Heart Failure (8 page)

“Adam, I don’t—”

“I’m in a motel for a reason,” he hurried on. “I’m staying away from my apartment for now. There are parking areas in both front and back of a row of cabins. Park in the back, close to the breezeway where the ice machine is. Then walk straight through and turn left. I’m in cabin six.”

The silence stretched on. Adam was about to say something more when Carrie said, “Okay.”

“One more thing,” Adam said. “Be careful as you drive here. Try to make sure you aren’t followed.”

Adam’s call had caught Carrie in her car, sitting in the doctor’s parking lot after hospital rounds. She’d ended the call, and within seconds her phone rang again.

“Carrie, it’s Julie. Can you talk now?”

“Sure. I’m glad you called. Are we still going to meet for lunch?”

“That’s why I’m calling. Barry and I are going to be in Dallas tomorrow. Will that work?”

“Of course. I need some face time with you.” Talking with her best friend had always helped Carrie put things in perspective. “Tell you what. I can arrange to get away a little after eleven, and my first afternoon patient isn’t until two.”

They settled on a restaurant halfway between Dallas and Jameson. Carrie wondered if she should warn Julie to be certain she wasn’t followed, then dismissed the idea as paranoid.

As Carrie drove out of the parking lot, something she’d heard in med school crossed her mind.
Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you
. Maybe it wasn’t paranoid to be careful—not if someone was trying to kill Adam . . . and her.

SIX

ADAM JUMPED UP FROM HIS CHAIR WHEN HE HEARD THE TAP ON the door of Rancho Motel’s cabin six. “Adam?” a small voice called.

He opened the door and waved Carrie inside. They exchanged an awkward hug, but when Adam made a motion to kiss her, Carrie pulled back, disguising the movement by tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. His heart sank.

Carrie settled into the room’s only chair. “Do you think this is a safe place to meet?”

Adam eased onto the bed and sat with his back against the headboard. He’d asked himself the same question. “It’s the safest place I could think of.”

“Why didn’t your caller ID show up on my phone when you called?” Carrie asked. “What I got was ‘private call.’”

“I went to Best Buy and bought a prepaid cell phone. People, especially those on the wrong side of the law, call them
‘throwaways.’ I’ll give you the number before you leave. From now on, use that when you call me.”

“Why?”

“I understand that it’s possible to locate a cell phone, even when it’s not being used, by triangulating the cell towers it accesses. I don’t know how sophisticated this guy who’s after me really is or how much technology he has available, but I decided there was no reason to give him a way to pinpoint my location.”

Carrie said, “Well, I can see that you’re taking this seriously. But what’s your next move? That is, if you don’t mind telling me.”

For maybe the hundredth time Adam regretted thinking he could get by without sharing his past with Carrie. But he couldn’t change that. He leaned back against the headboard and closed his eyes. “I’m not sure what to do. Ordinarily I’d pack up and run again. But that would mean leaving you, and I can’t do that.”

“But if you stay, you’re not safe. Right?” she said.

“You saw what’s happened already. Does that seem safe to you?”

“What I can’t understand is, if DeLuca went to prison, why is this still happening?”

“A connected mob guy can put out a hit whether or not he’s behind bars,” Adam said. “You can bet that’s exactly the message that went out before the prison door closed on Charlie DeLuca.”

“So that’s why you were in the Witness Protection Program,” Carrie said.

“Witness Security Program,” Adam corrected. “But, yes. No one knows where I am except my brother.”

“Why Jameson? Why here?”

Adam forced a smile. “My grandmother grew up here. She went north and married my grandfather, but as a child I heard lots of stories about Texas, and specifically about Jameson, which was just a wide place in the road when she left. I looked it up on the Internet and found it had changed. Like the story of the three bears—not too large, not too small, but just right.”

“So you essentially slipped away from federal protection? Would they take you back?”

“I left the program because there were too many ways DeLuca’s people could find me. I don’t see why it would be any safer for me to go back now.”

“How did you get a job here?” Carrie asked.

“All it took was a couple of forged references and an obvious good grasp of the practice of law. It’s not hard to be a paralegal when you’re already an attorney.” A faint smile crossed Adam’s face. “Besides, Bruce Hartley got me cheap, and that’s just his style.”

“What about me—or maybe I should say, what about us? Was that all part of your cover?”

Adam was shaking his head while she was still talking. “Absolutely not. My first week here, when I slipped into the Jameson Community Church and saw you in the congregation, I knew I had to meet you.”

“So when we were introduced that Sunday morning after church, it wasn’t an accident?”

“No. Until I saw you, I never put much stock in that ‘love at first sight’ stuff. You changed my mind, right then and there. And the more I got to know you, the more certain I was that
love was real.” He took a deep breath, swallowed twice, and said, “Carrie, I loved you then. I still love you.”

Carrie turned her head and wiped at her eyes. A long moment passed before she finally spoke, and when she did her voice was fragile, as though it was ready to crack. “When John died, I thought I’d never love anyone again. Life had lost its color. But I met you, and it didn’t take long for me to think you’d come into my life to fill the hole that was there. I started to live again.”

“I wasn’t trying to—”

Carrie shook her head. “You did exactly what was needed. You let me talk about John. You dried my tears and let me lean on your shoulder. You gave me your love. And the gray turned to a rainbow again.”

Adam’s heart swelled.

“You introduced yourself as Adam. Then I found out you’re really Keith. You may even have other names. But that doesn’t matter. I’ve decided that what matters is I’m not ready to lose you. I love you, and I want us to be together.”

Hope rose in Adam’s chest. “Does that mean our engagement is on?” he asked. “Are you ready to wear the ring again?”

Carrie rose and moved to the window. She stared into the night for a long time before speaking. “Let’s leave it at ‘I love you’ for now. We can talk about our future when all this is settled.”

“So where do we go from here?” Adam asked. “You know the choices I have. What do you want me to do?”

Carrie turned from the window and looked into Adam’s eyes. “I don’t know what to tell you. All I know is that we’re in this together.”

Adam crossed the room and put his arms around her. They hugged and kissed, this time with the passion that had marked their relationship earlier.

When Carrie finally pulled away she looked at her watch. “I need to go. Give me your new cell phone number. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

Carrie entered the number into her phone, then moved toward the door, where she turned to face him. “Should I keep calling you Adam?”

He nodded. “You have to, in order to keep my identity a secret. Is that going to be a problem?”

“No. You’re still the man I fell in love with. That’s all that matters.” She kissed him once more. “Good night. Be careful.”

All through a night marked by tossing, turning, and brief periods of fitful sleep, Carrie pondered her situation and weighed the choices facing her and Adam. Her dreams were filled with flashbacks of John’s death interspersed with vivid scenes of a gunman bursting into the church and shooting Adam dead during their wedding. She woke in a mass of tangled, sweat-soaked bedclothes.

Over a quick breakfast of coffee and toast, she considered her options and found none of them good. Driving on automatic pilot to the clinic, her mind was a muddle. Now it was time to go to work, to put everything else aside. Her patients deserved her full attention, and that was what they’d get.

She stood outside the exam room where her first patient waited when a familiar voice made her turn. Phil Rushton said, “Carrie, glad I ran into you. Do you have plans for lunch?”

Carrie made a conscious effort not to show her surprise. What was going on? Phil Rushton didn’t ask colleagues to lunch. It was generally held that he didn’t ever stop for lunch. He went straight from the operating room to his clinic so he could see his post-ops, evaluate possible preoperative patients sent to him by his colleagues, and do the hundred and one things involved in a busy and successful specialty surgical practice.

There was definitely something going on here—but she wasn’t sure what it was. One explanation was that Phil was interested in her as something other than a colleague. But that didn’t ring true with her. Phil rarely did anything that didn’t benefit him, directly or indirectly. Once more Carrie wondered if he was angling to get her out of the clinic. She’d noticed some time ago that he favored the clinic’s other internist, Thad Avery. Maybe Phil or Thad wanted to replace her on the clinic staff with a friend of theirs. Whatever the reason, she’d better tread carefully.

“I’m sorry, but I have a luncheon date.”

“With that boyfriend of yours?”

“Actually, no.”
As though it’s any business of yours
. “I’m meeting a woman who’s been my best friend for years.”

“Can you cancel it?” Phil said. Was that a smile on his face? Unbelievable. “There’s a little hole-in-the-wall café down the street. The food is great, but it seems no one’s discovered it yet, so it’s quiet. Just the place for us to talk privately.”

Talk privately, as in break bad news? Carrie liked this less and less. “Phil, I—”

“Dr. Markham!”

Carrie’s nurse, Lila, came speed walking down the hall toward her. Something was definitely wrong. Lila didn’t
hurry for anything except the direst of emergencies. “What?” Carrie said.

“The EMTs just brought Mrs. Lambert into the ER. Chest pain, syncope, shock—probably a coronary. The ER doc’s with her now, but they need you there stat!”

“I’m on my way.” Carrie turned to Phil with an “I’m sorry” look, then hurried away, glad for the interruption, but worried about her elderly patient who appeared to be having her third coronary event in the past two years.

As she walked briskly through the enclosed breezeway that connected the clinic with the hospital, Carrie thought about what lay ahead of her. She wondered if this was the heart attack that might be the final one for Mrs. Lambert. Well, not if Carrie could do something to prevent it.

There had been a time when Carrie prayed for her patients. Then John died. She hadn’t offered up many prayers since then, but this seemed to be the time for one.

God, I know the ultimate result isn’t in my hands, but in Yours. Please use me to restore Mrs. Lambert to health
. The doors to the hospital were straight ahead of her. Time to see if she, or God, or the two of them together could keep her patient alive.

Carrie pushed through the double swinging doors into the confusion of the Emergency Room. Her eyes swept left and right as she hurried to her patient’s side. If one ignored the sounds that formed a constant background—beeps and voices and the clatter of balky gurney wheels—and focused instead on all the moving parts, they’d see staff going about their business in an efficient manner, with no outward hint of the inward adrenaline rush some of them undoubtedly felt.

“Dr. Markham, your patient is over there.” An ER nurse, whose name danced outside of Carrie’s memory, indicated a cubicle surrounded by drawn curtains that moved like sails in the wind from the activity going on behind them.

“Thanks, Jane,” Carrie said, thankful that the right name had come to her just in time.

She drew aside the curtains and saw what she’d expected. An ER doctor alternately focused on the green lines of a heart monitor and the lab slips in his hand. An elderly lady, thin and pale, lay motionless on the wheeled stretcher. Oxygen flowed into a clear plastic mask that covered her lower face. IVs dripped into both arms. Her vital signs, constantly displayed on yet another monitor, showed a blood pressure that was low but adequate.