Run, Girl (If You Can)

Chapter 117: That's Your Keeley Face

Aaron wondered what the good doctor was up to these days. If he had accepted any other bribes to ruin people's lives… It was still 2012, the year he aborted their baby.

Doctors don't accept bribes for no reason; he must have been desperate financially. Or was being blackmailed.

"Aiden!" Aaron barked into the phone the second it was answered. "Find me everything you can on Doctor Jesse Rothman at Mount Sinai Hospital. Especially look into his financial situation and potential malpractice suits."

Aiden was used to this sort of phone call. "How soon do you need it?"

"Yesterday."

"On it, my dude!"

He jabbed the screen angrily to end the call. Every time he thought about the baby his blood pressure rose. That poor kid never got to see the light of day because his grandpa didn't like his mom.

If Aaron thought he could get away with murder, Alistair and Lacy would both be dead already.

His plan to destroy his father wasn't going nearly fast enough. At the very least he had the chance to discredit him at the next board meeting since he knew all about the future productivity of branching into Monaco. It was a start.

As for Lacy Knighton…there was so much that didn't add up about her. She claimed to be in love with Aaron and did everything she could to steal the title of Mrs. Hale but she still allowed herself to be knocked up by somebody else.

The father of Lacy's baby was the missing puzzle piece he never found in his first life. It wasn't Max, he knew that much. And he never saw any other man hang around her frequently during social events.

The only thing he did know was that the mysterious baby daddy had a grudge against Aaron and wanted his company. So why had he backed down after Lacy went to jail and her baby was adopted by a family in upstate New York?

Keeley didn't die for another six and a half years. At what point had Lacy gotten together with him? Was that man out there plotting against Aaron right now?

There were too many unanswered questions. He wished he didn't have to worry about any schemers at all. The only thing he wanted to focus on was winning Keeley back but if he was going to keep her safe, he had to deal with the rabble.

Aaron looked around his overlarge apartment. One person with a cat should not be living in a place this big. This was meant to be a family home. Technically speaking, if kids shared bedrooms, they could fit up to ten children.

Not that Aaron wanted ten children. But if they all looked like Keeley…

What would their first child have looked like if it lived? Would it have been a boy or a girl? They were about to start discussing names when Keeley went to that scumbag doctor for her checkup. Then they never got the chance.

Aaron was sure they would be able to pick our names for their future children properly someday. All he had to do was get her to fall back in love with him. He had to choose the perfect souvenir for her. Suddenly Friday seemed very far away.

===

"Who are you texting?" Aaron asked irritably as he and Cameron were sitting on the plane waiting for it to take off.

"The future Mrs. Singleton," he replied with a perfectly straight face.

"You've known this girl for a week and a half."

"I don't think you have any room to talk, Aaron. At least Jennica likes me back. I think."

Aaron didn't have a response for that. Cameron wouldn't get it even if he tried to explain so it was better to stay silent.

Keeley might not like him romantically yet but he was fairly certain that after their dinner on Monday that she had warmed up to him more. She was getting there.

Unfortunately, Cameron had made much more progress in a week than Aaron had made in months. They texted constantly and had been out together four times. Jennica had such poor taste in men.

What was so good about that clown? Only Aiden was more ridiculous out of everyone he knew and that idiot had a girlfriend too!

Realizing he had the least luck out of the three of them gave Aaron a headache. Maybe he should send Keeley a text before taking off. 'About to be on a plane for eight hours, wish me luck'

She responded with a single word: ouch.

His lips quirked up into a half-smile that Cameron spotted. He was terribly smug. "Who was just giving me a hard time about texting a girl?"

"You don't know I was texting a girl. I might have been texting Aiden."

"Ew, no. That's your Keeley face."

"…my Keeley face?"

"You only make it when she's involved," he explained. "You wouldn't look like that texting Aiden."

Fine, he had him.

"Please turn off your cell phones and other electronic devices, we are about to depart," a voice announced over the loudspeaker before launching into a series of boring, repetitive safety guidelines.

Aaron had heard it a hundred times. He and Cameron both reluctantly shut off their phones and waited for the plane to take off.

Cameron leaned back in his seat and sighed contentedly. "I never get used to flying first class. The seats in economy are so much worse."

He wouldn't know; he had been flying first class since he was a child. He used to spend the entire flight reading. These days he spent it working once the plane was in the air and he could use the complementary Wi-Fi.

When they made it to cruising altitude, Aaron broke out his laptop and Cameron ordered a glass of wine before turning on a movie. He was really taking advantage of the first class treatment.

Aaron opened the file Aiden compiled about Dr. Rothman. It turned out, there was a malpractice suit that had been dropped back in 2011 involving the death of a mother and her baby and later expunged. Only the great Anomaly or someone on his level could have found the full original case file.

The suit wasn't expunged until two weeks after Dr. Rothman killed baby Hale. Something must have been incredibly fishy about that death for him to succumb to Lacy's blackmail…but how had she found out about it?

The name of the victim was Charlotte Thorne. Why did that sound familiar?

Reginald Thorne. Lacy's maternal uncle. So Charlotte would have been her cousin-in-law, the wife of Reginald's only son.

Did she honestly hire a private investigator to look into the case further just so she could have a doctor in her pocket? Absolutely despicable.

Lacy believed Aaron was single and unattached right now. Would she have another need for a corrupt doctor? He should have Aiden look into her current activities next.