by JoAnn Ross
“But,” the neurosurgeon had warned Molly, “we can’t wait forever. The harvest coordinator’s already been notified. Your sister’s driver’s license stated she was an organ donor,” he’d added somewhat defensively when Molly had given him a sharp look.
She’d sighed at the time, reminding herself not to take Lena’s tragedy out on him. After all, hadn’t she been forced to ask grieving families for transplant permission more times than she could count? Now as she sat beside her silent sister she thought about how careful Lena had been about details like signing the human tissue consent section on her license, about how she’d long ago planned her own funeral in detail because she’d been so afraid of dying young….
Molly felt the sting of salty tears at the back of her lids but willed them away. “Why don’t you go get something to eat?” she suggested in that same hushed tone they’d been using. Except when Reece spoke to Lena. Then, his false enthusiasm reminded her of a television weatherman. “I’ll stay with her.” Expecting resistance, Molly was surprised when Reece didn’t argue.
“All right,” he said. “If you don’t mind.”
“Not at all.”
He paused, looking down at Lena. An expression of grim determination moved across his face like a sudden storm cloud. “I won’t be long.”
“Take your time.” She forced a smile she feared was as horribly fake as his had been. “We’ll be fine.”
Reece left the room, taking the elevator down to the first floor. But instead of going to the cafeteria, he walked out the front door to where his car was parked in the staff parking lot.
He was on his way to Cedars-Sinai Hospital, where he’d learned they’d taken the drunk driver who’d hit Lena’s minivan head-on.
Reece had a desperate need to see this evil man who had, in that single horrible moment, tried to destroy his family.
He was going to look him right in the face. He was going to make certain the bastard knew exactly what he’d done.
And then he was going to kill him.
“When’s Mommy going to be home?”
Theo exchanged a quick look with her husband. “We don’t know, darling.”
“We told you,” Alex reminded Grace gently, “your mommy had an accident. She’s in the hospital.”
“I know that. But Daddy’s taking care of her, right?”
“Right,” the two adults confirmed in unison.
The little girl took another crayon from the box and began filling in a picture of Monument Valley in the coloring book her aunt Molly had brought her from Arizona. “Then Mommy will get better.” She concentrated on filling in the towering red rocks. Sometimes it was very hard to stay inside the lines. “Because Daddy’s the best doctor ever.”
Alex and Theo exchanged another worried look. Then Theo turned away and began picking the dead leaves off a pothos plant hanging in front of the picture window; she was trying to keep Lena’s daughter from seeing the sheen of tears in her eyes.
From the reports they’d received from Yolanda, despite Reece’s unwavering optimism, she knew all they could do now was wait for the inevitable.
As heartsick as she was over Lena, Theo couldn’t help worrying about Molly’s reaction to all this. She’d received some unnerving vibes when Grace’s birth mother had visited for the wedding. If Molly were to try to claim her daughter…
No, Theo decided, she was creating problems where none existed. There was no way Molly could consider raising Grace in that motor home out in the middle of an Indian reservation.
Somehow, this horrible time would pass. Somehow, Reece and Grace would find the strength to get on with their lives. But in the meantime, Theo dreaded the moment when the adults who loved her to distraction would have to shatter a little girl’s safe, comfortable existence.
As Alex watched Grace laboring intently over her drawing, he was reminded of another little dark-haired girl, not so much older, who had struggled with the same fierce determination to protect her little sisters. First from their brutal, alcoholic father, then from the system.
He knew, from their many discussions over the years, that deep down inside, Molly believed she’d failed Lena and Tessa. She was, of course, mistaken, but Alex had never been able to convince her that her unwavering support may have been the one thing that had kept Lena from going completely over the edge during those early rocky years. Molly had been the single fixed star in Lena’s firmament. These past years that role had been taken over by Reece, but he knew, without a doubt, that Lena gave full credit to her older sister for having saved her life innumerable times.
Alex thought about the vibrant young wife and mother lying in that hospital bed, now kept alive only by the intrusion of medical machinery, and he realized that it would inevitably fall to Molly to break the news of her mother’s death to Grace.
It wasn’t fair. Molly had already overcome so damn much. It wasn’t right that she’d have to take responsibility yet again. But he knew she’d have it no other way. He also knew, from all the years on the force, that life wasn’t always fair.
As he’d expected, Reece encountered no difficulty discovering the whereabouts of the drunk driver. As soon as he flashed his Mercy Sam ID card at the clerk on duty, she began tapping away on her computer keyboard, and presto, the name of the patient and room number flashed on the screen. He didn’t even have to use his cover story about being called in for a consult by the patient’s personal physician.
He exited the elevator and was prepared to show his ID again. But it didn’t prove necessary. The nurses at the desk were too busy charting to pay any attention to him. Obviously, in these lofty environs, security issues weren’t as vital as they were in Mercy Sam’s neighborhood.
Cedars-Sinai was the hospital of choice for the Los Angeles elite—caretaker to the stars. Reece was not surprised to discover that the man—who he’d learned from one of the paramedics, was a hotshot criminal defense attorney with penthouse law offices at Century City—had a private room.
His eyes were closed, but his rough, uneven snores revealed that he was not unconscious, but merely sleeping off the effects of too-much alcohol. A system of pulleys had been erected over the bed; the man’s left leg was suspended in traction. From what Reece could see without looking at the chart, the broken leg was the only sign of injury.
He took the vial from his jacket pocket. He’d stolen the procaine, a local anesthetic, from the ER drug cabinet while Lena had been undergoing her CT scan. The plan, when he’d first come up with it, had seemed so simple. But now, as he looked down at this snoring drunk, Reece no longer felt rage. What he felt was empty.
Reece told himself that it didn’t matter. The man deserved to die. An eye for an eye. A life for a life. His fingers tightened around the vial as he realized this was the first time he’d allowed himself to think that Lena might not survive.
Determined to keep this criminal from ever driving drunk again, Reece pulled the syringe and twenty-five gauge needle from his pocket. He removed the cap from the needle and drew the clear liquid into the syringe, then walked over to the bed, his fingers holding on to the deadly dose with a vise grip.
He took hold of the man’s limp wrist and turned the arm to expose the vein. At the same time, he heard the soft footfalls of rubber-soled shoes pause in the doorway.
“Can I help you, Doctor?” the female voice asked.
He turned and forced an everything’s-just-fine-and-dandy expression onto his face. “I didn’t want to bother you, Nurse. I was asked for a consult, and—”
“It figures he’d get top-notch care.”
Something in her voice alerted him. “Isn’t that what Cedars is acclaimed for?”
“Of course. It’s just sometimes I wish our mortality rate was a bit higher.” She glared down at the man who was snoring away. “In this case, a lot higher.” She glanced over at Reece as if expecting a reprimand. “I realize that doesn’t exactly sound like Florence Nightingale, but I lost a daughter to a drunk driver fi
ve years ago.”
“I’m sorry.” Reece thought how, if Theo hadn’t shown up when she had, Grace would have been in the van with Lena.
“It was prom night. She and her boyfriend were driving home. The woman never stopped, but fortunately there were witnesses. When the police showed up at her house to arrest her hours later, her alcohol level was still above the legal limit.
“Losing a child is the worst thing that can happen to a parent,” she said. “My husband couldn’t take it. He kept wanting to kill the woman. He even bought a gun and kept it loaded, but fortunately, I suppose, he never had the nerve to use it. But our marriage disintegrated under the stress. He lives in Ohio now. With a new wife. She’s pregnant.”
“I’m sorry,” Reece said again. The words seemed so horribly inadequate.
“Like I said, it was five years ago. But I still can’t bring myself to treat a bastard like that.”
When Reece didn’t immediately respond, she took another deep breath. “I’m sorry, Doctor. I didn’t mean to dump on you. My only excuse is that being a survivor of a violent death is like a boil you think has healed, and suddenly, something triggers a reinfection and all that pus just pours out.”
Reece realized she was forecasting his life. Not just his future, but Grace’s, as well. And even if Molly was able to pray up a miracle, it would be a very long time before Lena would be ready to return home and pick up her life as they all knew it. Their daughter would need him to be strong. How much help could he be in prison?
“There’s no reason to apologize. Your daughter was a very fortunate girl to have you for a mother. And your husband was lucky, as well. Even if he didn’t know it.”
She smiled at that, a quick pleased smile that banished the remnants of cold anger from her expression. “His loss,” she agreed as she left the room.
Reece stood beside the bed, staring down at the man for a long silent time. Then made his decision.
It was not easy, but he managed to rouse the sleeping drunk. “What d’ya want?” the man grumbled, his words slurred.
“I want you to wake up.”
“Go ’way, Doc.” He tried to roll over and found his movement stifled by the leg pulleys. “What the hell?”
“Look at me.” Reece shook him by the shoulder.
Bleary eyes stared up at him.
“See this needle?”
The man nodded. “Good. I could use a little shot of painkiller, Doc.”
“This isn’t painkiller. Oh, I suppose in a way you could consider it that, since believe me, it’ll stop your pain.” He proceeded, on a brisk, no-nonsense tone to describe exactly what would happen to the man before death. “You’re lucky I’m going to inject it,” he said. “Otherwise, even with all the booze in your system, it could take a lot longer to work. You’d suffer dizziness, cyanosis, tremors, convulsions, bronchial spasm.
“But in your case, the reaction will be immediate. As soon as I inject this procaine into your vein, you’ll go into immediate cardiac arrest.
“Then, that’s that.” He picked up the limp arm and touched the tip of the needle to the thin blue line at the inner bend of the elbow. “You’re finished. Flatlined.”
“What the hell?” The man tried to jerk his arm away. “Who are you? What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Even without the icy rage flowing through his veins, Reece would have been stronger. His fingers tightened around the man’s arm. He pricked the skin. Both men watched the faint red dot of blood rise beneath the shiny sharpened steel.
“You were driving drunk.” Reece’s fingers were a tourniquet, causing blood to begin to trickle down the bare arm. “You crossed the center line and ran into my wife’s minivan.”
He squeezed harder. The trickle became a flow. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”
The man’s eyes were round with panic. “I don’t unnerstand anything.”
The needle tip was sparkling with deadly sharpness. All it would take was a quick spearing flick for revenge to be delivered. But even as Reece imagined driving the needle deep into the vein, tearing away at flesh and muscle, breaking into the bone, he knew he couldn’t do it.
For years he had fought the dark angel, Death. Ultimately, of course, Death won, but Reece had sworn a sacred oath to put off that victory for as long as possible. He could not join forces now.
He recapped the needle and returned the syringe to his pocket. “This is your lucky day,” he told the gray-faced man. “I’m going to let you live.”
Then he took out his billfold and retrieved a snapshot of Lena he’d taken during their Maui honeymoon. She was standing up to her knees in an unbelievably blue lagoon, her hair gleaming like copper in the bright Hawaiian sun. She was laughing, blissfully unaware that only a few years later her life would be cut tragically short by this drunken killer.
“This is my wife.” He placed the picture on the man’s chest. “Her name is Lena.” He took another photo. This one depicted Grace at Disneyland, enthusiastically hugging Goofy. “This is our daughter, Grace. The little girl who’s going to grow up without her mother.”
He placed this photo beside the first. “I hope you live a very long time, you worthless son of a bitch. And I hope, for every day of your miserable useless life, you’re haunted by these faces.”
That said, he left the room. And the hospital.
Molly had never felt so helpless or so useless as she sat beside Lena, holding her hand. Dr. Parker had been kind, but brutal in his assessment. There was nothing medically that could be done. Which left Molly to pray for a miracle as the ventilator went rhythmically up and down, breathing for her sister who could no longer breathe for herself.
From time to time she couldn’t resist pinching her sister’s limp arm, which had been tanned to a golden California Girl hue when Molly had arrived for Alex and Theo’s wedding, but now resembled porcelain. Had the wedding been only a couple of weeks ago? It seemed an eternity.
She tried talking to her sister and singing old familiar lullabies that dated back from their childhood days when a terrified Lena would crawl into Molly’s bed, seeking shelter from their father’s alcoholic rampages.
But there was no response. Lena’s pupils remained dilated, her lungs lifting and falling in response to the respirator. The only interruption was when one of the ICU nurses would briefly disconnect Lena from the machine to suction clean the tubes. The squat, multidialed aluminum-and-plastic box was infinitely, obscenely patient.
Unfortunately, the harvest team was less so. Dr. Parker had contacted the transplant donor network as soon as brain death had been verified. When they entered the room to rate her body for the harvest of usable—healthy—parts, Molly was immensely grateful that Reece was not there to witness the necessary, but ghoulish procedure.
Which brought to mind another concern. Where was he? Yolanda had filled Molly in on the details, so far as anyone knew about the accident. Including the fact that the driver of the other car, suspected to have been drunk, had been taken to Cedars-Sinai. Surely, Molly tried to assure herself as the day dragged on and there was still no sign of Reece, he wouldn’t try to take revenge into his own hands?
“If he’s anywhere in the hospital, he isn’t answering his pages,” Yolanda told Molly when she shared her fears. “But I think you’re overreacting. He adores Lena, but there’s no way he’d do anything that would cause Grace to lose her father as well as her mother.”
“It’s not always possible to predict what people will do in times of stress,” Molly reminded her.
“True. But Reece doesn’t have it in him to kill anyone. No matter how much such an act would be justified.” Yolanda shook her head as she looked down at the woman who, were it not for the machines and tubing, could have been merely sleeping.
“The word’s gotten out. Security had to turn away some of those slimeball tabloid reporters. Turns out the guy driving the car was some hotshot legal eagle. Karin, at Admissions, said one of them told her he w
as the same guy who got that action hero hunk an acquittal in that drunk-driving manslaughter case a few years ago.”
Molly remembered the case. As well she should, since she was one of the medical team who’d tried to save the eleven-year-old Little League player who’d been dragged two hundred yards beneath the bumper of the actor’s Mercedes convertible. She also recalled that Reece had been the doctor on duty when the fatally broken child had been brought into the ER.
“If Reece realizes that—”
“You don’t have to worry,” a deep voice interrupted from the doorway. “I didn’t do it.” Reece took the syringe from his pocket and held it out to Yolanda. “I think you’ll find the med cabinet short one vial of procaine. I must have slipped it into my pocket earlier when I was treating that jogger with the blown knee, then forgot about it.”
Yolanda didn’t so much as blink at the outrageous lie. “I’ll see it’s accounted for,” she replied smoothly.
“How is she?” Reece asked Molly when they were alone again.
At this moment, looking up at his haggard face, Molly didn’t know who she felt sorrier for. At least, if James Parker could be believed, Lena was beyond pain.
“Nothing’s changed.”
He didn’t immediately respond. Instead, he opened a nearby cupboard and took out a blanket. “She gets cold feet,” he explained. “I always kid her—warm heart, cold feet.”
“I was worried about you,” Molly admitted quietly. “About what you might do.”
“I went over to Cedars to kill the bastard,” Reece said in a matter-of-fact tone that frightened her.
“But you couldn’t do it.”
“No.” He dragged his hand down his face and sat down beside Lena on the other side of the bed. “But Lord, how I wanted to.”
“I can understand that.”
“Really?”
“She’s my sister. I’ve loved her all of her life. How can you even ask that question?”
