In Plain Sight (Sisterhood #25) - Fern Michaels Page 0,81

you to move, so move, or I will move you myself.”

Mattison was a tall man, probably in his mid-fifties, with a full head of iron-gray hair, blue eyes that owed their color to contact lenses, tanned, and sculpted. He’d had some kind of facial surgery to tighten up his features, Myra thought. He was wearing a spotless, crisp, white lab coat with a stethoscope hanging out of one of the pockets. He wasn’t exactly eye candy, but he was easy on the eyes. And he did look every inch like the professional doctor he was.

“Whatever this is all about, I would like to have my lawyer present, if you don’t mind. I have some very influential friends in this town, and I resent this invasion. You have no right to do this, and I don’t care what those things around your necks say.”

“Unfortunately, Doctor, what they say is we’re in control, and you aren’t. There’s no one here but you and us. No lawyer. As to all those influential friends in this town, how’s that working for you, Doc?” Nikki asked. “Oh, feel free to vent, resent, whatever you want. Now, this is what we want from you. A list of each time you treated Amalie Laurent Moss. By that I mean those secretive house calls you made to Glenwood Drive when Lincoln Moss called you. Shame on you, you didn’t report even one of those visits.”

Mattison’s eyes almost popped out of his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Really! Well maybe this will refresh your memory.” Annie slapped down a sheaf of papers, printouts, thanks to Abner, of Lincoln Moss’s canceled checks, the dates, and the doctor’s personal bank-account statements.

“Where did you get these? That is personal, private, and privileged information. I want a lawyer.”

“We hear that a lot. About wanting a lawyer. This,” Nikki said, waving the gold shield, “allows us to do whatever we want. For instance, if I suddenly get the crazy urge to find out if you wear boxers or tighty-whities, this shield will let me march into your house and go through your dresser drawers. Not that I would ever want to do that, I’m just saying. Now, we want Amalie Laurent Moss’s medical records. Hit the keyboard, Doc.”

“I will do no such thing. A doctor’s records are sacred. I will tell you nothing. It goes under patient-doctor privilege. Even a court order won’t make me tell you.”

“You sure about that, Doctor?” Annie asked. “Or are you protesting because Amalie Laurent Moss’s records are not in your computer since you did not want anyone to know about those little visits out to Glenwood Drive? We can just take the whole computer with us when we leave. Oh, did I mention you will be going with us?”

Symon Mattison licked at his bottom lip. Clearly, he was agitated, and he also clearly did not know what to do. Finally, he came to some kind of decision and nodded.

“We know you like going to the White House. We know your wife likes to boast to her fellow bridge players that she gets invited there. We get all that. What we don’t get, Dr. Mattison, is why you did nothing to stop the abuse. Amalie Laurent, she doesn’t like to be called Moss these days, is prepared to testify against you. She said you did what her husband told you to do. You could lose your license; your new trophy wife, social climber that she is, will divorce you; and your children will become outcasts. That is the reality of what you are looking at. Ask yourself if your friendship with Lincoln Moss is worth the loss of all you hold dear,” Annie said.

“Has something happened to Amalie?” Mattison asked nervously. “I haven’t seen her in over five years, maybe longer.”

“Are you asking us if he killed her? That’s always been your fear, right. Still, you did nothing. That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it? He finally did it, that kind of thing.”

“There was always an excuse, a reason given by Amalie herself for her injuries,” Mattison whispered. “Lincoln said if I ever told anyone, he’d ruin me. I kept a separate file on Amalie.”

“To cover your own butt, right?” Nikki bellowed.

“Yes, but for Amalie as well. I knew in my heart someday that this might happen.”

“You could have reported him anonymously,” Myra said.

“No, I couldn’t. I was the only one who knew other than the little Mexican maid. And she was too scared to even look at