CHAPTER 14
Evie
The following Friday afternoon, I was in a session with one of the traders when the receptionist knocked on my door.
“I’m very sorry to interrupt, but you have a call. The gentleman said it was urgent, but your phone is showing as do not disturb.”
I held my hand out toward Derek, my patient. “I turn it off when I’m meeting with someone. Do you know who it is?”
“Marvin Wendall. He asked for Merrick first, but when I said he was out of the country, he asked to speak to you.”
My forehead wrinkled. I would think Will was the “next of kin” for any business matters. But okay… “Thanks, Regina.” I looked over at Derek. “I’m sorry. Would you excuse me? I’ll just be a minute.”
He nodded. “No problem. Take your time.”
At my desk, I picked up the phone. “This is Evie Vaughn.”
“Hiya there, Evie. This is Marvin. I’m a friend of Kitty Harrington.”
“Oh. Hi, Marvin. Is everything okay?”
“Not really, honey. That’s why I’m calling. I’m a little worried about Kitty. I tried to reach her grandson, but they tell me he’s out of the country. She talks about you a lot and had mentioned you’re a doctor and that you work there now, so I figured I’d talk to you since I couldn’t reach Merrick.”
“Merrick’s on a business trip to China. I think he flies back in the next day or two. But tell me what’s going on?”
“Welp, Kitty broke one of her ankles and twisted the other.”
“Oh, that’s terrible. How did that happen?”
“It’s a long story. But we were roller skating and—”
“Roller skating?”
“We’re old, missy. Not dead. Anyway, some little turd knocked her over, and she twisted one ankle. I helped her up, but when she tried to put weight on it, she fell again and someone rolled right over the other ankle. I heard the crack on that one.”
I winced. “Oh gosh.”
“But that’s not the worst of it.”
“It’s not?”
“Nope. We went to the ER, and they took some X-rays and did some bloodwork, mostly just routine stuff. But she came back anemic. Turns out she’s also been having some lady problems and hasn’t gotten checked—a lot of bleeding, apparently. So they had a specialist come see her about it, and that one told her she needed some surgery. They wanted her to stay in the hospital, but you know Kitty. Nothing keeps that woman down. I’m afraid she checked herself out. Now she’s in a wheelchair with two bum ankles and some woman problems, and she won’t talk to me about those. I didn’t know what else to do. She’s going to kick my ass when she finds out I took her phone and called you, but right now she can’t run to catch me, so I have some time to worry about that.”
I blew out a big breath. “No, you definitely did the right thing, Marvin. I’m glad you did. I’ll talk to her.”
“Woman’s one of the most fascinating people I’ve met in my life. But she’s also pigheaded.”
I smiled. “I see you’ve gotten to know Kitty pretty well.”
“I’m sorry to dump this on you. But I would never forgive myself if anything happened to her and I hadn’t done all I could.”
“Of course. I’m with a patient right now, but I’ll give Kitty a call in about a half hour.”
“Thank you, dear.”
After I concluded my session with Derek, I settled in at my desk to call Kitty. But while I was collecting my thoughts on the best way to approach her, I realized that if I did get her to go back to the hospital, she would need someone to look out for her and be there to help make decisions. And if I didn’t get her to go back, no one would be checking her vitals to see if her anemia got worse—not to mention, she had two injured ankles, so she wasn’t getting around too well to begin with.
So rather than call, I decided this should be taken care of in person. I figured I should run it by Merrick to see what he wanted to do, but when I Googled the time in China, I realized two in the afternoon on Friday here meant it was three in the morning there. I wasn’t sure when he was flying home, so I called his assistant.