Hot Bodies Boxed Set: The Complete Vital Signs Erotic Romance Trilogy

by Hughes, Jill Elaine

  To her shock, the phone rang almost immediately. She had it on the combo ring-vibrate setting, and the phone jumped around on the side of the tub enough that she barely had a chance to rescue it from falling into the tub. She glanced at the caller ID screen; it said “PRIVATE.”

  Probably the cops, she mused. “Hello?”

  “Shirley, it’s Randall.”

  Now she did drop the phone. “Shit!” She frantically fished it out and wiped off the bubbles with a washcloth, hoping it still worked. “Randall, are you still there?”

  “Yes. What just happened? It sounded like you were underwater just now.”

  “Umm, I was, sort of. Never mind. Why are you calling me? And how the hell did you get this number?”

  “I uhhh, I got it from the police. They told me to call you.”

  “What? Why?”

  “I agreed to cooperate with the investigation in exchange for them dropping the obstruction charges. I didn’t want to, but my attorney told me it was the only way for this whole mess to blow over.”

  Shirley jerked upright, sending hot water and suds spilling over the sides of the tiny bathtub. “What the hell? Last I heard, the cops were dragging you off in handcuffs! Now you’re cooperating with them? Jeez, Randall, I never know which way was is up with you, buddy.”

  “Shirley—“

  “And by the way, you’ve got a helluva lot of explaining to do. I really got put on the spot by the cops because they assumed that just because I was sleeping with you, I’d know everything about everything you’ve been up to lately. Which isn’t even close to the truth, as I’m sure you already know. Let me tell you something, mister. If you and I are going to have any kind of future together—whether personally or work-related—you need to start being straight with me. I’ll admit that the whole mystery-wrapped-in-enigma thing was kind of sexy at first, but now it’s just getting old. And furthermore—”

  Randall sighed into the phone, making static. “Look, Shirley, I know you’re probably very confused. But if you’ll just let me explain a few things, I think we’ll be able to work everything out.”

  Shirley paused to think. She was still pretty damn skeptical wherever Dr. Randall Hamm was concerned. Sure, the man was hot, and sure, he was by far the best lover she’d ever had. But that was no excuse for him putting her through the wringer like he had. What other man could single-handedly cause her to almost lose her job, get picked up by the police, and dragged into a covert operation all in the same day?

  “Shirley, are you still there?”

  “Yeah, I’m still here. So start explaining.”

  Randall coughed. “Uh, it would probably be a lot easier if I explained in person. Where are you right now?”

  As if on cue, the middle-aged couple next door started pounding themselves against the bathroom wall. Apparently they’d decided on a change of scenery. “Uhhh, I’m not sure if you’d want to be where I am right now,” she said, covering the mouthpiece of the phone with her hand in a futile attempt to muffle the sound of “YES! YES! OH BABY FUCK ME YES!” on the other side of the cheap plastic tile wall.

  “Don’t be so sure. It’s probably best we meet in as low-profile place as possible. We don’t want anyone important to know we’re in cahoots on this investigation thing.”

  “Wellll—“ Shirley glanced around the seedy bathroom, grabbed a threadbare towel from the rack and wrapped it around herself as she stepped out of the tub. “If it’s low-profile you’re looking for, then where I am right now is perfect. Though I wouldn’t bet on it being very safe. And we should probably be on the lookout for bedbugs.”

  “Is that some kind of joke?” Randall asked. “You don’t live in a flophouse, do you?”

  “No, I don’t live in one. But tonight I’m definitely staying in one, unfortunately.

  “Why?”

  “It’s kind of a long story. Why don’t you just come over and find out? I’m at the Raleigh Budget Superlodge, on the corner of Franklin Street and State Route 123.”

  Randall whistled. “Wow, that is a bad part of town. I’ll be right over. And I’ll be packing heat, too, if you know what I mean.” He hung up.

  Shirley giggled. In fact, she wasn’t entirely sure what the last comment meant. Because given their recent history, when it came to Dr. Randall Hamm, “packing heat” could mean any number of things.

  Nineteen

  Randall showed up at Shirley’s cheap hotel room less than half an hour later. He arrived looking less like a hotshot doctor and a lot more like a golf pro in his tight-fitting red polo shirt that accentuated the outline of his pecs, pressed khakis that hugged his trime frame, and expensive white leather loafers. Shirley had changed out of her ratty sweats and into the one nice outfit she’d remembered to toss into her overnight bag—a light cotton sundress flicked with yellow sunflowers and matching yellow espadrilles.

  When she opened the door to let him in, she couldn’t help but notice his lip curl up in distaste while he eyed the surroundings. “This place seems a little downmarket for you,” he commented, then looked her up and down. “Though you do help give it a little class. Nice dress.”

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t exactly afford the Ritz. I’m bankrupt, remember?”

  Randall plopped down into one of the cracked vinyl chairs, taking care to wipe the seat clean first. “The affordability issue is perfectly understandable. But what I don’t understand is what you’re doing here in the first place. Don’t you have an apartment?”

  Shirley sighed. “Yeah, but I can’t stay there right now.”

  “Why not?”

  “As I said on the phone, kind of a long story. We’ll get to that later. First things first. How about telling me what the hell is going on with you?”

  Randall snickered as he tucked into the black leather shoulder bag he’d brought with him. He pulled out a frosty bottle of vodka, two bottles of Coke, and two plastic cups. “Before I do, I think you and I could both use a drink. The vodka’s fresh from my freezer at home, and the Cokes are already cold. Which is good, because this doesn’t strike me as the type of hotel that has a decent ice machine.”

  “They do have one, actually,” Shirley offered. “Down at the end of the, ahhh, hallway.” If you could call it that—the “hallway” was a concrete landing walled only by a very rickety metal railing. “But it doesn’t work. And it’s also pretty moldy.”

  Randall poured the drinks, giving them both a double-shot of vodka. He handed her one glass, started sipping liberally from the other. “I originally wanted to do Cuba Librés, but I was fresh out of limes. And rum. Plus you can get drunk a lot faster on vodka, anyway.”

  Shirley took a sip of her own drink, and winced at how strong it was. Even mixed with the Coke, the 180-proof vodka made her throat burn and her eyes water. “So what you’re about to say is bad enough to merit getting hammered, then?”

  “Pretty much, yeah.” Randall gulped down the rest of his drink, then poured himself another. “I brought enough libations to last us the whole night, so drink up.”

  She gingerly took another sip of her drink and scorched the inside of her throat again. Lightweight that she was, there was no way she could match Randall drink for drink. And she had a nagging feeling she’d need to stay sober in order to fully grasp what he was about to tell her. “I’m all ears. So start talking.”

  Randall took a deep breath, blew it out in an unbelievably sexy sigh that set Shirley’s crotch afire. Here they were, in a cheap motel room, drinking copious amounts of alcohol and about to share a pile of juicy secrets about a potential homicide in a big-city hospital.

  It was only a matter of time before things got down and dirty.

  But first things first. “I always wanted to be a doctor, ever since I was a kid,” Randall said. “Which was a good thing, since my parents were both physicians, and so was my paternal grandfather. So it was almost an expectation that I’d go into the family business, too. The only difference was, I came from a family of small
-town doctors who specialized in general practice, just treating families. Giving kids their shots, treating the flu, setting the occasional broken bone. Ordinary, everyday stuff. My grandfather used to call it ‘ringworm and rheumatism’ medicine. But a small-town family practice was never what I was interested in. I wanted something bigger.”

  Randall paused, took another sip of his drink. “When I graduated from medical school and told my parents I was going to skip the family medicine residency in favor of anesthesiology, they were heartbroken.”

  Shirley gasped. “Why? Anesthesiology is one of the most respected specialties out there. And one of the highest paid. I’d think they’d have been proud of you.”

  He scoffed. “Well, they weren’t.” My dad went so far as to say that anesthesiologists weren’t real doctors, just because they don’t form relationships with their patients. Which I’m sure as you know yourself, is kind of hard to do when your only contact with your patient is making them unconscious in the operating room. But I didn’t see that as a bad thing at all. As I’m sure you have probably figured out by now, dealing directly with people is not exactly my forte.”

  Shirley laughed. “I hadn’t noticed.”

  “When I did the Anesthesiology rotation in med school, it seemed like a dream come true. I’d struggled in all my other rotations, especially Pediatrics and General Practice, because I had a really hard time communicating with and relating to my patients. But in Anesthesiology, all my patients were asleep. Here was a way for me to be a doctor without having to emotionally connect with anyone. Sounds like a cop-out, I know. But it was a life-changing moment for me. I was beginning to think I didn’t have what it took to be a doctor, since I’ve always been sort of a loner.”

  “That’s great you found your calling and everything,” Shirley quipped as she felt her body warm from the alcohol. “But what does all this have to do with what happened to Enola Higginbottom?”

  “More than you might think,” Randall said. “I didn’t just want to make a break from my parents’ way of practicing medicine. I’ve always wanted to work in a big research hospital. I wanted the chance to work on the most up-to-date equipment, wanted to try out all the latest medications, wanted to see first-hand all the latest developments in surgery. Plus, I wanted to be anonymous. It’s easy to get lost in the shuffle at a big research hospital. Nobody will remember your name, except maybe the few anesthesiology nerds who read your articles in medical journals. At a big hospital like this, I could immerse myself in my work, do what I needed to do, and then just fade into the background. Nobody would ever bother me. Or so I thought.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Randall took a long sip from his second drink, set it down on the Formica tabletop, stood up and started to pace. “Things actually went exactly that way for the first couple of years I was here. But then things started to change. In little ways, at first.”

  “How?”

  “Well, when I got close to thirty I finally started growing into my looks in a big way. And I’d started working out, too, so it wasn’t long before all the women around the hospital started noticing me. A lot.”

  Shirley chuckled. “Hmm. Imagine that.”

  “I couldn’t just fade into the background any more. And when the women started noticing me in a big way, ironically, so did the men. But not in the way you might think.”

  “How so?”

  “Guys from all over the place started coming to me for advice. On all sorts of things. Women, mostly. Not that I had a lot to offer there. But then I started getting asked all sorts of questions on medical topics. I became the hospital’s go-to guy on all things anesthesia. Then I started getting offers for research grants, studies, speaking engagements at conferences. And all because I was good-looking. It seemed fake to me, and totally undeserved. So I just withdrew into my shell even further.”

  “Why?”

  “I just wasn’t accustomed to that kind of attention. I’ve always felt most comfortable doing things alone, my own way. Even my charity work was done anonymously. I guess it’s just the way my brain is put together.” He paused, ran his finger around the damp edge of his highball glass that Shirley couldn’t help but find arousing. “But there was one offer that stood out among the rest. That one, I took up on.”

  Shirley already had some idea where this might be heading. “Go on.”

  “President Chalmers came to me one day and asked if I’d like to get involved in some special project research that would be quite lucrative for both me and the hospital. I was hesitant at first, but then he added that it was the type of research that could be conducted secretly. That raised some red flags with me, but I was still curious about what he meant, so I agreed to meet with him about it.

  “This was about two years ago, shortly after Dr. Chalmers took over running the hospital. Like any hospital administrator, he’s ruthless about looking for new revenue streams for the hospital. So when he offered me a chance to get in on the ground floor of a new anesthesia study that was funded by a drug company, I was skeptical at first. The drug companies are notorious for funding so-called studies that are little more than expensive marketing tools for their drugs. But when I looked into it further, it seemed legit. I was allowed to set my own study parameters, and there was—supposedly—no pressure to publish study results that were favorable to the drug company. So I went ahead and signed on. In return I got a generous research budget, plus a pretty fat signing bonus. That’s how I made the down payment on my house, in fact. It seemed like any academic physician’s dream come true—at first.”

  “Let me guess,” Shirley said, polishing off her drink. “There was a catch.”

  “You betcha. It took me a while to figure that out, but after a couple of months doing the study, it was obvious. I got my first inkling of the problem when I turned over my first dataset to Dr. Chalmers, and he called me into his office, saying that it was problematic.”

  “How so?”

  Randall ran his fingers through his sandy hair. He seemed to be getting agitated. “Well, he didn’t exactly say that at first. He called me into his office, sat me down, offered me a drink of twelve-year-old scotch from his liquor cabinet. I honestly thought he’d called me in to congratulate me on a job well done. But that wasn’t the case at all. Once he knew I was comfortable, he threw the proverbial book at me. Apparently, he’d forwarded the dataset to the drug company, and they were furious about it.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, I discovered quite by accident over the course of my research that this expensive new anesthesia drug that we were being paid to study was no more effective than a cheap and widely available generic that had been around for years. So I of course reported that in my dataset. But the drug company wasn’t exactly happy about that. And neither was Dr. Chalmers. Turns out that the Higginbottom family owned a chunk of the company that manufactured the drug, and Chalmers was heavily invested as well.”

  Shirley’s eyes widened. This must have been the sour investments that the cops had referred to back at the station. “Oh my. What a mess.”

  “Yeah, no kidding. So it goes without saying that Dr. Chalmers ordered me to change the data.”

  “What do you mean, change the data?”

  “Chalmers basically told me to come up with a different set of data that was favorable to the drug company. To just make something up, in other words. I refused, of course. But he wasn’t too happy about that. He basically said that if I didn’t change the data, he was revoking the research grant. I said fine by me. Then he said I’d have to give the signing bonus back. I told him he’d have to sue me for it. That’s when he about blew a gasket.”

  Now Shirley started having Joe Middleton flashbacks. Corrupt, manipulative hospital administrators? This was familiar territory, for sure. “Because in order to sue you, he’d have to go public with the fact he wanted you to rig the study.”

  “That’s right, Shirley.” He grinned at her, and his eyes twinkled. “You know,
you’ve really got a good head on your shoulders when it comes to this sort of thing.”

  “Comes from my past life of crime,” she quipped. “So if you wouldn’t cooperate on rigging the drug study, what did Middleton do next? Find another scam?”

  “Yep. One that would be a lot harder to track. It just so happened that one of my contacts at the ACLU clued me in to a new scam that was making the rounds among the sleazier hospital administrators—wrongful death insurance scams.”

  Shirley frowned; she’d never heard of anything like that. “I didn’t even know that was possible. Aren’t hospitals usually the ones that get sued for wrongful death?”

  Randall nodded. “Yeah, most of the time. But in North Carolina and a couple other states, hospitals can also collect on wrongful death insurance if they can prove that it was a result of a defective drug or piece of medical equipment. Sometimes it’s even possible to collect in the case of medical malpractice, if the doctor that does it isn’t employed by the hospital. The resulting monies are split between the patient’s family and the hospital. If you play your cards right, it’s a gold mine.”

  Shivers ran up and down Shirley’s spine. Suddenly, Enola Higginbottom’s sudden death in the OR made a lot of sense. “You don’t mean—“

  Randall sat down, took both of Shirley’s hands in his, squeezed them. “I do mean it, Shirley. Enola Higginbottom was murdered as part of Dr. Chalmers’ insurance scam. I’m almost sure of it. And he’s trying to pin the blame on me, when I think it’s almost certain that the surgeon who did the operation was responsible. I think he targeted her because he knew that she had a lot of enemies, along with a lot of wealth, so he figured it would be easy for him to get the police to suspect someone else besides him.”