Page 39 of Anxious Hearts

Chapter Thirty-two

It was nearly six weeks since Kelly had seen Finn. Six weeks since she’d had any contact from him. The longest time they’d not spoken since they’d met when they were eleven.

He was okay. She knew that much from his Instagram account.

She’d reinstalled the app just so she could keep up with what he was doing.

She logged in under a fake name, though, and didn’t use the profile Juliana had set up, so nobody bothered her.

She just watched Finn, who actually seemed to be thriving in her absence.

Picture after picture with Ashley on his arm.

At parties, fashion shows, movie premieres.

Lifestyles of the rich and famous. They were tailor made for Instagram.

Young, beautiful, ruthless – all the qualities influencers needed to make the rest of the world feel like shit.

Finn was back on the set of Henderson Springs and posting behind-the-scenes photos.

He was always busy when shooting; his filming schedule rivalled Kelly’s roster at times.

Fourteen-hour days, back on the job eight hours later.

But at least if he made a mistake, they could just re-shoot the scene.

Kelly didn’t have that luxury. If she made mistakes, kids died.

Not that she had that problem at the moment.

Dr Lloyd had been stealthily examining patients day after day without raising any suspicion.

Five weeks since she’d first put on the wig, scrub hat and glasses, Kelly had managed to remain anonymous and undetected.

Slip in, examine, brush up on her skills and get out.

Eli had been keeping an ear out in the Registrars’ Room and there had been no mention of the mysterious doctor.

On the rare occasions they passed each other in the hallway, Eli was the consummate professional: eyes front, no winking or nodding of the head.

Just another arrogant male doctor with his nose in the air, not deigning to notice the woman coming his way.

The nurses believed Kelly’s story about being an Advanced Trainee candidate studying for her clinical exam.

They were too busy to ask further questions and they had no reason to care as long as she didn’t get in their way.

The patient she was examining now was a young boy with hollow eyes rimmed by dark bags.

His father sat by his bedside looking equally exhausted.

He’d had no objection to Kelly examining his son and she’d concluded the boy was suffering from aplastic anaemia, which she confirmed by looking at his chart.

She put the clipboard back into the holder at the end of the bed and thanked the boy and his father in a quiet voice. Neither responded.

She turned to leave just as a group of three men strode onto the ward.

Kelly’s eyes flew wide. This couldn’t be happening. Why was he here? Why on earth would Michael, the head of emergency at the Victorian Children’s, be at South East?

Kelly scanned the other faces. They were vaguely familiar from her training seminars. She was confident one was the head of emergency at South East and the other was, most likely, from the Northern region. They must have been on some inter-hospital jaunt.

She weighed her options. There was only one way out of the ward – directly past Michael.

She could ask to see another patient but that would trap her at the bed and risk the men stopping to speak to her or at least paying her extra attention, given she was the only doctor currently on the ward.

Same scenario if she stayed by the hollow-eyed boy’s bed.

She could busy herself with medical equipment but that might raise the ire and therefore the attention of the nurses, three of whom were doing their rounds.

They wouldn’t be happy about a Registrar who was here to study messing with their gear.

There was only one choice. She had to go past them. Kelly slipped her hand up to her fake ID pass, unhooked it and dropped it into her pocket, hoping they would think she was a nurse. Then she took off, eyes down, hurried walk like she had somewhere to be. Urgently.

She was too scared to look up as the distance between them closed, but she could feel their eyes on her.

‘Doctor,’ one of the men said.

Kelly broke into a sweat and her heart raced. She kept walking.

‘Doctor,’ he repeated, right on top of her now.

She had no choice. Kelly stopped and looked up to see all three men staring at her. Michael and the Northern guy were reasonably disinterested, but the head of South East had fixed her with an intense stare. He was scanning her for a name badge so he could address her by name.

When he didn’t find one, he narrowed his eyes. ‘I don’t recognise you. Where are you assigned?’ His tone was more curious than accusatory.

Why did he think she was a doctor and not make the usual mistake of assuming she was a nurse? Maybe they’d seen her earlier, while she was checking the young boy’s chart.

Kelly didn’t know what to do or say. The tension in the air between them grew as the seconds passed like a waterfall of pure honey. Michael’s disinterest slowly changed to intrigue as she continued not to answer. He examined her more closely.

Fuck. He’s going to recognise me. He’ll know my voice for sure .

But her continued silence was becoming borderline antagonistic so she had no choice. ‘I’m sorry, Professor,’ she said in the quietest possible voice that he would still be able to hear. ‘My mind was preoccupied with a patient.’

She looked at Michael. His eyes were wide and furious above his mask. But he held his tongue.

‘Oh, that’s quite all right,’ the Professor said. ‘It is our job, after all. I just asked where you’re assigned because I haven’t seen you before.’

Kelly’s mind raced to formulate her next lie. She tried to think of follow up questions and how she would answer them as well. What was her easiest out?

‘Good morning, Professor Carr. Georgia is a medical student that I’m supervising. Excellent potential.’

The group of men turned to the man’s voice.

‘Eli!’ Professor Carr exclaimed, genuinely pleased to see him. ‘How are the exam preparations coming along?’

Eli stepped in front of Kelly, deliberately blocking her from their view. She seized the chance to scamper away while they were distracted. She couldn’t believe she was going to get away with this. Thank God for the quick-thinking Eli.

Adrenalin ran so hot through her veins she had to use all her power not to skip out of the ward. But she couldn’t resist one look back.

A look that drained her of all confidence and energy and hope.

Michael was staring at her, hard. And, even from that distance, she could read his apoplectic expression.

I’m fucked, she thought. Completely and totally fucked.

***

‘You were never there, Kelly.’

‘What are you talking about? Michael looked directly at me.’

Eli put his fork down. A waiter refilled their water glasses. Eli waited for him to finish and leave earshot. ‘He looked directly at someone he thought looked familiar. He didn’t look at you .’

Kelly couldn’t understand what was happening here. Eli must have known as well as she did that their ruse had been blown apart. She shook her head, then spoke clearly and deliberately.

‘Eli, Michael wants a meeting with me first thing tomorrow morning. I haven’t heard from him since I was suspended. That’s not a coincidence. How could you think he doesn’t know?’

‘Of course he fucking knows,’ Eli hissed through gritted teeth, his face contorted by suppressed anger.

Kelly recoiled. She’d never seen Eli like this.

‘But knowing it and proving it are two different things,’ he continued.

‘And he can’t prove anything.’ Eli picked up his cutlery and began cutting so roughly into his steak that it looked like he was trying to saw through cement.

He placed a huge chunk in his mouth and chewed with a clenched jaw and burning eyes.

‘So you just want me to lie to his face?’

Eli took a long swig of wine to wash the steak down his throat. His voice was hoarse when he responded. ‘If you don’t lie to him, you ruin both our careers.’

Kelly was stung. ‘I would never drag you into this.’

‘You already have.’

‘What are you talking about? This was your idea. Why are you turning on me?’

Eli rested his elbows on the table and leaned forwards. His voice was a little softer now, and his eyes more desperate than angry. ‘I’m not turning on you, Kelly. But I just can’t afford for anything to go wrong in the lead up to this exam.’

‘I know. Neither can I.’

‘Which is exactly why you have to lie to Michael.’

‘What if they ask you about me?’

‘You or Georgia the medical student?’

‘Georgia.’

Eli took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose.

‘You were on the ward and then you weren’t.

We have medical students coming through all the time.

It’s not my job to keep track of them. If they follow it up with hospital admin or the uni, which they won’t, Georgia won’t exist. Who knows, maybe I got her name wrong?

But at the end of the day, nobody cares about some mystery medical student. That’s just unnecessary paperwork.’

‘I’m sorry I got you into this.’

Eli reached over the table and clasped her hand, warm, smooth, reassuring. ‘I knew what I was doing.’

Kelly raised an eyebrow. ‘And what was that, exactly?’

‘Anything it took to get into your good books.’

Kelly chuckled.

‘Just make sure you lie to Michael tomorrow so you can stay in mine. Okay?’

Kelly nodded. ‘Okay.’