Chapter 18 - THE DOCTOR WHO KNEW
Dr. Whitaker came to the station voluntarily. Somehow, that made it worse.
“You signed a death certificate for a living man,” Ruiz said.
Whitaker looked destroyed.
“I believed he was dead when I signed the final document.”
“But you altered his medication chart.”
“Yes.”
Rachel clenched her hands.
“Why?”
Whitaker looked at Thomas.
“Because Vivian had proof that I’d been writing controlled prescriptions under false patient names.”
Thomas stared at him.
“You were selling pills?”
“I was addicted first. Then I got in debt. Then I did things I can’t defend.”
“And Vivian owned you.”
“Yes.”
Whitaker admitted increasing Thomas’s sedative dose after Mercer brought him into the emergency department. He believed the objective was to keep Thomas unconscious long enough to access company systems using his biometrics.
“I never agreed to kill him.”
“You declared him dead,” Rachel snapped.
“His pulse disappeared.”
“Because you drugged him.”
Whitaker covered his face.
“Yes.”
The medical board suspended him before sunset.
Criminal charges followed.
For Thomas, Whitaker’s betrayal cut deepest. He had been his doctor.
He had comforted Thomas after his father died and reassured Rachel during Madison’s birth. He had been part of their lives.
“I trusted everybody who almost killed me,” Thomas said that night.
Rachel sat beside him on the porch.
“Not everybody.”
He looked toward the window where Madison was drawing at the table.
“No.”
“She knew.”
“She didn’t know anything.”
“She knew you were warm.”
Thomas laughed softly.
“Apparently that was enough.”
Then his expression changed.
“What?” Rachel asked.
“There’s one thing nobody explained.”
“The arm?”
He nodded.
“How did my arm get around her?”
Rachel had wondered the same thing.
Doctors had suggested involuntary muscle movement, residual reflex activity, positioning during transport.
None of it fully matched what Lorraine remembered.
Madison appeared in the doorway.
“I know.”
Rachel turned.
“You know what?”
“How Daddy’s arm moved.”
Thomas stared at her.
May you like
Madison hugged her stuffed fox.
“I moved it.”
