With Every Breath (15 page)

He closed his eyes, never imagining his father could be quite this cruel.

It was Deirdre. The last time he saw her, they were both thirteen years old. He knew she had married, of course. And he was glad for her. What kind of jealous, bitter man would he be if he had wished spinsterhood on a girl he once adored?

“Please don’t leave,” Deirdre wept as she clung to
him. “I’ll love you forever. I’ll wait forever!”

She had waited four years, and then she married a wool merchant from the village.

He hadn’t thought of Deirdre in years. As much as it hurt
when he left home, their relationship had been little more than two lonely children who found each other on the windswept moors and dreamed about the possibility of escape. He was glad it appeared Deirdre finally did escape.

He carried the picture to the window, tilting it to see the image better. A rush of satisfaction surged through him at the sight of all those healthy children. They had shoes made of good leather, no scuffs. Deirdre wore a lace collar and a pearl brooch pinned to her bodice. She looked very prosperous for the daughter of a sheepherder. She looked happy.

Good. The wool merchant was a fine provider and gave her things Trevor could never have afforded had he remained in Scotland. That first year away from Deirdre had been hard, but over the years the ache had eased.

Now he dreamed of a very different sort of woman. Not so much a girl to ease his loneliness, but a woman of fire. One who was a challenge. A joy.

He had always liked Kate. Back in school, he loved competing with her, even though she was too enraptured with Nathan Livingston for Trevor to harbor any foolish romantic fantasies. Nathan was perfect for Kate. The two of them were always laughing. Cheerful. People flocked around them because their sunny disposition seemed contagious.

Nathan was dead now, but that didn’t mean Trevor was free to start yearning after Kate. She was so far out of his reach, she may as well live in the stratosphere. And if she knew all his secrets, she’d probably run screaming for the hills.

He pushed the thought away and picked up his father’s letter, propping his hip on the windowsill to catch the weak light filtering through the overcast sky. His eyes widened as he read.

Well, well, well
.

It appeared even the all-powerful Neill McDonough couldn’t
control the world. Trevor tossed the letter in the trash can and shook his head in disbelief. He would never allow himself to be drawn back into his father’s glittering world. When he was thirteen he came to an agreement with his father, one that still carried the taint of shame and betrayal. They had struck a bargain, and Trevor had no intention of letting his father back out of it now.

How could a wound still feel so raw after all these years? With clinical detachment he locked the memories away and left in the direction of the hospital. He had three days of accumulated work to tackle, but all he could see when he walked into the clinic was a huge vase of lemon-yellow begonias dominating the nurses’ station. He had no doubt who’d brought them in.

“Kate, get those flowers off the counter,” he barked. “They’re dust collectors and are sucking up the oxygen.”

Kate leapt up from where she was finishing her lunch at the staff table. “Every window on this floor is open and we’re flooded with fresh air. These flowers are bringing a little bit of sunshine into a sadly grim environment.”

Trevor glared at the flowers hard enough for them to wilt, but Kate probably had a point. She was good at thinking of little things to make life better for the patients.

“I want them out the instant they start attracting vermin.”

“The only thing that might attract vermin is the rancid expression on your face,” she said. “I was having a brilliant morning until you came in to sour the air.”

“Ah, well. We are born to suffer.” He fought to keep the laughter from his voice. The trip to Baltimore had been a failure. He had a headache from the clattering train and was no closer to figuring out who was trying to destroy him. But within seconds of being in Kate’s company, his mood had brightened. How could she have this effect on him? He’d want to shake her if he didn’t like her so much.

And that was a problem. He was coming to like Kate Livingston far too much.

“I thought you might like to know I secured the services of the marines to guard the clinic,” she said casually, gesturing to a uniformed soldier standing guard at the rear entrance. “They’ve already begun their rotation.”

Trevor nearly choked. He’d forgotten Kate’s boast about obtaining coverage from the government, but the marine guarding the rear entrance proved the truth of her words. Without thinking, he scooped her into a bear hug. “You’re a miracle worker.”

She was grinning as she disengaged herself from him. “I won’t let you forget you said that, but it would be best if you didn’t manhandle me in front of my brother. Private Norton covers the early shift, and he’s very protective of me.”

Trevor glanced at the young man with sandy hair and smiling blue eyes. The soldier placed his hand on his service revolver. “I’ll probably have to challenge you to a duel if you touch my sister again.” He cleared his throat and resumed his military stance. “Sir.”

Trevor turned back to Kate. Ever since they were thirteen she had been surprising him with her cleverness and determination.

“Thanks, Kate,” he said casually before heading to his office. “One of these days I’ll remember to quit underestimating you.”

Because quite frankly he needed all the help he could get in tracking down the lowlife rat trying to destroy him. When Trevor was a boy, he helped round up the lambs on the neighboring farm every spring. It always seemed those lambs knew they were targeted for slaughter. He felt like one of those lambs now—knowing something bad was looming on the horizon but unable to find the source of the danger.

10

A
storm had been brewing for days, burying the city beneath a blanket of steel-gray clouds. Several times this morning, pinpricks of rain spattered against the windows, although now it was turning into a healthy downpour.

Kate propped her hip against Trevor’s empty desk, mesmerized by the droplets of rain as they rolled and fell from the waxy leaves of the maple tree outside the window. Anything to get her mind off what was happening to Trevor. He hadn’t told her where he was going this morning, but she’d seen the appointment with a lawyer on his office calendar. It surely had something to do with the continuing harassment in the newspapers.

The details reported in the papers were eerily accurate. Kate burrowed deeper into her shawl, the dank chill penetrating the fabric. It felt like someone was watching their every move, but the faceless tormentor remained in the shadows, just out of sight.

There was a quick knock on her open door. “The attendants are bringing lunch in, ma’am.”

“Thank you, Private Norton,” she said, then winked at him for good measure.

While Tick maintained a military demeanor during the hours
he was on duty at the hospital, he made fast friends with Henry Harris, their bullnecked laboratory assistant. Henry shared Tick’s passion for football and also joined them at the staff table for meals. The attendants delivered covered trays for the staff, and it felt odd to have a meal served to her for a change. Kate waited while Bridget Kelly, the Irish attendant, set down trays of beef stew and warm rolls.

Henry eyed Bridget as she wheeled the empty cart out of the room. Never had she seen such a hungry look on a man’s face. It would be a relief if Bridget took a fancy to Henry, anything to stop the girl from flirting with Trevor.

“She’s very pretty,” Kate said as she slathered butter on a roll.

Henry’s face flushed bright red. “As if she could ever tear her eyes off Dr. Kendall long enough to notice a man like me. I’m as wide as I am tall. If any of the nurses ever looked at me and giggled the way they do for Dr. Kendall, I’d worry my trousers weren’t buttoned properly.”

“Miss Kelly?” Tick asked. “I think she’s very nice. She tries to tease me when she wheels in the breakfast carts. Every morning she comes right up to my face and says ‘boo!’ but I always keep looking straight ahead. Except for this morning. I looked at her and said ‘boo’ back. She nearly jumped out of her shoes. I can see why you would fancy her.”

Henry seemed as sullen as the low rumbles of thunder outside the window. He didn’t look up as he pushed food around on his plate with a fork. “This sort of thing happens all the time in hospitals. We work long hours. I never see anyone except for the ladies here.”

A heavy crash of thunder shook the windows and caused the lights to flicker. Kate held her breath, but after a moment the flickering stopped and the warm illumination filled the room again.

Henry motioned them closer and said in a low voice, “At least I never fell in love with a patient. One of the lab assistants in Baltimore fell in love with a young lady who died of tuberculosis. Dr. Kendall was grooming him to go into medical school, but Andrew Doyle fell in love with a patient and wouldn’t leave her side. It was horrible. Rose, I think her name was. She got weaker and weaker, and I thought Andrew was going to follow her into the grave.”

Kate remembered the feeling. How many months had she lived in a fog after Nathan died? It had only been within the last year that she could listen to fiddle music without dissolving into tears. She glanced at Nurse Ackerman, wincing at the way the older woman played with the two wedding rings hanging from a chain around her neck. Nurse Ackerman had been widowed twice and surely knew better than any of them the pain of loss.

Tick seemed unaware of the woman’s distress. “What happened to Mr. Doyle?” he asked.

“Oh, the girl died, and Dr. Kendall finally nudged Andrew into medical school. Harvard, I think.”

Nurse Ackerman pushed away from the table. “If Dr. Kendall finds you gossiping like a passel of magpies, he’ll have you all fired.”

The storm was finally unleashing, with steady rivulets of water running down the windowpanes. It seemed to get chillier as damp air penetrated the walls. A white flash of lightning lit up the sky, followed by another crash of thunder directly overhead.

The room was plunged into darkness, with only the silhouettes of her companions visible. Kate made her way to the bow window in the turret alcove, bracing her hands on the ledge of a bookshelf as she looked outside.

Strange, the lights on the other floors of the hospital were still on.

“Kate, go check on the women’s ward,” Nurse Ackerman said. “I’ll check to make sure the men are all right. Henry, go downstairs and see what can be done about restoring the lights.”

Walking slowly, Kate went to the female ward, hearing the clatter of metal trays as the women fumbled in the darkness. With their wall of windows facing west, it was even darker here.

“Is everyone okay?” Kate asked.

“Margaret flinched with that last clap of thunder,” someone replied. “Her tray’s all over the floor.”

By the time Kate got the patients settled and the spilled tray cleaned up, the storm’s ferocity had eased. There was no sign of Henry or Tick, but a glance out the window showed the other hospital floors still illuminated. It seemed they were the only floor to have lost electricity.

Tick’s face was grim when he entered the ward ten minutes later. “Someone has tampered with the electrical wires,” he said.

* * * *

Trevor was stunned when he returned from his meeting with his lawyer to be greeted by a clinic lit with kerosene lanterns and no electricity. An electrical expert was already on hand to inspect the wiring.

“Looks like you’ve got rats,” the electrician said, squatting near the place where the fifth floor’s wiring originated. Sure enough, the layer of cotton-braided insulation had been gnawed through, exposing the bare wire and making it vulnerable. The cotton was coated with paraffin, which might be attractive to rats, but there had never been any sign of rodents on this floor.

“The exposed wires must have picked up the extra charge in the air from the lightning and overwhelmed the circuit. I won’t touch it until the storm’s fully passed.”

This was going to cost a sizable amount to repair, and it would provide more fuel for Superintendent Lambrecht’s hostility toward the clinic. Trevor shook his head. Maybe rats destroyed the wiring, but more than likely it was whoever was trying to ruin him.

“How long ago did the damage to the insulation occur?”

“Hard to say,” the electrician replied. “It could’ve been last year, could’ve been last night.”

Trevor changed the lock on the clinic’s door two weeks ago, and during that time there had been no more suspicious activity inside the clinic. In all likelihood, the sabotage to the wires occurred before he changed the locks, and it took the storm to trigger the electrical failure.

What kind of fool tampered with electricity? Did someone hate him enough to risk electrocution just to damage Trevor’s reputation? Then again, maybe Trevor was growing paranoid and this was only a simple infestation of rats.

No. He didn’t believe it for a second. His enemy was growing craftier by the day, evidenced by the envelope that arrived in his mail two days ago. The envelope was stuffed with clippings from medical journals. The articles had yellowed with age but were all on the same topic: doctors who’d been censured, reprimanded, or had their licenses to practice medicine revoked. Two of the doctors had eventually been convicted of manslaughter and sent to prison.

It was those articles that had prompted Trevor to hire a lawyer. He hated squandering funds on legal fees, but he had no choice. It was now obvious that his enemy wanted to destroy Trevor’s medical career and see him sent to prison for what happened in Baltimore.

* * * *

As expected, Lambrecht used what happened with the electrical wiring to try to evict Trevor from the hospital.

“Rats?” the superintendent sputtered. “If word of
rats
in this hospital gets into the press, we won’t have another paying customer for the next decade. I want you
out
. I don’t care that you have the support of the surgeon general. Nowhere in our agreement did I consent to having my building infested and destroyed. I’m beginning eviction procedures immediately.”