it does bring back the question of how they got in.”
“I can only think that I locked up but didn’t latch the door fully maybe? Or didn’t lock up at all? My intruder could have locked my door on the way out, explaining why I had to unlock it now for us to get in,” she suggested. “I don’t really know. I’ve been very distracted.”
“I get that,” he said, then hesitated.
She shook her head. “I’m fine to stay here alone. Just go. Really.” He glared at her. She glared right back, sticking her nose up in the air in a pugnacious way and repeated, “Go!”
Paxton raised his hands in mock surrender. “Okay, but if you run into trouble—”
“I’ll call,” she said, cutting him off.
Raising his hands again, conceding the point, he turned around and walked out.
Chapter 7
Cherise woke the next morning, grateful to have gotten any sleep at all. It had taken a while to calm down enough to sleep. She’d not forgotten about the apartment break-in, and the thought of somebody rifling through her things had been upsetting. The fact that no real damage had been done made it easier, but not much. She hopped up, had a quick shower, and sent Paxton a text, saying that she was up and would meet him at the office in forty minutes.
Instead of waiting, he phoned her. “How was your night?” he asked in concern.
She smiled when she heard his tone of voice. “It wasn’t too bad. I did get some sleep eventually.”
“How about we meet for breakfast?” he suggested. “Instead of you trying to eat now?”
“How do you know I’m trying to eat?” she asked in a joking manner. “Maybe I can just ignore food.”
“Oh, I can’t ignore food, so how about we meet for breakfast?” he repeated.
“Fine, there’s a little coffee shop around the corner from my office.”
“Right,” he noted. “I’ll meet you there in ten.” And, with that, he hung up.
She looked down at her phone. “Ten? Sure. Didn’t I say forty? Hey, don’t even bother asking if I’m up and dressed yet or showered,” she muttered, as she walked over and grabbed her purse. She found so many of the guys on base to be so intense, as if they’d spent their lives on a mission with a level of focus that was fairly unusual in any other part of the population.
She didn’t mind it, but it certainly helped her to recognize the type of men they were. And, in Paxton’s case, he took it to extremes, though she doubted that he even understood how he acted. But something was so strong about everything he did that it was a little disconcerting.
She was slowly adjusting to him, and it didn’t really bother her now. The fact that she was adjusting—without any kind of argument—to Paxton’s intense mission focus on this Bolson matter was troublesome. Shouldn’t it bother her? Shaking her head, she chose to walk instead of driving to work, knowing that she’d be a few minutes later than they’d planned, but she could use a bit of fresh air and exercise, plus a chance to calm down her mind.
She really didn’t think they would find anything today, so that wasn’t necessarily the problem; her stress was more about him and this whole mess. And the fact that he seemed to be so locked on to it, obsessed even. Neither term sounded good to her.
Maybe for him it was okay—even fairly normal behavior. She didn’t know. As she’d already realized, so many people here shared that intensity, so maybe she was just finding Paxton a little more committed. As she got to the coffee shop, she found him standing outside, waiting for her.
He smiled when he saw her. “I could have picked you up, you know?”
“No, I wanted to walk.”
He nodded. “It’s nice out, that’s for sure.”
“It’s beautiful,” she murmured. She studied his features. “Looks like you got some sleep.”
“I slept well,” he agreed, with a nod. “I went for a run this morning too.”
“Good for you.” She yawned. “I didn’t have nearly that much energy.”
“No? I’m not at all surprised. The fact that you got any sleep at all is a huge bonus.”
“Can’t argue with that,” she said, as they walked inside. They took a table close to the back. She glanced around at the quickly filling restaurant. It had an open-air patio look at the front and a more intimate setting at the back, where they were seated. “Seems like all we do is eat.”
“Well, I’ll be happy to add some other activities to our dates,” he teased. “What do you like to do?”
As they were just now sitting down at that comment, she landed with a little harder thump than expected. When he turned to look at her, she repeated, “Dates?”
He nodded. “I think this makes our third, and it definitely counts as a date.” She blinked at him owlishly. He grinned and chuckled. “What? You don’t?”
“I hadn’t really considered our time spent together in those terms,” she stated. And yet she also didn’t know what else to call it. Meetings? Maybe that was better, but breakfast seemed to be a little bit more than a meeting. She groaned. “I’m not at all sure I’m ready for dating.”
“Nobody’s ever ready for dating,” he confirmed in the same upbeat tone of his.
“You’re a little too cheerful this morning,” she muttered.
“I had a great night,” he replied, “and I feel good about today.”
“I’m glad you do,” she noted. “Yesterday was a bit much for me.”
“It was,” he said, his tone sobering. “In many ways.”
She smiled. “I still don’t understand how you can be so upbeat about it all.”
“Well, yesterday is over, for one thing. Today’s a new day, and it’s one day distant from where I was,” he explained, “so it should be that much easier to deal with at least.”
“Is it?”
He nodded, and his tone was serious when he added, “Distance really does help. You never, ever forget, but a little time and distance helps it not seem quite so front and center in your world.”
“Maybe,” she muttered, “but still a murder-suicide seems like a pretty big deal.”
“It is. Absolutely it is,” he admitted quietly. “I’m certainly not dismissing what happened or forgetting the fact that two people died, but it’s always easier to function once you get a day or two away from it.”
“Like grief, I guess,” she noted.
“Exactly. You never forget the people you lose, but it makes it a little easier to get up each day.”
“I’ve been lucky and have never been forced to deal with a major loss like that,” she shared.
“You’re blessed in that regard,” he agreed, with a smile. “I am too, at least where my family is concerned. I’ve sure seen a lot of loss in the military though.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet.” Cherise nodded. Just then a waitress arrived, and they placed their orders. As she watched the waitress walk away, Cherise chuckled. “We didn’t even look at menus.”
“Apparently both of us have been here enough times that we already knew what we wanted. Just another reason why this is a good idea,” he added.
She shook her head. “You’re not even making any sense now,” she declared.
“Hey, we both like the same things,” he pointed out, with a bright smile.
