Dr. Morgan Connelly is a very bright young physician. She has proven skills and has worked her way up in the Dade Presbyterian Hospital system. She is head of the Emergency Room Department and chairwoman of the Patient Safety Committee at Dade. Her father, also an accomplished physician and recently retired from Dade Presbyterian is justifiably proud of her and the two have a very warm as well as collegial relationship. She has a great career and a challenging but smooth life. But then things begin to go wrong.
First, her loving father is murdered and the police have no idea why, no clue to find out who killed him. Then two patients die in the new, modern Coronary Care Center; victims of apparent errors in procedures. Then Morgan sees a young woman who complains of a knee injury. She examines the young lady thoroughly then discharges her with a knee brace. Scarcely an hour later the woman is found nearly dead out in the parking lot in her car. She has a badly ruptured spleen and had massive internal bleeding that was fatal. Apparently Dr. Connelly misdiagnosed the woman’s injuries. Dr. Connelly is forced to go before the Florida AHCA board to defend herself and faces censure or even loss of her license to practice medicine.
But Morgan does not take all this lying down. She interviews other staff and follows up with interviews outside the hospital discovering that a man who had confronted Morgan a year ago when his two sons both died in the emergency room from severe Meningitis may be stalking Morgan and may be responsible for the recent unexplained “Code 15” deaths at Dade. But Morgan has no proof and unless she can come up with proof of his activities within a couple of weeks her career may be at an end. She is soon to find out that it may be her life that will be at an end, not just her career.
Her stalker is bent on attaining “justice” and that means getting the Coronary Care Center closed down for good and it means the death of Dr. Connelly. The man known only as “Gideon” is revealed to us throughout the story and shares with we readers his goals and some of his plans. Finally, as things don’t quite go as he planned and Morgan is not severely disciplined by the AHCA he makes his move to kill her.
Dr. Connelly is surprised to find that her suspicions were not entirely correct. In an exciting conclusion Morgan manages to fight off and defeat Gideon’s deadly attack. She is cleared of blame in the end but you must read this tale to experience the thrill of the struggle and the excitement of the ending. It is a really fine story and deserves an 8 of 10 on the Weaver meter.
