Executive Sick Days

by Maria E. Schneider

  Executive Sick Days

  Maria E. Schneider

  Copyright: February 2011© Maria E. Schneider

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without prior written permission from the author. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any person, living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  A BearMountainBooks.com Production

  Executive Sick Days Summary

  Steve Huntington had a way of offering jobs that were too good to be true. Mark Huntington made offers too good to turn down. Sedona had a habit of being caught in the middle; somewhere in the proximity of bad guys with guns and family members she was trying to avoid.

  Good thing the latest case involved a hospital. Then again, not all hospital personnel were interested in the lasting health of the patients...or that of their co-workers.

  Executive Sick Days

  Chapter 1

  Decisions, decisions. It was flattering to have everyone want me, but it was also a little frustrating. My head was currently swelled with the privilege of choosing between working for two computer companies: Strandfrost or Acetel. Strandfrost tried to fire me, but then relented. They feared a lawsuit because they mistakenly believed I was pregnant. To avoid the non-existent lawsuit, they offered me my job back at my old salary. I could live almost lavishly right until they realized that my sister-in-law was pregnant, not me.

  Acetel, on the other hand, had never fired me, but my boss, Jacques, was back in residence after having recently survived his heart attack. I wasn't sure I wanted to be around for his next one. More to the point, I didn't want to be responsible for his next one.

  The pay was better at Strandfrost, but I'd definitely be on rockier ground. Unfortunately, I was not certain Acetel paid enough to cover my lifestyle. It wasn't that my lifestyle was extravagant, but it did include me, a single woman, making payments on a small two-bedroom patio home.

  I wouldn't have been working at Acetel at all had it not been for the nemesis in my life: Steve Huntington, undercover investigator of corporate issues. He'd had the brilliant idea that I could work at Acetel and discover who was pilfering money from the company coffers. That had been great, but once the case was solved, Huntington stopped supplementing Acetel's not-so-generous salary. I could make my house and car payment on Acetel's salary, but only if I didn't eat.

  Of course, Strandfrost was a riskier job overall because if I was fired again, there would be no income at all, and that would really put a rumble in my stomach.

  Instead of weighing the pros and cons of my problem, I used my Saturday to peruse Hawaiian brochures. Both Strandfrost and Acetel would be closed for the week of Christmas and since my parents had just visited for Thanksgiving, I had fulfilled my daughterly holiday obligations. Hawaii seemed like an awesome way to celebrate Christmas. Denton, Colorado was heaven for skiers, but not for beach-going, and I was really looking forward to trying out the latter.

  The phone rang, rudely interrupting my daydreams. Since it wasn't likely to be a travel agent with free tickets to Hawaii, I was inclined to ignore it.

  Curiosity was going to kill me someday.

  The voice on the other end was that of my sister-in-law, Brenda O'Hala. I spontaneously started praying that she wasn't cooking anything.

  "Hi Sedona! Remember when, uh, Huntington got shot and ended up in my living room?" Brenda whispered, a habit she had picked up after she became pregnant. In this case, however, she was probably keeping her voice low because she was discussing one of my more unsuitable acquaintances.

  "It would be rather hard to forget." I accidentally tugged too hard on my ponytail holder. Flyaway brown hair suddenly obscured my vision, but didn't inhibit my hearing.

  "Well, yeah, for me I'm sure, but you're involved in a lot of that sort of thing."

  Patently untrue. I was never involved in underhanded, thieving, dangerous or ridiculous capers, at least not on a regular basis. In fact, I never had been at all until I met Steve Huntington. He had a way of bringing out the worst in me. His brother Mark brought something out in me too, but my feelings for him were even more alarming. Mark was…dangerous. Dangerously handsome, sexy and I was finding, dangerously irresistible. That didn't mean I shouldn't stay away.

  "Do you remember when Mark mentioned the investigation at Crestwood Hospital?" Brenda asked.

  It was understandable that Brenda remembered the comment. As a part-time nurse at Crestwood, she was there all day, every Thursday and Friday. "Yes, why?"

  "I've been doing some digging," she continued. "And I think I know what they are investigating."

  Now that got me up out of my chair. The brochures scattered across the table as I changed grips on the phone. "What?" Brenda involved in anything remotely resembling "investigating" could get me thrown in jail by my overprotective and just-so-happened-to-be-a-lawyer-brother, Sean. "Brenda, are you crazy?" Perhaps pregnancy had used up all her available brain cells or maybe they had transferred to the baby, leaving her senseless. "Do I have to remind you that the last case resulted in Huntington getting shot, and he wouldn't let us take him to the hospital? You're pregnant! You can't go around looking into things!"

  There was silence for several seconds before she responded, her voice meek. "I just checked on a very few things. I've seen Huntington--Steve--there now and again lately so I know he is still working on a case. And I have access to records--"

  "Have you mentioned this activity to Sean?" Just how long did I have to get on a plane to Hawaii before my brother came after me?

  "Of course not! He'd have a fit!"

  More like a diabolical plan to have me committed to a mental institution where his wife couldn't contact me. "Brenda," I squeaked out, "I really don't think you looking at records is a good idea."

  "I know. I'm not supposed to access them, and if the supervisor finds out she'll fire me. We're only supposed to look at what is pertinent to patient care on our own patients. And I saw Radar the other day, so I figured he was probably investigating anyway, so what does Huntington need me for?"

  My heart, already beating fast, went into overdrive. "You saw Radar at the hospital?" I had assumed Radar had gone back to San Jose. He had quit Acetel, and I was furious with him for leaving without a word of good-bye. Not that we were close friends, but I felt basic courtesy counted for something. "When did you see him?"

  "Just yesterday. I'm positive he works at Crestwood now in the IT department."

  My big head, inflated over two possible job offers and the successful solving of the crimes at Acetel, shriveled. Huntington had hired Radar to help with the case at the hospital. And I hadn't heard from Huntington since the Acetel incident had ended over two weeks ago. My heart slowed. I slumped back onto the tabletop, scattering what was left of the brochures onto the floor.

  It was true that Radar was more capable than me. He could hack his way into God's own database. His expertise was the primary reason we had been able to solve the case at Acetel. He probably didn't argue about how to investigate things either. But…I was unreasonably hurt.

  Huntington was often recruited to solve corporate cases because executives and board members preferred someone who spoke their language. It also let companies investigate without calling in nosy authorities such as police, FBI or heaven forbid, the IRS. Unfortunately for Huntington, since he was busy schmoozing with the upper echelons, he had to hire someone else to mingle with regular employees and sniff out suspicious characters. That had been my job, and I had helped him solve the cases.

  But it appeared I had been replaced. Summarily pushed aside by…better talent. I s
ighed. My two job prospects were already less than ideal. This news made them look even more like booby prizes.

  "So I was wondering," Brenda broke into my depression, "do you think I should tell Huntington or Radar what I've found?"

  A tingle of hope or...stupidity...started up my spine. "Well," I said slowly, sitting back upright, "that really depends upon what you've found, doesn't it?"

  Chapter 2

  Meeting with Brenda was awkward lately even when she wasn't trying to play secret agent. She had it in her head that she was disguising her pregnancy. To do this, she walked around dressed as Mrs. Santa or an oversized elf. She was headed into her fifth month, and her build was slight. The only person who could possibly be fooled was a five-year old distracted by the fact that Christmas was only a few weeks away.

  There was little in life more embarrassing than sitting with a grown woman dressed in a Christmas costume except for sitting with one in a badly rendered Christmas costume. Brenda's latest Mrs. Santa outfit consisted of a large red cape, a red felt square on her head, black boots and a tent-like, checkered red and white dress. The woman looked as though a naked Little Red Riding Hood had grabbed grandma's tablecloth and ran.

  Luckily, Happy Family Chinese didn't question my appearance or that of the people who accompanied me. They just welcomed me. One of these days a real weirdo was going to be sitting at a table and the proprietor, Mrs. Chang, was going to lead me to the guy thinking he had to be one of my friends.

  Brenda wasn't all bad habits. I loved the fact that she didn't stand on ceremony. She had already ordered and was just finishing her egg rolls when I arrived.

  It was a hard choice between starting with soup or egg rolls, but seeing Brenda's empty plate clinched it. "I'll have an order of egg rolls and beef with broccoli," I told Mrs. Chang as I sat. "And a water."

  I greeted my sister-in-law by getting right down to business. "If we have this discussion, you're going to remember to tell Sean that I advised you away from this completely, right?"

  Her brunette curls, tucked under the square of red felt, nodded emphatically. "Sure. That's if he finds out at all. I'm not planning on mentioning it."

  "Good. Me neither."

  "I've really only noticed a couple of little things," she said. "It could be honest mistakes. It would help if you told me what Huntington thinks is going on."

  Be still my beating, dismayed heart. Even Brenda thought I was on the inside. "I'm not really sure." My chopsticks were of sudden importance. I picked them up and positioned them carefully as though I already had food. Shoot, even after Huntington officially hired me on cases, he tended to leave out pertinent information. "He implied one of the doctors was adding inflated charges to patients’ final bills. It sounded like it occurred after the patient had already checked out of the hospital." Mark had actually said that, not Huntington, and Brenda was present when he mentioned it. She knew as much as I did.

  "Mrs. Olsen," she whispered.

  I leaned in. "Mrs. Olsen?"

  "She's a mean old lady, and she's in the hospital all the time; practically lives there. Frankly, I think Huntington is mistaken about it being the doctor who adds bogus charges. Of course, the doctor could be checking her in for no justifiable reason, but Mrs. Olsen is more likely to be responsible for the extra charges. She’s such a whiner. She demands all kinds of things. The funny thing is that she's always watching her bill as if she were paying every cent from her personal retirement account, but she has good insurance."

  "How do you know about her insurance?"

  "Easy." She paused to dish out the food that Mrs. Chang set in front of us. Neither of us was going to concentrate on anything else with it sitting there. After she had a few giant bites, she elaborated. "If a patient doesn't have good coverage or doesn't have any at all, the admitting office is in a rush to get the patient checked out. Patients without insurance almost always come up from the ER. They don't generally get checked in by one of the staff doctors, because if people don't have insurance, they wait until it's an emergency."

  "So how does this make her guilty of...umh, what is she guilty of?"

  "Because even though she is always refusing little things like Tylenol or toothbrushes, there are a lot of those types of charges on her bill, and those charges are ones that Medicare or insurance isn't likely to question. It looked small at first, things like the Tylenol, ice chips--we charge for the cups, you know. Then there was a lot of lotion and toothpaste charges. She has dentures so that should never show up on there at all, but of course these things happen."

  I chewed on this. "So how much can that add up to?" Even with hospital prices, it would be a lot of risk just to pocket a hundred dollars here and there.

  "Not a lot. Except I also noticed that there were three admissions that I couldn't remember."

  Now that was more like it, but I had to be cautious here. Brenda was a woman who hadn't noticed she was pregnant until she was twelve or thirteen weeks along. Brenda also only worked part time, two days a week. The hospital had at least three floors. "Would you have necessarily seen her?"

  "I checked my schedule. For two of the admissions, I was definitely working. So I'm wondering if she somehow has the insurance company pay her and then later she disputes the bill with the hospital, but pockets the money." She leaned over the table and whispered, "I could be wrong, but I really don't like Mrs. Olsen so I'm not likely to forget when she's there. She rings the call bell about forty times a day. When I make the rounds with meds she wants to double-check everything. She won't allow us to give her a sponge bath either. Every morning she wants a regular bath, and I know she asks her doctor for whirlpool privileges."

  "Whirlpool privileges? I didn't know you could request whirlpool privileges in the hospital."

  "Sure, for physical therapy. The whirlpool is to improve circulation, and the old lady swears she has bed sores on her back and shoulders twenty minutes after she is checked in."

  "Oh."

  "So, do you think we ought to tell Huntington?"

  I sat back. I wasn't all that pleased with Huntington and had I stumbled across this information without Brenda, I would have hoarded it. I would have insisted he pay me for it, maybe by the word in a lengthy, typed report. But my main concern at the moment was to figure out how to convince Brenda to leave the problem alone. I couldn't do that unless I promised to tell Huntington.

  "Okay," I gave in, knowing my chance of profiting was nil. Protecting Brenda had to take priority. "I'll call him."

  "Good." She shoved an unmarked brown paper bag at me. "Just pretend it's a doggie bag from the restaurant, and no one will know I'm passing you information."

  It was futile to point out that we didn't have a rice kernel left between us or that the restaurant used plastic bags with the Happy Family Chinese logo on them. I accepted the bag.

  Brenda broke eye contact and focused intently on her now empty plate. Her felt doily hat started to slide sideways, but she didn't reach up to stop it. "I think there are a couple of other patients in on it, but I can't look at their records. I only obtained Mrs. Olsen's bill because she wanted a copy before she checked out. I sort of volunteered to request the bill on her behalf, and then requested a tad more back information than Mrs. Olsen asked for."

  She took a very obvious covert look around the restaurant before leaning across the table and whispering loudly, "Copies of her billing information are in the bag, along with the names of the other two patients."

  "Ohboy." I had to do something fast before she got herself into trouble. Maybe I could turn Radar onto our suspicions. Then I wouldn't have to call Huntington at all.

  Besides, I owed Radar for helping me the last time, and he'd look good if he found clues. He didn't have to tell Huntington how he obtained them.

  Chapter 3

  Mark and Steve Huntington were a lot alike in appearance: drop-dead handsome. They both had dark hair, but Mark had dreamy chocolate brown eyes, while Steve had piercing blue ones. With co
lored contacts and dim lighting, I knew all too well one could temporarily replace the other.

  As far as personalities, no two brothers could be further apart. Huntington, that was to say, Steve, was suave, cool and comfortably rubbed elbows with board directors. Mark was not likely to ever bother attending a board meeting, nor would he blend well there. His jeans fit well on a body that looked like it spent more time outdoors than drinking coffee at a boring office meeting.

  Both of them worked on inside company investigations, and they were both adept at their respective jobs, although the exact nature of those jobs was often a mystery.

  Huntington had a rude tendency to assume he was welcome anywhere, anytime, even if a home wasn't actually occupied by its owner--or maybe especially if it was unoccupied. In the past this even involved him picking my locks and waiting inside until I showed up.

  Unlike Huntington, Mark didn't sneak inside or make any arrogant assumptions about my hours of availability. Like a normal human being, he waited at the curb until I happened home from the grocery store. He then pulled his motorcycle into the driveway behind me.

  There was something that shouted, "Bad Boy" about a motorcycle, especially one with a sword and lightning bolt custom-painted down the side. I was pretty sure that Mark had a tattoo on his left arm that matched the sword on the motorcycle, but it could have been part of his disguise for an earlier case. Since it was wintertime, he had on a black leather jacket, and I couldn't see his arm.

  "Hey beautiful," he greeted me, setting his helmet on the bike and joining me in the garage.

  That kind of greeting will buy forgiveness of just about anything, including not calling me for two weeks and leaving me out of the latest case.

  I tried rolling my eyes, but my face was stamped with a big foolish grin.