Malpractice Incorporated

“You know I wonder what's next. After the first book, “Hospital Privileges” and the settlement from the FBI I’m still speculating what we should do. I miss the practice of medicine but don't know if I miss it enough to go back to it,” said Dr. Adams conversing with himself and anyone who happened to be paying attention. After what he had been through he was unenthusiastic to do anything too hastily. Having been on the run for his life from a colossal multibillion dollar corporation so dominant that it had ties to the government, he was reluctant to get back into the same medical practice that had caused all these troubles in the first place. “Maybe I should just be a commonplace civilian leading a run of the mill humdrum life like the rest of everyone in this country not concerned about the continued immoral and unethical character of the corporations, not concerned about the corruption in our government. I could just carry on with a writing career or just retire for good, perhaps I could become a recluse or hermit, maybe move to Canada. It would be prudent and out of harm's way.” As he continued to debate the future with himself, Polly intervened. “Oh you know we just received a postcard from Courtney, her family has a houseboat on Lake Powell and she wants to know if you feel like coming up this summer to vacation,” said Polly trying to get his mind on something else. She had been wedded long enough to him to know when he was brooding. “What's Courtney up to now, scaling Mt. Everest?” Dr. Adams laughed heartily picturing her on the snow-capped peak doing jumping jacks with a hundred pound backpack. And then Stephen chimed in, “Do you know where the bathroom is?” turning to Polly. “Why didn’t you go in the house before we came to the beach? No never mind, there's one on the other side of the pool.” Polly smiled and shook her head. Dr. Adams cell phone began to ring. “Who in the world would be calling me here, no one even knows I'm here. I do not want to answer this phone call.” Polly looked over at her husband, “I thought you weren’t supposed to use that cell-phone anymore, didn’t they say it could be traced and to use the new one? “Well I kind of kept it for sentimental reasons.” answered Dr. Adams sheepishly. “Go ahead and answer it. Maybe it's Courtney,” said Polly, ever the optimist. His phone continued to ring and ring… “Oh alright, I'll answer it.” Dr. Adams picked up the cell phone and answered, “Hello this is Dr. Adams. Hello this is Dr. Adams. Hello is anyone there? OK goodbye.” He turned to Polly. “That was peculiar, no one on the other end of the line, almost certainly another wrong number.” He debated redialing then decided not to. Dr. Adams looked at Polly shaking his head inquisitively, then reached down and turned his cell phone off. “OK, now we can really relax.” Dr. Adams smiled as he put his cell phone in their beach bag permanently disabled. ………………………………………………………………………………………….. “It serves a dual purpose, you are correct in that getting down here we could use a larger boat, but my parents keep their houseboat at the northernmost reaches of Lake Powell because the water is fresher coming right out of the Colorado River as well as San Juan River and additionally there are less crowds up there. Also there’s great hiking up there in the Dark Canyon Primitive Area. It’s one of my favorite locations. We keep a jeep with extra large wheels at the Hite marina and we also use this launch for getting up to the Hite marina where the water is shallow. It’s a little more of the scenic route and not many people use the marina anymore, so you’re never fighting for a parking spot.” “Why doesn’t anyone use the marina anymore?” questioned Stephen listening in to the conversation. “Good question,” answered Courtney, “For about the past 6 to 7 years Hite marina has been high and dry because of the drought in the southwestern United States which as we all know is secondary to global warming.” Polly said, “I didn’t realize it had affected the lake levels that much, we’ve really never been down here except visiting the Glen Canyon Dam.” “You’ll get a nice tour of Lake Powell now because we have a fairly long ride ahead of us. I’ll point out a few of the highlights along the way. It’ll be a good time to catch up on things also,” said Courtney. “So anyway, I totally forgot, back to your luggage, what do you propose?”………………………………………………………………………………………… By 10:00 PM Sarah had finished reciting a ghost story about a haunted spirit from the lost Anasazi tribe from 1000 years ago that still roamed the canyon searching for the evil intruder. She said it appeared every full moon and never rested until the first daylight. From all the rowing they had done earlier that day, everyone was exhausted, even Guardian and Dreamer were already sound asleep. Stephen had faded off first, about 2 hours previously followed by Polly with the remaining survivors being Shari and Keith who were fascinated about the history of the canyon. Shari commented, “You know a full moon is projected for tomorrow.” Keith threw his hands up in the air making ghostly sounds arousing Guardian and Dreamer. “Now look what you’ve done. My poor babies,” Shari said as she cuddled Guardian and then Dreamer. “Go back to sleep, he’s just playing a rotten joke.” She scowled at Keith. He had a look on his face as if, “What did I do?”………………………………………… Ben motioned to Michael pointing to the direction of the cave. They quickly turned around, entered the cave and said, “It’s over we found you,” as they pointed their M-16 assault weapons directly at the Adams family