Chapter 3

Camille's POV

Greg even wipes his eyes, shaking his head. "You're a good doctor. I get it. Go heal up. I'm not going after you for this."

With the two of them keeping me in place, I stop fighting and let myself go still.

Walt looks at me with something close to respect.

"Dr. Brooks, you're tough, and you clearly take your job seriously. Get some rest. You two have settled things between yourselves, so we'll file the accident report and leave it at that. No citation."

He closes his notepad and starts to stand, Greg moving to follow him out.

Then the observation room door flies open from the outside, hard enough to bang against the wall.

Everyone in the room startles and turns.

A group of plainclothes detectives walks in.

One of them walks straight to my bed. "Are you Camille Brooks?"

"Yes." I keep my voice even.

"I'm Marcus Reed. Dr. Brooks, you're a person of interest in a serious malpractice case. A patient died on the table tonight. We need you to come with us."

Greg and Walt go rigid, eyes wide, like they can't make sense of what they just heard.

Casey stands there frozen, stammering. "Detective, there has to be some kind of mistake. Camille couldn't have..."

She doesn't get to finish.

A wave of screaming erupts from the hallway.

"Murderer! You killed my husband! You're going to pay for this!"

A crowd of people in dark clothing, eyes red and raw, shoves past the officers blocking the door and floods into the observation room.

At the front of the group is a woman in a white coat, blood smeared across it.

Daisy Whitman.

Her hair is a mess, her eyes are swollen, tears running down her face like she's the one who's been wronged.

"Camille..."

The second she's through the door, Daisy drops to her knees at my bedside.

She grabs the sheets with both hands and sobs like something in her is breaking.

"Camille, how could you do this? I know you've been under so much pressure with your promotion, but you can't just zone out in the middle of a surgery! Someone died because of that."

"I did everything I could to help you control the bleeding. But you cut too deep. I tried, I really did."

"Why did you run? You made a mistake in that OR, so why did you come down here and pretend to be hurt?"

That last line lands like a lit match.

The family erupts.

"It was her all along! She screws up and then fakes an injury to hide?"

"She should pay for this!"

"You monster!"

One of the bigger men in the group bellows something, shoves past the detective in front of him, and lunges at me.

There's nowhere for me to go.

His palm connects hard with the side of my face. The rest of the family surges forward, fists and open hands raining down toward the bed.

"Back off! Everyone back off, right now!"

The detectives scramble to pull them away, but there are too many of them and they've completely lost it.

In the chaos, someone drives a kick straight into my freshly reset arm.

The pain is blinding, ripping through my whole body at once.

Marcus draws his weapon and his voice cuts through the room. "This is a hospital! The next person who touches her is under arrest. Every single one of you."

That finally gets through. The family pulls back, corralled by the detectives, but they keep screaming, spitting in my direction, voices raw with rage.

I push myself upright and fix my eyes on Daisy, who's standing off to the side looking very pleased with herself.

"Daisy." My voice comes out flat and cold. "You're saying I lost focus mid-surgery and severed the patient's aorta. Is that right?"

"Are you seriously going to deny it?"

Daisy straightens up, chin lifted, righteous and certain.

"Everyone in that OR saw what happened. You're really going to stand there and deny it? Camille, I never thought you were capable of something like this. I can't believe you would even—"

"Hold on."

Casey cuts her off. She's been standing there this whole time, looking like something isn't adding up.

"What time was the surgery?"

Daisy's expression tightens. "Eight to nine. Why does that matter?"

Walt goes very still.

"Eight to nine." He says it slowly, like he's running the math. "Camille was already in this ER at eight o'clock. I watched them reset her shoulder myself."

"She was lying in that bed in agony that entire hour. There's no way she was anywhere near that OR."

The room goes completely quiet.