Page 27 of Raymond's Forever

“Damn. I’m not saying not to, but I don’t really need his money.”

“That’s neither here nor there, Amelia. He is spreading lies about you, trying to ruin your reputation. The money is to prove that he can’t just spout off his shit and get away with it. If we win a case against him, then it’s our way of telling him he can’t do that, and he has to pay for his mistakes. There are consequences to what he is doing. It’s more complicated than that, but that’s the nutshell version. I’m not saying you have to keep his money, you can donate it, or do something good with it. It’s the principle of it.”

“Oh.”

“Other than that conversation with Betty, how was the rest of your day.” He froze when she looked at him with a grin. “What?”

“There’s more,” she said with a laugh, then actually giggled. She had to wipe her tears and it took several minutes before she calmed enough in order for her to tell him. With her waving her hand before her own face, she drew in several deep breaths and laughed.

“I had just finished all the copies I had made, and was finalizing some notes in my charts when Ervin barged into my office. Well, he knocked, but didn’t wait to be told to enter. He came in like a bull in a china shop, sat down before my desk, without being asked, and started making demands.” She held up her hand, grabbed her phone off the counter, accessed the audio recording, and set the phone back down, before she pressed play.

Raymond leaned in to listen, and ended up playing it twice before he looked at her. “Holy hell. Who is the woman he brought with him?”

“No clue,” she said as she grabbed her phone, found the photo, and looked at him. “I didn’t send it to you yet, but I think we need to send this back to Yvonne, Kevin, and maybe even Duane.” She showed him the photo and he took the phone to study it. It was several silent moments before he shook his head, but he looked at her with a raised brow.

“Did she say anything?”

“No, she just stood there like that. After my real exit interview with Janet in HR, I showed it to her, and she was clueless as to who it was. She didn’t say anything, but I was under the impression that Janet was the only one that worked in HR. Don’t quote me on that, but like I said, that’s the impression I got.” She shrugged. “If she isn’t the only one, then at least she’s the head of the department.”

“Do you mind if I send this to the people you mentioned?”

“Not at all, I think I have their contact information in my phone, oh, and send it to yourself so you can put it with the other things I sent you.” It took five minutes, but he had transferred the photo to not only himself, but he had also sent it to the three security people back home, with a short message asking them to look into who that person was. He also said he would explainwhen he returned to the ranch. He laid her phone back on the counter, and looked at her with a shake of her head.

“Damn, you had an interesting day.”

“I did,” she giggled and this time, she was the one to get up to refill their coffee mugs. She settled back in her seat, turned to him fully, and said clearly, “There’s more.”

“Holy shit, what else could there be?”

She raised up on her hip, reached into her back pocket, and held up the flash drive. “I don’t know if any of this can be used if we decide to go with either a malpractice case, or a defamation case. We both know that this information was obtained illegally. I’m not saying you’re a bad lawyer and would stoop to something so low, but I thought that if maybe, just maybe, we do have a case of malpractice, we can subpoena records. Again, this probably can’t be used, but it will prove that if he destroys evidence, we have this. I know I’m blubbering, but we might even have to talk to Yvonne and bring in her former people from the FBI.”

“What is that?”

“After I did what I did with the x-rays, I placed them all on one set of empty shelves. I broke that box down, then went to pick up another box. On the top of it, I saw a much smaller box that held CDs. Just out of curiosity, I put one in my laptop to view it.” She shook her head and grinned at him. “Thank god it wasn’t porn.”

Raymond snorted a laugh, moved uncomfortably in his seat, and shook his head as he asked, “What were they?”

“Case notes on some of Perkins past patients. Each CD is a different patient. Instead of reading them all, I uploaded them to this drive. I only saw a little bit of information, but I caught a few words.” She shook her head, sipped her coffee, and looked at him sadly. “I saw the words,Patient deceased due to complications of surgery.”

“On all of them?” Raymond asked in shock and had to fist his hands when he felt and saw them shaking as he reached for the flash drive.

“No, I didn’t view them all. Only the first one, there were fifteen of them. After I saw those words, I only copied everything to this drive. I didn’t see or read anything after that.”

“Holy shit,” he said as he reached for the drive, but stopped with his hand only inches away. He cocked his head to the side, and gave her the stink eye. “Is there any more information you need to tell me?”

“Nope,” she said with a grin. “As far as my office at the clinic is concerned, I’ve gathered everything. In my mind, we now have to wait to see if Shay gets a phone call, then whether Clark and or Naomi go with him, and see if they can record what Perkins and or Ervin says and does.” She shook her head sadly. “I know I don’t want this to happen, but I’m going to be extremely curious as to whether Ervin will be in the exam room with Shay.”

“Yeah, me too. We can’t do anything until Shay gets the call, and hopefully, they will reach out to us to let us know. Other than that, we’ll have to trust them to take it to the next level and show us any video later.”

The two of them sat there in silence thinking about what they had already learned, and what they were about to learn, and it was a good three minutes before Amelia heaved a sigh, and looked at him.

“As much as I want to dig into the information on that drive, I think I better concentrate on finishing packing up my home if we’re to pull out of here tomorrow. I want to be on the road by nine, and that’s with stopping at the grocery store.”

“Yeah, I agree. A couple of questions. What do you want to do with the bed I slept on?”

“Will you be spending the night again tonight?”

“I can, if you wish.”