Sacred Trust (28 page)

“What kind of injury?” Theo asked. In such close proximity, Mercy could smell the booze, and Tedi probably could, too. “Tedi, where did you go? I couldn't find you.”

“I got stung by a bee,” Tedi said. “I swelled up and couldn't breathe. Some people found me and brought me here.”

Once again Theo put a hand on Tedi's shoulder, and once more she withdrew. “You look fine to me.” He looked at Lukas. “Why does she have to stay in the hospital overnight?”

Mercy glared at him. “Tedi went into anaphylactic shock, Theodore. They called a code on her and almost had to do a cricothyroidotomy. I'd say that warrants an overnight observation in ICU. Don't worry, my insurance covers it. You won't have to pay.”

Theo returned her glare. “You really think I value money more than my own daughter? I would just like to know what's going on, why she left the house without telling me. Is that too much to ask?”

“Under the circumstances,” Lukas said, stepping
forward, “I think the answer will have to wait. Tedi needs some rest.”

“How much rest?” Theo asked.

“We'll keep her overnight and watch her,” Lukas said. “Her family doc may release her in the morning if she's doing okay.”

“Look, I can't stay here all night,” Theo protested. “I'm already late for a meeting.”

“I'm staying,” Mercy said. “You would only upset her.”

Theo glared at her. “Why? Because you intend to poison her mind about me?”

“Mr. Zimmerman.” Lukas stepped around the exam table and took Theo's arm. “Please continue this conversation elsewhere.” He glanced at Mercy. “I'll stay with Tedi.”

Mercy squeezed her daughter's arm and gestured to Theo to follow. She led him to an empty trauma room and turned to face him. “The first thing that will upset her, Theo, is the fact that you're drunk. That always terrifies her, or didn't you know that?”

“Drunk! You think just because I've had a small glass of wine, I'm automatically drunk.”

“I think you're drunk because the fumes from your breath make it dangerous to light a match. I think you're drunk because your eyes could pass for stop signals, and if you don't think Tedi can see it, you vastly underestimate her. Do you realize she almost died tonight because of you?” Mercy could hear her own voice rising, and she struggled for some of the control Lukas had praised her for earlier. “She left home tonight because she knew you were drinking, and she was afraid of you.” She paused. “We found some bruises on her shoulders, Theo, and I want to know how they got there.”

He grew still for a moment; then his face darkened.
“For Pete's sake, Mercy, your daughter almost died tonight, and you're worried about a couple of bruises? She probably fell—”

“They're not fresh, and they're not from a fall.” She couldn't be sure of that, but she could bluff. Her voice took on the cutting edge of a scalpel. “She was afraid to tell me what happened, but I intend to find out.”

Silence descended on the room.

“There's nothing to find out,” Theo said at last. “I'm a good father. You wouldn't know about that. Just because your father was a drunk—oh, excuse me, I believe the polite term is alcohol dependent—you think you're an expert. Just because your father beat you—”

“What?”

“Don't you recall? Or maybe you'd had too much to drink that night.”

“I don't drink.”

“I remember holding you while you cried and told me about your father beating you.”

“I never told you anything like that!”

Theo shrugged. “Selective amnesia? Your dad lost his temper and whipped you with the horse bridle. You had welts on your legs for days.”

“How can you bring that up now?” What other things about their private moments together was he planning to spill to the whole world?

“Your own father abused you. That makes you more likely to be an abuser, too,” Theo said. “Julie agrees with me.”

“Or it makes it more likely to have married an abuser. And you leave Julie out of this. My life is none of that woman's business!”

“It will be. She's going to be Tedi's new mom.”

The shock of the words struck Mercy speechless for two seconds. “I'm her mother.”

Theo watched her face with a slow, taunting smile. “You're such a good mother, the courts made me Tedi's legal guardian.”

“She won't be much longer.”

“But that's why I'm here tonight, isn't it?” His voice was low and smooth. “They can't even trust you enough to let you sign the admittance forms. It's a good thing Tedi has me. Her mother did a stint in the psych ward, her grandfather was a drunk and a child beater, and her grandmother's out sleeping in the woods with her boyfriend—”

Mercy's fist connected with Theo's face before she even realized the cork had popped on her control. Her knuckles stung as Theo staggered backward in surprise and stumbled against a metal suture tray. The table fell sideways with a crash that echoed through the emergency department.

Theo scrambled to right himself as he glared at Mercy over the top of the table. Blood seeped from the left side of his mouth. He sprang forward, fists clenched.

“What's going on in here?” Lukas came running through the open doorway. “What are you doing to my trauma room?” He caught sight of Theo's face and stopped.

Theo kept his gaze trained on Mercy. He touched the blood on his mouth with his finger and held it out to look at it. A slow smile replaced the outrage on his face. “See, Mercy? Like father, like daughter. No court in the land would give you custody of an innocent ten-year-old child, and if you were to try to take her anyway, I'd have you thrown in jail so fast you'd never see your daughter again.”

Every muscle in Mercy's body tensed. She lunged toward him.

“Stop it, Mercy!” Lukas grabbed her around the waist and lifted her bodily from the floor.

“He can't do this!” she cried, struggling. “Let me go!”

“Mercy!” Lukas held on more tightly. “Stop it. Tedi's crying in the other room. She heard you in here.”

That worked. Mercy grew still. The tears came then, angry, frustrated, painful tears. She could barely see Theo through them, but that hateful smirk was imprinted on her mind. Lukas continued to hold her.

“I'll sign those papers now, Dr. Bower,” Theo said.

“They're ready at the desk,” Lukas replied coldly.

“You know where to find me if you need me.”

“I doubt that will be necessary.”

“Fine. I'll be back in the morning between nine and ten to get my daughter. She'd better be ready.”

“That isn't up to you, Mr. Zimmerman,” Lukas said. “Good night.” Somehow the icy tone of his voice comforted Mercy.

Theo didn't even stop again to see his daughter before he left.

T
heodore drove into the darkened parking lot of the Golden Lion.

He wasn't surprised to find it empty at eleven o'clock at night. Even the kitchen help had gone home. Okay, so Gordon and the clients weren't here, but Gordon might have driven them back to the office for a talk. Surely he'd tried to keep them occupied as long as possible.

“Should've called,” Theo muttered as he turned out of the parking lot. He drove the short five blocks to the office and saw a light coming from Gordon's cubicle. His car sat out in the drive, but there were no other vehicles nearby.

As Theo pulled up, the front door opened and Gordon strode out, hands in his pockets, jingling his keys and loose change, an irritating habit of his when he was angry.

This did not look good.

Theo parked and got out quickly. “Gordon, I'm sorry. I've been in the emergency room ever since I talked to you last. Tedi got stung by a bee and had a bad reaction. She almost died.” He said it fast, before Gordon could interrupt.

Gordon stopped in front of him, still jingling his keys,
anger and frustration plain in his eyes even in the dimly lit darkness. “You realize what this means, don't you? Century 21 has several places for them to see, and they won't give up.”

“Did you show the place?”

“Oh, they saw the place, all right.” The jingling continued. “You're the one who's been handling this, and they wanted you to be the one to show it to them. They couldn't understand what could be holding you up.” He shrugged, then said sarcastically, “They liked all that telephone charm of yours, and mine just wouldn't do. Maybe they thought that since they'd flown all the way back here from California, you could take time out of your busy schedule to meet them. You're the only one with a smooth enough line to get that dump unloaded before it gets dangerous.”

Theo curbed his own anger. “They'll understand an emergency, surely.”

Gordon shrugged again. “You didn't even bother to call and let us know. You stood us up at the Lion after you'd promised to be there.” He lowered his voice and glanced around. “Look, Theo, you'd better call them and get this straightened out, because you and I both stand to lose thousands on this deal if we don't sell.” He leaned forward and tapped Theo on the chest. “Money we can't afford to lose in an investment we can't afford anyone to find out about.”

“Don't worry, we'll make it back in time. We'll cover all the loans. No one will know.”

“You may get to tell it to the judge if you can't get us out of this. If the boss hears about it, you're out of a job.”

“We're in this together, Gordon.”

“I'm not taking the fall for you.”

“You keep the company books. You wrote the check.”

“It was your idea to do this! You set it up, and you con
vinced me it would be okay. You've got to explain things to these guys and get rid of this property before the whole thing explodes in our faces.”

Theo held his hands up. “Okay, okay. Relax. I'll call and give them the sad story about my little girl. We'll make another appointment for tomorrow and everything will be okay.”

 

All was quiet, and Lukas knew he should be trying to catch some sleep, but he couldn't get certain people off his mind. Just to make sure about Tedi, he climbed the stairs and entered ICU. He nodded at the nurse who sat at the central desk, then spied Mercy sitting with her head bent by the side of her daughter's bed. She still wore her stained T-shirt and cut-off denim shorts.

Lukas stepped over to the nurse. “Don't you have a cot we can set up beside the bed for Dr. Richmond?”

“Yes, but I've been so busy here I haven't been able to leave, and we're short an aide tonight.”

“Tell me where to find the cot.”

She gave him directions, and he returned in a few moments with a narrow fold-out sleeping chair and a set of scrubs. He carried them to the end of Tedi's bed.

“Mercy?” he called softly.

She raised her head and looked up at him. Her eyes focused on what he held.

“You need some sleep,” he said. “And since Tedi's out of danger, you can relax. These scrubs will be more comfortable than those clothes.” He placed the scrubs on the arm of the chair in which she sat, then tossed down a comb that he had purchased from a vending machine in the cafeteria. “Go change while I set up this cot.”

She didn't move. She stared at him. For a moment
tears filled her dark eyes, but they did not fall. Without saying a word she finally picked up the stack of items and walked out. Lukas folded out the sleeping chair closely enough to Tedi's bed that Mercy could reach out and touch her. He spread a sheet and a blanket over it, then grabbed a pillow from a nearby empty bed.

When Mercy came back in, she wore the blue scrubs and had combed the tangles out of her hair. She still looked pale and very tired.

“Thanks, Lukas. I feel a lot better.”

“You don't look any better. You need some sleep.”

“No wonder you don't date much.” She sat down on the cot and watched Tedi's breathing for several moments in silence.

Lukas leaned against the next bed and observed the silence with her.

“I made a fool of myself tonight,” she said at last. “I upset Tedi and I showed my weakness to Theo.”

Lukas grinned at her. “Like a mama tiger. You should have seen Claudia. If I hadn't made her stay with Tedi, she'd have come in there and ripped into Mr. Zimmerman herself.” He chuckled at the memory.

Mercy shot him a glance and a wan smile, then patted the other end of the cot.

He sat.

“What did you overhear?” she asked.

“Everything. You know there's no soundproofing in that E.R., and you didn't even shut the door. Tedi was the only one in, so…” He shrugged.

“There was no noise to cover it.”

“That's right. So if we didn't already know what a nasty character your ex-husband is, we do now. I don't think it came as a great shock to anyone.”

“Sometimes I hate living in a small town.”

“Why? Because everybody knows everybody else's business? At least someone cares.”

She shook her head. “They don't care here any more than they do in a big city. They just have less to keep them occupied, so they occupy themselves in the lives of others.” She paused, glanced toward the nurse, and lowered her voice. “I have to make sure I don't take a vacation or medical conference break at the same time a male doc does in this town.”

Lukas knew what she meant. “Gossip.”

“You bet. I had my name linked to a very respectable, very married physician in the hospital just because I took off at the same time he did for a conference last year.”

“How frustrating. Did it cause much trouble?”

“I didn't give it a chance. I threatened to recommend dismissal for a tech who couldn't keep her mouth shut or her mind out of the gutter, and then I warned the wife about it.” She grimaced. “I found it extremely insulting and distasteful.”

“Yes, you would. I know the feeling.”

Mercy glanced at him. “You, too?”

“I was amazed at the rumors that circulated about women I supposedly dated or had secret affairs with, especially when it involved women I'd never even met.” He glanced at her. “Some people in KC still think I'm a father, even though blood tests proved the child was not mine. The mother was a nurse I worked with when I started my residency, and for some crazy reason she decided I was going to be the one true love of her life. She was very insistent, and unfortunately, she was the daughter of the director of internal medicine. When I didn't see things her way, she complained to her dad and
to my trainer about me. She said she thought I was manic depressive and accused me of sexual harassment.”

“You don't seem bipolar to me.”

“I was going through the grief process at the time, but no, I'm not bipolar. This nurse insisted that I was endangering the patients in my manic state. She even charted orders I never gave and had other docs questioning my judgment. They held a meeting and decided I was to be reviewed by a psychiatrist. I made the appointment, but then my trainer scheduled me to work that day and no one would cover for me, so I missed the appointment. I was fired soon after. When this nurse then turned up pregnant, she spread the word that I was the father and that I had seduced her.”

Mercy shook her head in amazement. “You? Surely nobody believed—I mean, you're not…you know…the seducing kind.”

“The hospital used it against me later when I took them to court. And as far as I know, there has only been one Immaculate Conception in history.”

Mercy raised a brow at him. “I hope they realized you're no philanderer.”

“I'm a normal, healthy male, who just happens to believe in purity before marriage and monogamy after.”

“You're a Christian.” She made it sound almost like an accusation.

“Yes.”

“My mother's a Christian,” she said. “She has been since my father died. She's always preaching to me about things she's read in the Bible, great ‘spiritual truths' she's suddenly discovered. She doesn't push me too much, but I can tell I frustrate her at times because of my beliefs.”

“What do you believe?”

She shot him a warning glance. “Don't you start, too.”

“I'm not. I'm just asking what you believe.”

“I'm not sure you would call it belief. Maybe you'd call it lack of belief.” She glanced over at her sleeping daughter and shook her head. “I have trouble believing in a so-called loving God who would allow so many painful things to happen in my life and my daughter's.”

“That's perfectly understandable. I felt that way after I watched my mother die of cancer, and I've been a Christian since I was ten years old. I argued with God about why she had to suffer. She was a great lady who helped half the people in town in some way or another over the years. It's hard to watch your loved ones hurting.”

“Who won the argument you had with God?” Mercy asked.

“Well, it turned into something besides an argument. It turned into an intense conversation that involved several kinds of communication and several people.” He shrugged. “I'm sure you don't want to hear my ‘great spiritual truths' any more than you want to hear your mother's.”

“I'll humor you just this once. What kinds of conversation?”

“It was a gradual thing. It took place over the months of grieving after Mom's death. As I searched the Scriptures and prayed, and continued to lay blame at God's door, I became aware of His loving patience with me—not only in the Bible verses He led me to read, but in the fellow believers in my church who continued to love and support me emotionally, even though I wasn't always very nice or faithful in attendance. God works through His people, and He shows His love, as well, through His people. I remember one elderly lady in my parents' church who came to talk to me one day when I was home
visiting. I came straight out and asked her why a loving God would allow so much suffering.”

“What did she say?”

“She asked if I would have preferred a dictatorship.”

“Yes, yes, I've heard all about that from Mom,” Mercy said. “Adam and Eve were given a free will and chose to sin. And now we're paying for their sin.”

“No, we're paying for our own sin and just plain sin in general. Everyone but Christ has chosen sin from the beginning of time.”

“So tell me, what do you call sin?”

“Do you want my own personal interpretation?”

“Yes.”

“It's anything that shows lack of love for God or for my fellow man.”

She raised a brow. “That's it?”

“To me, it's reasonable. All the laws are based on two rules, which are to love God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind, and to love your neighbor as yourself. If you do these two things, you'll never break any other of God's laws.”

“So since we've broken these laws,” Mercy said, “God's going to make us pay. He punishes us. We either love God or else.” Bitterness laced her voice.

“I've felt that way before, too, especially when I thought I was being punished by Him for some reason. I've gradually come to the conclusion that love is an active thing, much the same as faith. You act on the basis of love and faith and don't worry about forcing the emotions to follow. God handles that part. And God doesn't punish for the sake of wreaking harm on us, but instead, He disciplines us for the sake of lovingly guiding us in His direc
tion. He will do whatever it takes to teach us what He wants us to know.”

“Even when it means suffering at the hands of an evil man?”

“I have to remind myself often that suffering was not in God's original plan,” Lukas said. “Human beings were the ones who allowed sin into the world, and that is the cause of suffering. It doesn't seem fair, but as my father pointed out to me not long after Mom's death, we should look for God in the one who's hurting, not in the cause of pain itself. Because of our choices we separate ourselves from God's protection. I know God was there with Mom during her pain, even though she got cranky at times. During her lucid moments, near the end, I saw her become more and more eager for heaven. I think Mom learned something through her pain on earth that is now serving her in heaven.”