– Whitney
As soon as Lance’s session with Harlow ends, I head to his office. I couldn’t help but see them working in there together, and I’m jealous.
It’s supposed to be me in there working with Harlow, for both professional and personal reasons. The fact that it’s not is enough to drive me mad, but I have to hold it together for at least a little longer, until I can manage to get to the bottom of this mystery.
I watch Harlow walk out of the building and I can’t believe he didn’t see me. But then again, I’m sure he did and just doesn’t want to talk to me. He’s already warned me not to try to talk to him, so I don’t.
I’m beginning to realize we’re over. I don’t know what exactly happened or why, but I can’t wait around hoping it will change. I’m now focused on figuring out what exactly Dr. Davis is doing, since that obviously doesn’t include helping service members like the one I’d met outside his office.
“Lance!” I whisper, loudly, as I enter his office and shut the door behind me. “I need your help.”
“Oh my god, girl,” he exclaims, rolling his eyes. “What now? Don’t you even want to know how my session with your heartthrob went?”
“Former heartthrob,” I correct him. “And I guess. Sure, why not? How’d it go?”
“Very strangely. I put him through all the tests you already did, thinking maybe you’d missed something. Accidentally, of course.”
He raises his eyebrows, as if to infer he’s not trying to accuse me of inflating the numbers for Harlow’s sake.
“But of course, it all checked out. You’re right, he easily passed all of those silly tests. But then, lo and behold, who should appear but His Majesty the Royal Doctor Davis himself.”
“Really? At your session with Harlow?”
I hadn’t seen Dr. Davis at the facility. I wonder if he’s still around.
“Don’t worry, he didn’t stick around long. Only long enough to tell me I don’t know how to do my job. He told me to skip over my own assessments, and to concentrate on things that Harlow needs work on.”
“The extension in his left leg?” I guess. “Tightness in the quad and flexibility in the hip?”
“You got it,” Lance nods. “Of course, I know you already know all of that. You wrote him an individualized program that makes total sense. But Dr. Davis was stressing all of these problem areas as if they meant that Harlow couldn’t walk or something.”
“Does he think you’re dumb?”
“Well, I soon found out he doesn’t care what I am, as long as I go along with what he wants.”
“Really?”
I can’t believe it. Lance has already seen evil Dr. Davis in action. He’s definitely on my side.
“Uh huh. Called me out into the hall and told me he’s sure I know what happened with you, and how the last thing anyone needs is a repeat of that.”
“So he threatened you?”
“Pretty much. And the problem is, girl, that we’re dead to rights. I know he’s full of shit, he knows he’s full of shit, but he knows I value my job too much to call him out on it without anything to back me up.”
“Well, I have a plan to fix that,” I assure him. “I just need your help. I need to access to Dr. Davis’ files.”
“What? Whitney, how can I…?”
“No one will know you gave them to me. And if they somehow find out, just say that during the course of our training we were looking at all possible candidates and assessing the work they need done and how we can help them…”
“Whitney, this isn’t exactly on the up and up.”
“Well, neither is what Dr. Davis is doing! And my purpose is to find out why and stop him, whereas he wants to keep screwing over patients, for his own selfish gain. I know, without a doubt, that for some reason he’s super attached to Harlow, yet he’s likely screwing him over as much as any other patient. I just need to prove it.”
“Whitney, I want to be clear.” Lance crosses his arms in front of his chest. “I’ll do my best to help you, and I will get you access to those documents in a way that will damn sure cover my own butt.”
“Oh thank you, thank you, thank you,” I say, hugging him and beaming ear to ear. “I promise you I won’t—”
“Keep listening, you creep,” Lance laughs, peeling me off of him.
Then his serious expression returns. “Let me be clear here. You are spearheading this investigation, on your own, and if you find out anything, you can never trace it back to me. I know you’re this idealist with a crush— or former crush, or whatever you want to call it— on Harlow, but this is my job, and my life.”
I nod— I get it— but Lance keeps talking.
“I love working here and I’m not happy about whatever Dr. Davis has up his sleeve but I’m also not going to jeopardize my career. As your friend and supervisor I actually have to caution you to think about what’s best for yourself here, too. What will you do if Dr. Davis does strike back, and it costs you your internship?”
“Oh that’s okay,” I say, with a shrug, and a smile that I hope looks mysterious. “I already put in my application to medical school. I just need a letter of recommendation, from you.”
“Really?” he asks, a proud look spreading across his face despite his best efforts to hide it. “I thought you were too chicken shit for that.”
“Changed my mind.”
With the help of a certain former crush.
“Well I’d best get started on writing it,” he says, “while I can still do it with a clear conscience.”