Trauma Plan, page 27
The camera closed in on the face of a young man trying to squeeze by. Handsome, big jaw, striking green eyes . . . mass of red hair.
That patient from the ER? The contractor?
“No comment.” The young man frowned at the camera. “I said no. Get out of my face!” The shot went fuzzy black as his hand covered the lens. Then the camera focused again on someone else.
“Well, I sure have a comment,” an older man growled into the lens. “You can quote me: that doctor, Jack Travis, is a dangerous menace!”
* * *
Gretchen stayed for the whole shift; the clinic had been busy. Jack was grateful for her help. After that circus at the library and his conversation with Rob once the meeting broke up, he wasn’t sure he had anything left for anyone. Except Riley. And after what Rob had revealed, there might be some damage control to do there as well. How do I handle that?
But Riley hadn’t returned his calls. He hoped it was because she’d been busy at the hospital and had her cell phone turned off.
“You made the evening news.” Bandy glanced up from where he stood at the sink washing the coffeepot. “I suppose that’s why Gretchen covered for that first hour? So you could return a library book?”
Jack grimaced. “I had to do it.”
“And how did that work for you?”
“Who are you—Dr. Phil?”
Bandy rubbed a dish towel over the glass pot, stayed quiet. Too quiet.
“I’m sorry.” Jack groaned. “You’re right. It didn’t work. It made things worse. But I don’t have any respect for people who—”
“And there’s the problem,” Bandy said, cutting him off. “That’s it. On the nose.” He shook his head, sighed. “I’ve never seen anybody try as hard as you do to show respect—and generosity—to folks who are down on their luck, hurting . . . hungry. You did that for me, too, Doc; as long as I live, I’ll be grateful. But the plain truth is that we can’t pick and choose who deserves good treatment. Those neighbors need it too.”
“Mmm.” Jack squirmed, feeling a do-unto-others moment coming. He was too tired for this. And sick to death of feeling like he was walking into battle alone. Why couldn’t anyone understand—?
Jack’s phone rang. He waved a hang-on-a-minute signal to Bandy and pulled it from the pocket of his scrub jacket. Riley.
“Hey, stranger,” he said, feeling the full impact of how much he’d missed her today.
There was a prolonged silence.
“Riley?”
“Is everyone gone from the clinic?” she asked, her voice sounding strange.
“Bandy’s here.” He had a bad feeling. “Where are you?”
“In the parking lot.”
Jack’s brows scrunched. “At Alamo Grace?”
“No. Here. Right outside. I need to talk with you. Privately.”
“Sure . . . uh, I’ll ask Bandy to give us some privacy. Come to my office in a couple of minutes.” He thought of his conversation with Rob, felt his throat tighten. “Is something wrong?”
“We need to talk.”
Riley disconnected without saying anything more, and Jack slowly lowered his phone, his dread becoming visceral. “Bandy . . .”
“I’m going to take Hobo out to get settled for the night,” Bandy offered before Jack could finish. “Then do some tidying up in the truck—clown noses everywhere. I should be ashamed.” He nodded, gentle concern in his eyes.
“Thanks.”
Jack thought of meeting Riley at the door but changed his mind and walked to his office instead. As if being there would give him more control over what was about to happen. But in his gut, he doubted it. Something was seriously wrong.
30
“No, don’t.” Riley flinched and backed away a step as Jack reached out to her. “Why didn’t you tell me the truth?”
“Truth about . . . ?”
Riley’s heart stalled. How many lies are there?
“Abby’s death. That you were there when she was kidnapped.” She fought a wave of nausea. “And that you were a . . .”
“Suspect?” Jack met her gaze, his expression somewhere between pain and defensiveness. “Is that the word you’re looking for?” His voice lowered. “Is that what this is about, Riley?”
“You could have told me.” She hugged her elbows, beginning to tremble. “That first night at the River Walk and even after that. I told you . . . everything. You should have—”
“Told you all the ugly details?” His tone was growing bitter. “Just what every woman wants to hear over dinner.”
“Better than hearing it from my mother.”
Oddly, something in Jack’s expression said that he wasn’t surprised.
* * *
Jack stayed quiet for a moment, telling himself not to get angry. And that any blunder on his part could . . .
“Okay,” he said finally. “If that’s what you want, I’ll tell you everything. Right now. Right here.” He glanced around the room at his cluttered desk, a stack of newspapers on the extra chair. “Or we could go someplace more comfortable, and—”
“No,” Riley said quickly. “I don’t want to go anywhere.”
You don’t want to go anywhere . . . with me.
“Wait,” Jack said, beginning to feel sick. “You can’t think that I’m actually capable of something like that?” He reached for her hand, desperate to change what was happening. She took another step back. “C’mon, Riley. You know me.”
“Do I?” Sudden tears shimmered her eyes. “I thought I did. I’d started to think so many good things, but now . . .” She took a breath, met his gaze directly. “It’s not that I believe you were involved in Abby’s death—I don’t. I’ll admit that it scared me. I read those accounts from the newspapers, Jack. All those horrible things. And I’ve seen you get angry.” She swiped at a tear. “Still, I don’t think you could do something like that. Not murder. But . . .”
“But what?” Jack watched the expressions flickering across her face. Hurt, doubt . . . anger? “Tell me what’s going on.”
“You applied for a grant from the Hale Foundation?”
It’s about that?
Riley watched his eyes. “She said you did.”
Jack told himself to chill, be careful. “I probably did. Okay. Sure. I did.” He shook his head. “I’ve gone everywhere for funding. I’d go to the man in the moon if that’s what it took to keep the clinic going. You know how important that is to me.”
“Yes. I do.” She narrowed her eyes. “Important enough to recruit a crippled volunteer who just happens to have connections to a medical foundation.”
“I . . .” Guilt snagged his words. “Riley, wait . . .”
“Why? So you can deny it?” Her lips twisted. “And tell me that you would have wanted me here, offered to help me, if my name were something other than Hale? What if I were . . . Jane Doe?”
“No, Riley—”
“I didn’t want to believe my mother,” she continued. “But it all makes sense now. You waved my name like a flag. Even before my first shift here. And then you practically rolled out the red carpet when my mother stopped by that day. You used me, Jack. Now I can’t be sure anything between us was real.” Her tears returned, but she pushed on. “But that’s not even the worst of it. The saddest part is that you’ve made this clinic all about you. Not about the patients—about you. And your insatiable need to be—” her gaze drifted to Jack’s photo wall—“some sort of invincible warrior. That ugly, angry need makes things chaotic and unstable . . . and unsafe.” A tear slid down her cheek. “It proves over and over that the action committee is right—they’re right about you! And I can’t—” Her phone’s text tone sounded in her pocket. She swiped at her eyes and then reached for it.
Jack struggled for words. There had to be some way to—
“Stacy Paulson died,” she announced in a monotone. “I’m going.”
“Riley . . .”
She walked out without looking back.
It wasn’t until several minutes after she left that Jack realized he’d never told Riley what he learned from Rob Melton. That it was the Hales who’d hired the private investigator to snoop around in his past. Jack had been furious. And he fully expected them to tell Riley what they’d learned. Maybe they’d even whisper it to the newspapers, get the whole ugly mess stirred up again. The timing couldn’t be worse; the city council meeting was next week.
Jack sank into his office chair. It wasn’t likely that Riley would be standing beside him at that meeting. Blast it; she was wrong about him. And was being completely unfair. He’d applied for the Hale Foundation grant long before they had met. Not that Riley let him defend himself on that point. And even if Jack had considered what her name could lend to the clinic, it had nothing at all to do with how he’d begun to feel about—
There was a sudden frenzy of barking, then a horn blast and a shout.
Jack jogged to the rear parking lot, squinted as the security lights snapped on. Then saw Bandy. Wielding a hose nozzle like a weapon.
“Fool . . . kids,” he gasped, soaking wet and struggling to shut off the water. He stopped the flow, then shushed Hobo. “Chased ’em down.” He drew a ragged breath. “Scared ’em off.”
“What happened?”
Bandy pointed. “Sorry, Doc.”
The Hummer. Spray-painted with GET OUT QUAC—
Quack.
Bandy handed Jack a soggy stack of papers. “They dropped these.”
Action committee flyers announcing the city council meeting.
* * *
Kate crossed her legs, uncrossed them, then glanced anxiously at her cell phone lying on the crisp linen tablecloth. Time: 7:47. No messages. She poked her straw at the lime wedge in her third glass of ice water.
“Still waiting?” the silver-haired waiter asked, doing his best to be discreet despite the fact that she’d taken up an undoubtedly valuable Bohanan’s table for nearly an hour.
“Unfortunately, yes.” Kate pretended she couldn’t feel patrons’ eyes sneaking curious glances at her. “And now I’m wondering if I misunderstood.” Heat crept up her neck. She took a slow breath of air scented with ninety-dollar steaks. “Perhaps I was supposed to meet him at the theater. We have tickets for Wicked.”
“Ah.” The man’s eyes darted to her cell phone.
“He’s a doctor,” Kate said a little too loudly. Perspiration trickled beneath the bodice of her dress. “My . . . husband is a heart surgeon. He can’t always get to a phone.”
“Of course.”
And I’m an idiot who never seems to learn.
“I think I’ll go over to the theater, then. Thank you,” Kate said, folding her napkin and standing. “You’ve been very kind.”
She squared her shoulders and walked away from the table, vowing that she would not make another call to Griff—or cut him any more slack. She’d left half a dozen messages in the last hour and invented twice as many excuses for him: the unexpected business meeting had run long; he’d taken a nap after the drive from Dallas and accidentally overslept; his phone battery died; he was stuck in the I-10 traffic. But after an embarrassing hour without a word, Kate could only forgive Griff Payton if he were lying under a bulldozer on some remote building site. She winced and reassured herself it wasn’t likely. It was far more plausible that after a successful meeting he’d celebrated with drinks or . . . something else? She recalled the ER doctor’s suspicion that Griff was a drug seeker. And then told herself even that thought amounted to giving the man an excuse—too stoned to call.
No. The truth was that the handsome and very charming Griff Payton had simply stood her up. Well, fine. Another lesson learned. Kate refused to be bummed by it. In fact . . .
She smiled, reaching for a mint at the table near the exit. Kate had half a mind to take her little black dress, Italian heels, and Tex-y toes to that Tex-Mex place in Alamo Heights. The one that used to be an auto service business. Taco Garage. Yes. She’d go there, order the Cadillac carnitas, and forget—forget completely—that she’d ever believed in firefly magic.
Kate grimaced. First she’d take a side trip to the Bohanan’s ladies’ room. Three glasses of ice water were more than enough to add injury to insult.
Adiós, Griff.
* * *
“It’s been over two hours. They won’t be back.” Bandy reached down to tuck the flowered dish towel around Hobo where he’d fallen asleep beside the kitchen chair. “Scared silly of my watchdog.”
Jack glanced toward the window. “I’ll give them something to be scared of. I should have heard them out there.”
“What you should do is get out of here. It’s nearly ten, and—” Bandy shot Jack a knowing look—“it doesn’t look good for a man to be knockin’ on a young lady’s door late at night.”
“Who said anything about knocking on doors?”
“The look on your face did, Doc.” Bandy sighed. “I’m not asking what all that was about earlier, but you need to go see Riley. Get it straightened out. Even if swallowing some pride is on the menu.”
“Doesn’t anything get by you?”
“Armadillos sometimes, but . . .” Bandy waited, ever patient.
“Riley has some things all wrong about me. She’s upset. I don’t know if I can do anything about that.”
“She’s the woman who believes in you—remember telling me that?”
Jack’s throat squeezed. “I’m not so sure that’s true anymore. There are things in my past . . . things I did that I didn’t get right. And now I don’t know.”
“We all make mistakes, Doc. We’re human.” Bandy’s eyes did that familiar ceiling inspection. “That’s where grace comes in. But even in the beautiful light of that, we can still do a little somethin’ to get things squared up.”
“What are you saying?”
“Go talk to her.”
Jack looked out the window again, uncertain.
“I’ll be fine here.” Bandy shook his head. “And the truth is, I’m plain tuckered out—too old to be hauling a hose around like a fireman. As soon as I get Hobo settled outside, I’m going to take two of those pain pills and hit the sack. I don’t care if it knocks me for a loop. And you . . . you’re going to go knock on that young lady’s door.”
Jack opened his mouth to protest, but Bandy raised his hand and cut him off.
“Maybe you don’t know it yet, but you need her. Take it from a man who knows. You don’t want to fool around and take a chance of losing someone like her.”
You need her . . . “Okay . . . I’ll think about it.”
“Past time for thinking.” Bandy rolled his eyes. “I can’t believe I’m about to say this, considering our particular history, but it’s time to take the bull by the horns, Doc.”
31
Riley sat on her couch in the dark. She was bone-weary, wrung out. Numb. Empty. Even tears weren’t an option. She’d used them all up holding Lorna Collins in her arms. Hearing her heart-wrenching sobs, feeling her tremble . . . helping a loving mother let go. The little girl who’d clapped and clapped to save Tinker Bell, eyes bright with hope, had taken her last breath at 7:39. When Riley was at Jack’s office, letting go of him. And now . . . Riley drew her knees up and sank back against the pale, cool leather of the couch. Now there was nothing left. Because just when she thought things couldn’t get any worse . . .
Her gaze moved to the stapled trio of papers lying on the table beside her Bible. The long-awaited medical report. A thorough assessment, complete with measurements and comparisons of push-pull strength, grading of paresthesia, muscle tone, and reflexes. And a cover letter signed by her Houston neurosurgeon that, though eminently gracious, did nothing to soften the impact of the bottom line.
Unfortunately, the patient’s dominant arm still exhibits significant weakness and sensory deficit. In my opinion, it would be both unwise and unsafe for her to perform the physical tasks presented in the job description provided . . .
It had gone on to say that while the highest percentage of nerve recovery occurs during the first year, there was perhaps hope for some small measure of improvement. The letter concluded with personal remarks about Riley’s “valuable and inspired” work as a trauma chaplain.
She’d screamed out loud, grabbed the papers, hurled them as hard as she could. And watched them flutter pathetically onto her foot because she’d used her unsafe, “significantly weakened” arm. Then Riley screamed at God. But she doubted he heard her.
“You aren’t there,” Riley whispered to the darkness. “You’ve given up on me too. You knew the one thing I needed and you took it away.” “Valuable and inspired”? She groaned. “Because you know that my faith isn’t strong enough. That I’m a fraud. And I don’t deserve—”
Riley’s cell phone jumped on the table with an incoming call. Jack. She waited a few more rings before picking it up.
“Your gate code isn’t working.” His voice was low, hesitant.
“I changed it.”
There was a short silence. “Why?”
Because I can’t see you anymore. “What do you want?”
“I want to talk with you. I need . . . to see you, Riley.”
“We talked. There’s no need—”
“There is. Please let me in.”
The emptiness began to ache.
“Riley?”
“It’s . . . late.” The ache choked her like a merciless assailant. “And I can’t do this anymore.” The clinic, the hospital . . . She glanced at her Bible. I can’t even hope.
“Please . . .”
“Good-bye, Jack.” She disconnected, then touched her fingers to her cheek, surprised to find it wet. Apparently she’d had a few tears left.
Before Riley could set it down, the phone rang again. She’d let it go to voice mail, erase Jack’s message without listening, and . . . Riley squinted at the display. Vesta?
I was supposed to call.
“I’m so sorry,” Riley said quickly. “I promised I’d call, and—”
“Thank . . . God . . . you’re there. I’ve been so frightened, and I couldn’t . . .”
