The Christian Fiction Collection for Women; Three Faith-Filled Novels by Colleen Coble

Author:Colleen Coble
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2013-02-07T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 41

I sat in the tub for almost two hours, soaking, sleeping, sipping some red wine, and thumbing through the last month’s Chest. It was nearly 3:00 a.m. when I dried off, dressed, and walked into my office and shut the door. Charlie would be on the dock in a little less than three hours and, if my passwords still worked and could get me the access I needed, I had some work to do. There was always the possibility they had locked me out, but if I knew Royer, he’d have made sure they kept my accounts and codes active. I’d probably be leaving a trail that could lead Royer right to my doorstep, but I’d take that chance.

AFTER A DAYLIGHT ROW WITH CHARLIE THAT LEFT ME SPENT but feeling temporarily clean, I left him rolling around on the dock with Georgia and returned to the house to put on a pot of coffee. The voice-mail light on my phone was flashing. Even before I punched the Play button, I had an idea who it was. The tape rewound and then clicked forward. Background noise filled the air, and Royer’s voice launched in without even a hello.

“Hey, Doc, although to be quite honest, I’m being a bit liberal with the term. Our IT people called me pretty early this morning and said somebody’d been playing with my confidential files. Said whoever’d done it knew all my old codes and most of the shortcuts. Poked around a good bit, read several active files, and then left without stealing or rearranging a thing.

“Well, almost. The person did do one very interesting thing. Wrote a note in Annie Stephens’s file to request a TEE. That was my first cue that I wasn’t dealing with some twisted computer hack hell-bent on deleting my files. But anybody who suggests a transesophageal echocardiogram for Annie knows two things: the risk is too great, and she can’t pay for it.

“Then, just as I was about to call financing and argue the cost of the test to give a little girl one shot in a thousand, I got another rather unusual call. Wonder of wonders, financing called me and told me that Annie’s account, which had been a little more than $18,000 in debt, had been paid up. And what’s more, whoever called had paid in advance for a TEE. They wanted to know if I had ordered such a test.

“Jonny, you’ve been gone a while, and there’s a few things you might not know. Annie’s pretty well-known around here. Makes most of us smile most all the time, and whenever somebody starts tinkering with her file or her care, we get our dander up.”

Royer’s tone was harsh. I expected nothing less. A bear can be either a teddy or a grizzly, depending on the need.

He took a deep breath and continued. “So, naturally, I faked a page and said I needed five minutes. I checked the file; they were right—as are you—and so I’ve scheduled Annie.

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