Deadly Practice — Bill Yancey

Who's trying to murder Sarafea Seville, why, and will they succeed? Seville admits she is overbearing. "A lot of people think I'm a bitch. I think that is a compliment." She has recently been hired as the office manager of three urgent care facilities to direct their future expansion. Her employers, two doctors, spend more of their time chasing hot women, driving fast cars, and spending their profits than working. No one who labors under Seville enjoys her pointed remarks, threats, innuendo, or cheap shots. She has managed to fire almost every employee hired by the physicians when they first established their clinics. In addition, she has replaced those staff members with cronies of her own. The earnings for the business have soared, but so have the expenses. Legally and illegally, Sarafea is finding more ways to capture money left on the table by insurance companies. In addition, Seville is well known to the medical community in St. Augustine, Florida. She has presided over the collapse of several practices. The demises of a gynecology practice, a surgical center, and several other medical clinics have been laid at her doorstep by some observers. She doesn't interpret the failures as her responsibility. "If they had just followed my instructions," she says, "they would have been much more profitable." To Addison Wolfe, MD, it appears someone is trying to murder Ms. Seville, the African-American Dragon Lady of accounts receivable. The problem is narrowing the field; everyone he knows wants her dead except her employers. And one prime candidate is Wolfe's best friend, the ex-SEAL, Jake Harer. Worse, the physician partners who employ her are completely oblivious to their predicament. They have abdicated their responsibilities and can no longer run the centers without her. She's destroying their organization from within. Wolfe prefers the partners recognize the damage she is inflicting on their practice. Perhaps then they would fire her, but that scenario does not look promising. Wolfe can't allow someone to murder the office manager. That conflicts with his beliefs and training to help preserve life. He has a hard time being devoted to protecting her, however, since he too would be happy to see her fired, or dead.