Page 2 of Blind Trust
“I don’t know about them farmers, but my hip says otherwise.” Claude ambled out of the exam room, his liver-spotted hand clutching a cane as he walked toward them. “My hip can forecast a snowstorm better than that cheeky gal on channel nine.”
“Come here, Claude.” Gretchen met him halfway and began fixing his misbuttoned sweater. “I’ll make you a cup of coffee while you wait for your ride.”
Claude tipped his head. “I’d appreciate that, Ms. Gretchen.” His cloudy gaze found Lyla. “Did I tell you about Porridge and the squirrel?”
“No, sir.” She smiled, but her eyes flashed to Dr. Castillo’s office. Was he in there deleting the evidence? She had to stop him. “Not yet.” She picked up a stack of patient files. “But I need to get Dr. Castillo to sign some paperwork first, and then I’ll be back so you can tell me all about it.”
“Bridgette, honey, you’re a sweet girl.” Claude put a gentle hand on her arm when she passed. “Putting up with an old man’s stories.”
Acid slipped up Lyla’s throat. Bridgette Anderson was the false identity Lyla was using. Normally she had no problem assuming an alias—she enjoyed pretending to be someone else—but she’d grown close to Gretchen, Claude, and a few of the other veterans. After today, Bridgette Anderson would disappear.
“Bridgette, you okay?” Concern laced Gretchen’s eyes as she reached for Lyla’s arm.
“Yes. Sorry. Tired, I guess.” That wasn’t a lie. Everything else was.
“Ly, you need to get into his office and stop him,” Kekoa said into her ear.
“I should get the doctor to sign these so we can get home.” Not waiting for a response, Lyla turned down the hall and headed for Dr. Castillo’s office. Agitation gnawed at her gut. Somewhere along the way she’d allowed herself to become emotionally invested in Gretchen’s and Claude’s lives. The lives of all the veterans she checked in every day. Each of them had served their country and now might not get the benefits they deserve because of a greedy doctor.
That is going to stop today.
She tapped lightly on Dr. Castillo’s office door and heard a grunt. Odd. She slowly turned the doorknob and entered. Restraint wasn’t something Dr. Castillo favored. Photos of his extravaganttravels across the globe on private planes and chartered yachts covered his walls. Pricey souvenirs worth more than most of his employees’ salaries combined decorated his office.
“If you can get close enough to his computer, I can use the transmitter in your pen to trigger the spyware you downloaded to access his files.” Kekoa spoke quietly as though he were afraid someone besides Lyla might hear.
Lyla felt for the pen in her pocket. “Dr. Castillo?”
Victor Castillo spun in the leather desk chair behind his mahogany desk to face her. In his late thirties, he wasn’t bad looking. His dark-brown hair had a light feathering of gray near the temples, and his skin was nearly flawless thanks to Botox. The top button of his shirt was undone, his tie lopsided and loose around his neck. Lyla met his normally clear brown eyes and noticed they were glassy.
She stepped closer to the desk. “Is everything okay?”
“That’s good, Lyla,” Kekoa said. “Don’t move.”
“Okay?” A maniacal laugh slithered from the doctor’s lips. “No. Everything’s-s-s not okay.”
His slurred speech caused her to frown. Had he been drinking? Lyla slid a quick peek to the credenza, where a crystal decanter holding aged whiskey sat empty.
“They’re going to arresht me.”
“Somebody’s tipped off the doc.”Nicolás’s words rang in her head. Who? Maybe others were involved in the scheme.
Three months ago, the Department of Veterans Affairs contacted SNAP to investigate the high number of insurance claims being submitted to Medicare and CHAMPVA on behalf of several veterans who complained they couldn’t get appointments or they’d had their appointments canceled for no reason.
With Kekoa’s help accessing the computer system, Lyla figured out in only a month that Dr. Castillo saw a light patient load but billed the government for multiple visits and made bank at the expense of the government and veterans. Since then, Lyla had beenexamining all the patient files to gather as much evidence as possible for the FBI to prosecute him to the fullest.
She slipped her hand into her pocket and palmed her cell phone, twisting sideways just enough so that the doctor wouldn’t see her pull it out. She placed the phone on the patient files in her hand and, barely moving her fingers, opened the recording app and turned it on. If Castillo named others or was about to give a drunken confession, she wasn’t going to miss it.
“I don’t understand.” Lyla hated playing dumb, but if there was one thing she’d learned in her job for the Strategic Neutralization and Protection Agency, it was that men, especially of the criminal sort, liked to brag about their crimes to women they believed were too dumb to do anything with the information.Oh, I love to prove them wrong. “Who’s going to arrest you for what?” she asked.
“I almost changed my degree plan. Art.” Castillo snorted. “But my parents insisted I be a doctor. They paid the bill”—he shrugged—“so I thought,Why not?Lots more money in medicine.”
Yeah, stolen money.
“Lyla, I think you need to get out of there,” Nicolás warned.
“Just a few more minutes,” Kekoa said. “Lyla, can you move a bit closer? Might make it go faster.”
Flipping her phone facedown, she took another step, bringing her behind his computer and close enough that she could smell the alcohol.
