Sacred Trust (36 page)

“We're losing him!”

The voices faded once again.

“He's in V-fib!”

The pain released him. The darkness disappeared. Another voice reached him, a long familiar voice. Frankie felt a rush of joy unlike any he had ever known.

He was going home.

 

Jarvis pronounced the death of Franklin Verris, then set the wheels in motion for cleanup. He glanced into the waiting room to see if Dwayne was still out there. He wasn't. His friend must have come to pick him up while they were busy. Claudia wouldn't be too happy about that. She'd warned Jarvis that Dwayne hadn't called anyone to come and get him. Now she would probably insist that the kid had driven away while their backs were turned.

Jarvis passed by the open door of the extra call room, and to his surprise, he saw Claudia standing by the desk with her back to the door, holding the telephone receiver to her ear, talking softly.

Now what was she up to?

He stood there for a moment, but couldn't hear what she said. Frustrated, he went to his room and lifted the
receiver. Line two was lit, and he quietly punched the button and listened.

“Well, you may fire me for this,” came Claudia's calm, matter-of-fact voice over the telephone, “but I'm worried about Dr. George. He's made some pretty…indefensible decisions this morning, and he's not getting any better. I think he's sick. He almost passed out on us down here in the E.R. while we were working on a cardiac patient. The patient died on us, Mrs. Pinkley.”

“Are you saying the death was due to lack of good medical judgment?” came the administrator's grave question.

Claudia cleared her throat. “Yes. Dr. George is sick, but he won't admit it.” Her voice grew softer still. “I'm in the E.R. and he might overhear me. I've got to get back to work.”

“Wait a minute. You're saying there have been other instances this morning?”

“More than one. Dr. George gave morphine to Dwayne Little and just let him go. We got busy with the cardiac, and Dwayne disappeared while I wasn't watching.”

“You think he drove?”

“I sure do, Mrs. Pinkley. Dr. Bower was right about Dwayne.”

“Claudia, are you suggesting I remove Dr. George from duty and bring in another doctor to take his place?”

Claudia did not hesitate. “Yes. Preferably Dr. Bower. I'd better go. Bye.”

There was a click and a dead line.

 

Lukas had just laced up his hiking boots and pulled on a T-shirt when the telephone rang. He trekked across the
bedroom floor, scattering the carpet with dried flecks of caked mud left over from his last hike.

“Dr. Bower?” came a familiar voice when he answered. “This is Lauren. I heard you weren't at work today.”

“That's right.” Considering the town grapevine, he didn't doubt that every citizen in Knolls knew he had turned in his resignation. Did they know that Estelle had refused it?

“So how are you enjoying your suspension?” Lauren asked.

Lukas chuckled. “How do you keep up with everything?”

“Sorry. I've told you before, I've lived here all my life and everyone knows me. When I was in high school, I was the editor for the school paper. It comes naturally. But there are certain things that I care about more than others. Are you doing okay? I've been praying for you.”

He had no doubt that Lauren was sincere. “Thank you, Lauren. I've been doing a lot of praying, too, and I believe I'm doing the right thing.”

“Good. My offer to go fishing still stands—no strings attached, honest. You just need a friend right now to—”

“Sounds great.”

“Huh?”

“When can we go? I'm all dressed for the outdoors, but I'm warning you I'm not much of a fisherman.” He could almost hear her grinning over the phone line.

“I'll get my poles and be over in fifteen minutes.”

“How about I drive? I've got this great Jeep that knows how to hit the potholes. I'll pick you up. What's your address?”

Shocked by his own sudden impulsiveness, he had to ask her to repeat her address; then he had to ask directions since he didn't know his way around town yet.
When he disconnected the phone, he grabbed his jacket and keys and walked out of the house before he could change his mind. This was crazy! Lauren's chatter would probably drive him nuts and scare off the fish. But at least he knew there was probably nothing anyone could do to hurt his career at this point.

He heard the distant ringing of his telephone as he opened the door of the Jeep. He paused and turned to go back into the house, but changed his mind halfway back. It wouldn't be the hospital, since he was on suspension. It might be Dr. George calling to issue more threats or taunts, and Lukas didn't want to deal with it. He let it ring and switched off his cell phone before stepping into the Jeep.

T
heodore Zimmerman sat with his shoulders hunched over the desk in his office at home. He'd been there at least two hours, drinking, belching, swearing and sometimes crying. Why he was crying, he didn't know. The booze should be making him feel better by now. He hadn't cried since high school.

He should be scrambling to dig up the money to pay off Johnson. Gordon had called three times and had left increasingly angry, desperate messages on the recorder each time. Theo had sat and listened and poured another drink. His stomach burned and he knew he needed to eat lunch, but Jack Daniel's was all he could swallow right now.

He picked up the telephone to call Julie's office number. For a moment the numbers danced on the dial pad, then swam back into focus. He hit a wrong number, disconnected, tried again, missed, cursed. Finally he got it right, and relief poured through him. He needed to talk. Had to get some of this stuff off his chest before Tedi came home.

Thoughts of Tedi brought tears to his eyes once more. “What am I doing to my little girl?” He'd been so hard
on her the past few months, taking out all his problems on her, leaving her at home alone too much, yelling at her…and worse…when the pressure got too bad at work. And all for what? Now he didn't even have a job. And Tedi wouldn't speak to him.

He wiped the fresh moisture from his cheeks and waited for Julie to pick up.

She did.

He cleared his throat. “Hello, uh, Julie? Sorry to bother you at work.” Had to keep his voice steady. She didn't need to know how much he'd had to drink.

“Theo? What's wrong?”

The instant concern in her voice warmed something inside him. “I've had a rough morning. Got some time to talk?”

He expected an immediate reply, but instead there was a long hesitation.

He frowned. “Julie?”

“Theo, this isn't really a good time. Can we meet for dinner or something?”

His tears dried up, and he felt a shaft of anger, swift and strong. “I need to talk now. Can't you just—”

“Theo, it's really hectic here right now, and if this isn't an emergency—”

With another surge of anger he slammed the phone down and shouted a curse. So much for a listening ear from a loving woman.

He tried to stand, but the wheels of the chair rolled sideways and he stumbled against the desk and fell back. He pushed back from the desk with another curse, and one of the wheels caught the edge of the small recorder he'd hooked to the phone. He'd placed it on the floor the other day when he was working on some files.

He stopped and stared at the small light on the machine. He hadn't listened to it since last week. He reached over and took another swallow of his drink, then bent down and punched Rewind and Play. Might as well see what had been happening around here the past few days.

Tedi's voice reached him, then Mercy's. It was a new message.

As he listened, he felt as if his life were draining out on the floor.

 

By three o'clock Thursday afternoon Jarvis couldn't concentrate on anything for more than a few seconds at a time. His headache had returned with such force that he was tempted to take the remainder of the morphine that had been intended for Frankie Verris. Unfortunately, Claudia was on the ball, as usual. She had poured the drug into the hazardous waste container, with the other nurse as a witness, and they had both signed off; then Claudia had gone to lunch and left the other nurse, Tish, to take her place.

Jarvis still seethed at Claudia, both for her actions in the E.R. and for her betrayal of him to Estelle. The problem was he couldn't afford to just fire her right now. Hard as it was to admit, he needed her today. Badly. If not for the DNR sheet on Mr. Verris, this death could have turned into a lawsuit. Claudia had been an E.R. nurse for so long she could probably run a code single-handed, and she knew it. Bossy was better than dim-witted like her lunch replacement. Tish was a young, inexperienced nurse who didn't even know how to deal with the funeral home director who came to pick up the body of Mr. Verris.

They were wheeling him out on the black shrouded cot when the ambulance radio blared.

“This is Knolls 832 to Knolls Community. Knolls Community, come in, please.”

Jarvis groaned inwardly, then gestured for Tish to answer. He turned to walk toward the call room. He had to lie down just for a few minutes.

He took some more Ultram when he reached the room, even though he knew they wouldn't help. Maybe combined with the narcotic…

The telephone rang by the bedside before he could even sit down, and now there would not be time. The ambulance was a block away. He could hear it as he walked back out the door.

Tish came running toward him. “Dr. George, they're bringing in a trauma patient in his early twenties. He's unconscious and has an obvious injury to his head and his right leg, but his blood pressure is okay.”

Jarvis stopped and stared at her, not wanting to comprehend what she was saying. Another serious patient? “Why didn't they fly him?” he snapped.

She stared at him helplessly. “I guess they didn't think he was hurt badly enough. Should I page Claudia?”

He shook his head in annoyance. “If you're not qualified to take care of this, you shouldn't be here in the first place.”

They both looked up when the entrance doors slid open and the attendants came through with a gurney.

“Hello, Dr. George,” Connie said as she led the way toward him. “This one flew his Porsche off the side of an embankment, no seat belt. He was thrown clear and landed on the ground. He has a large contusion to the forehead with an overlying stellate laceration. We have him on 100 percent nonrebreather and have run two large
bore IVs. While we were at it, we drew lab for a trauma work-up. He has limited response to pain.”

Jarvis bent to look at the pressure dressing on the patient's forehead, then stopped suddenly. He recognized those polo shorts. He took a closer look at the patient and nearly lost his balance. His whole body went numb.

It was Dwayne.

“Dr. George?” Connie stepped toward him.

He straightened, still staring at the young man. Had to stiffen up. Had to do this right. Dwayne was…his life might…This was horrible!

He reached into his pocket for his penlight, then pulled the young man's lids back one at a time to check for signs of a blown pupil. None. That was good, although the morphine Dwayne had on board from his injection could have something to do with that, couldn't it?

For a moment Jarvis couldn't think, couldn't concentrate.

No, the eyes were good. Time to check the rest of him out.

The attendants had adequately placed him in full c-spine immobilization on the long spine board. At least they knew what they were doing. He wouldn't worry about the neck right now. Maybe he could get Dwayne shipped out before he had to think about that.

“Carol?” Jarvis called over his shoulder as he directed the attendants to take Dwayne to the trauma room. “Get ahold of the surgeon on call. We need a consult as soon as possible.”

He pulled out his stethoscope and listened to Dwayne's chest for breath sounds. His eyes teared up as he stared at the boy's bruised and cut face. Breathing sounded good.

“Dr. George,” came Carol's voice from the doorway,
“the surgeon can't be here for thirty or forty minutes. He's at his office in Willow Springs.”

“What!” Jarvis straightened and was immediately sorry. The room spun around him. He grabbed the cot and steadied himself. “Of all the irresponsible—” He broke off, glaring at Connie. “You should've airlifted him.” He turned to Carol. “Call a chopper. We've got to get him out of here.”

He bent back down over Dwayne's body, noting the Harris traction splint on his right leg and abrasions on the left knee. He stared at the splint, confused. Normally it was the driver who suffered a tib-fib fracture from standing on the brake during impact. But Dwayne's friend had picked him up.

Jarvis turned to Connie. “What happened to the driver?”

The paramedic stared at him blankly for a few seconds, then shook her head. “Dr. George, he was driving. He was the only one in the wreck.”

For a moment her words did not register. When they did he first felt a deep sense of disappointment that Dwayne had not listened to him. Then more fear hit him. He'd been the one to prescribe the morphine after Claudia had warned him not to.

What was he supposed to do next? He couldn't think. What had he already done? Should he have Tish page Claudia to come back to the E.R.?

The only other thing he could think to do was check for a pulse distal to the fracture site. With hands that had begun to shake, he held his fingers to the top of Dwayne's right foot. There was a pulse. At least he thought he could feel a pulse, but could he be sure? Maybe he was imagining something that wasn't there. Maybe he was hoping for it.

He would have to trust his instincts.

“Okay, Tish,” he called. “Let's get a head CT on this patient before the chopper arrives.”

Was he forgetting something?

He'd been treating patients for over thirty years, and he'd seen his share of traumas in this E.R. Surely he could trust himself by now. A CT was the way to go. It would save a lot of time when Dwayne reached Springfield for neurosurgery.

 

Ozark green had deepened with the maturing of spring into summer, and the vibrant colors of purple, yellow, pink and blue wildflowers dotted the shore of Piney River in a scene that could have been a Thomas Kinkade painting. Regrettably, the incredible beauty sure hadn't improved Lukas's fishing any. Nor his coordination. He'd already managed to tangle his fishing hook—complete with worm—in Lauren's ponytail. And they'd only arrived an hour ago. He'd also stepped into a muddy river sinkhole up to his right knee and had apparently frightened off all but one striper, which Lauren had caught and put on her stringer.

True to her word, Lauren did not put any moves on him, and she had obviously not dressed to tempt him. She had no makeup, her hair had not been washed, and she wore baggy overalls with an old blue chambray shirt underneath. She laughed at him a lot, chattered as incessantly as he had feared and managed with all those words not once to bring up the subject of Knolls Community Hospital.

Okay, Lord,
he prayed in his head during one of her rare silent moments,
You were right, as always. I needed a friend.
She was definitely turning out to be a good,
Christian friend—still a little deeper than he intended to take it, but the companionship was nice. He didn't feel quite so lonely.

 

Thursday afternoon Tedi walked all the way home from summer school by way of alleys. She never saw Dad's car, but she didn't want to take any chances. It was kind of fun finding her way through new territory, trying to recognize where she was from the backside of the houses she knew so well. Everything looked so different this way. It almost felt as if she were in a new place, a new town. It would be easy to imagine she was headed toward a new home.

When she came out to Tenth Street, she paused and glanced down toward the circle drive where Grandma lived. Wouldn't it be great…? But she couldn't. Dad would come looking for her there, and he would blame Grandma and Mom.

Time to go home and be good and shut up and let Dad do the talking. Maybe he would get tired of the silent treatment he'd gotten the past few days and ship her to Mom's.

When Tedi arrived home she felt a great surge of relief to see that Dad's car wasn't parked in the drive. The past few days, he hadn't driven out to find her when she'd walked home. Maybe he'd finally given up on his efforts to be pals. That would be good; it wouldn't be so hard for her to keep her mouth shut.

She pulled the house key out of her pocket and stuck it into the front door lock. It wasn't necessary. The door was already unlocked. Tedi shrugged and went on in. Dad was probably so out of it this morning that he hadn't remembered to lock the door. He always nagged her about security, but then he didn't listen to his own warnings.

She swung the book pack off her shoulders and turned the corner to go upstairs, but the sound of a footfall reached her from the shadows at the side of the staircase. With all of the drapes closed, little light ever seeped into the hallway even when it was bright daylight outside. Tedi stared hard into the dimness.

The darkness moved toward her, just like the monster in her nightmare. She stepped backward. He came faster, with a heavier step. Tedi jumped back and screamed, shoving the book bag toward the shadow. He knocked it aside and kept coming. She pivoted toward the door and tried to open it.

A big hand grasped her arm and jerked her back around. She caught her breath to scream again, but she stopped. It was Dad.

“Why are you running from me?”

His voice sounded slurred, and his hand continued to grip her arm too tightly.

“I d-didn't know it was you, Dad. It was dark.”