Free The Missile Game (The Dr. Scott James Thriller Series Book 1) by Glenn Shepard Page B

You’ll have to make an appointment.”
    I just smiled, lifted the phone, and put it in her hands. “Shirley, can you please make an appointment for me— now ?”
    Waters heard the demand through the closed door and lifted the phone before it rang.
    “Dr. James ... is here ... to see you,” the receptionist said.
    “What? Does he want to kill me now, too?” He yelled so loud that I could easily hear him. “Tell him I’m busy!”
    I shouted through the wall, “You have her block for you now? Be a man, Herb—open the door.”
    Waters threw open his office door and marched to within two feet of me.
    I leaned toward Waters, our faces nearly touching.
    Waters towered over me. “What the hell are you doing here?”
    I looked into the black searing eyes of the man. “My OR will be closed for a few days and I need space to see follow-ups and perform scheduled surgery.”
    “Goddamn it, Scott. You almost kill your own employee, so then you take out your anesthesiologist and now you want me to let you into my hospital. It’ll be a cold day in hell before you work here again.”
    “I’ll pay your exorbitant hospital costs.”
    “Yeah, right. You’re not seeing any of your patients in my hospital. Tell your patients you’re going to Hawaii for a week.”
    “My patients need hospital services. You don’t own the hospital and you have no authority to refuse them.”
    “Oh yeah? Watch me.” He lifted a phone to call security.
    My cell phone rang. It was Pete Harris. “I’d like you to come over to my office as soon as possible,” he said. “I want to talk to you about hospital finance.”
    I hung up, then said, “No need to call your henchmen, Herb. I’m leaving.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
    Jackson City Police Station
    11:00 am
    WHEN I GOT THERE, Harris was standing just inside the door to his office. He turned his head toward me and stared into my eyes.
    “Look,” I said, feeling defensive, “if this is about Carey or Keyes, I want a lawyer—”
    “Relax, Dr. James. I just wanna talk about the hospital,” he said. “Come in and have a seat. You take anything in your coffee?”
    “Cream.”
    Harris pressed the intercom button on his phone, “Jody, could you bring in two cups of coffee, one with cream.”
    Harris leaned his chin on his hand and just sat there studying me for a long minute. Finally, he said, “Have ya ever considered being a detective?”
    “You offering me a job? I could use one, being as I’m shut out of my practice—”
    “Doesn’t pay as well as plastic surgery, but ya seem to have a knack for it.”
    “Should I go out and buy myself a Sherlock Holmes hat and pipe?”
    “Ahem … I read through your research notes for your op-ed piece in the Chronicle .”
    “Probably should’ve never sent that in.”
    “Well, you make a convincing argument. And your research is very thorough.”
    “I’m nothing if not thorough. I used to drive my nurses and wife crazy.”
    “What made ya start lookin’ up all that stuff on the hospital in the first place?”
    I rubbed my eyes. I wasn’t sure where this was leading, but I’d rather have Harris as a friend than an enemy, so I told him the short version of my story. “I came back to town in 2002 after my surgical residency. I wanted to be close to my dad in his twilight years. As you know, we had a little farm that I pretty much ran until I had to go away for my surgical training. Even then, I still came back. Dad sold the tobacco farm and moved to a nursing home, and gave me the money from the sale to set up my practice. Back then, Herb Waters and I were the best of friends. I used to go visit him in his office. Within a year, hospital prices started sky-rocketing, and he got irritated every time I asked him to lower them. He said no one else complained.”
    “How’s that?” Harris asked.
    “Herb didn’t get it or care. It just pissed him off.”
    Harris asked in his raspy voice, “Why’d Waters raise the prices so high?”
    “To