by Edie Claire
“I don’t— I don’t understand,” Mei Lin stuttered.
Sandra shrugged briskly. “He’s refusing treatment.”
Disappointment swamped Mei Lin’s previously sunny mood. She’d been so sure that Sandra could talk sense into him! Mei Lin had coerced him into taking two doses of antibiotic, but he needed many more, and her stopgap trickery could only go so far.
Sandra squared the broad shoulders that held her military-grade canvas backpack. “I’ve left everything he needs, if he chooses to take it. When the pain ramps up, he may well change his tune. I’ll be happy to come back if he asks for me, but I can’t neglect my other patients. Have a good day.” She nodded curtly, turned on a heel, and marched back down the trail.
Mei Lin’s head swam. Now what? She wondered if Sandra could be right about Stanley’s being a doctor. He was certainly intelligent and well educated. He hadn’t asked her a single question about his condition or its prognosis, and his sutures had been sewn with skill. But… any MD would know what an exquisitely painful death he risked by refusing treatment. Stanley couldn’t possibly think he deserved that! Could he?
A heavy weight of worry resettled in her middle, but she tried to think positively. At least Jesse was still inside the cabin. Perhaps the friendly outdoorsman could succeed where both women had failed? The two men had known each other for a year now, and they had that male camaraderie thing going on…
She waited at the edge of the stream for some time, throwing sticks for Kibbe and plucking wild raspberries and salmonberries from the sunnier spots. She made no move to enter the cabin, as she was hesitant to interrupt whatever the men were doing. After what seemed like an hour, Jesse emerged and walked toward her. His forehead was creased with concern. “Got Stanley cleaned up a little. He’s asking if you’ll come back in now — he says the two of you were in the middle of something.” Jesse sighed. “He was very polite, but he insisted he doesn’t want any more help from anybody. He says he can manage on his own from now on.”
“He can’t,” Mei Lin said.
“I know,” Jesse replied. He ran a hand through his shaggy blond locks. “I’m going to come back later anyway — bring him a good dinner. I just wouldn’t feel right otherwise, you know?”
Mei Lin knew. She offered to check on Stanley again first thing tomorrow, and they agreed to tag-team visits until he was feeling better. She assured Jesse that she would be fine walking back by herself, then waved goodbye to him as he hurried off to work.
She glanced toward the stream. The salmon had made little progress, despite swimming constantly. What did the poor, tired creatures have to look forward to upstream, anyway? Spawning, followed by death. And those were the lucky ones. The unlucky ones skipped the spawning part. One had to admire their persistence.
She squared her own shoulders, inhaled deeply, and walked back into the cabin. Stanley was propped up in bed looking pleased with himself, and his feverish blue eyes glittered at the sight of her. His long hair and beard had been neatly combed, and he was wearing a fresh shirt. Her nose even caught a spicy scent. She must have looked surprised, because he smiled self-consciously and gave a shrug. “No point in impressing Kibbe. But I can clean up nice.”
She smiled back at him. “How very thoughtful of you.”
“I’m just glad you didn’t leave,” he said earnestly. “We made a bargain, you and I. Have a seat.”
Mei Lin complied. He was trying to appear casual and composed, but the tightness of his jaw betrayed him. He was nervous.
“I need you to tell me whatever it was I babbled yesterday,” he proclaimed. “Please. You promised.”
Mei Lin was puzzled. For someone who didn’t care whether he lived or died, Stanley seemed inordinately interested in what information he might have passed on to her. Was the man a spy? But no, that was too fantastic. Why would a spy hang out alone in the Alaskan rainforest? He could be a criminal, hiding out from the law. But she didn’t believe that either, whether it made sense or not. Perhaps his concerns were more personal. “You mentioned your boys,” she offered uncertainly. “Several times. You have sons, I presume?”
Stanley twitched as if she’d slapped his face. For a long, uncomfortable moment, he simply sat and stared at her. “I don’t have any children.”
Mei Lin could tell that he was lying. She remembered that he’d also told the Torpins he had no kids; but she still wasn’t buying. There had been something in his voice when he spoke of his boys… something loving and undeniably paternal. Perhaps it was a matter of semantics. “A man can care about kids who aren’t his own,” she suggested.
He stiffened. “I don’t have any children,” he repeated. “Biological or otherwise. What else did I say?”
Mei Lin was at a loss. “You talked about people dying,” she said soberly. “And about children not being fed. I got the feeling you were in a war zone.”
His breathing quickened again. He was definitely frightened.
“There’s no reason to get upset,” Mei Lin soothed. “I’m a nurse, remember? We’re not in the habit of exposing our patients’ personal business to the world. I may be horribly nosy, but I’m not a gossip. I respect your privacy.”
His expression softened slightly. “Thank you. I appreciate that. It’s… well, it’s important.”
“I can see that.” She felt a strong gush of sympathy. Whatever had made this man retreat from society, she believed that he was social by nature. “The thing is, Dr. Smith… you seem troubled. And I am a good listener. If you’d like to talk, I promise that whatever you tell me won’t leave this cabin.”
“Can you just tell me what I said?” he urged. “Everything I said?”
Mei Lin assured him that she would try. Sandra Gruber had been right; he was a doctor. Her surreptitious use of the address had slipped right past him. She did her best to recall the content of his ramblings, repeating it all back to him as accurately as she could. He listened intently, making no comment except for an occasional wince. When she had finished, he stared off into space.
“Damn, I’ve got loose lips,” he said finally, sounding disgusted with himself.
Mei Lin poured him another cup of water. “Welcome to the club,” she teased. “Annoying, isn’t it?”
He almost chuckled. He took the cup from her hand, then faced her suddenly. “You called me Dr. Smith,” he accused.
She grinned at him. “Nurse Gruber’s hunch. She was right, wasn’t she?”
He had the decency not to deny it. He made a harrumphing sound, then drained the cup. He returned it to his bedside table, slid down on the pillows, and looked at Mei Lin with a frustrated expression. “Wang Li was an anesthesiologist I used to work with ages ago,” he explained. “She was Chinese, too. But now that my eyes are focused, I can see you look nothing like her. Sorry about that.”
“No offense taken,” Mei Lin assured, wondering how he had pegged her as Chinese, rather than Korean or Vietnamese or Indonesian. She supposed that more widely traveled people were better guessers. “Were you a military doctor?” she asked. “Some of the things you said made me think you’d been—”
“Good God, no!” he replied forcefully. “I loathe the damn military. Any military.”
A pacifist? She got another idea. “Did you work for Doctors Without Borders?”
He stiffened again. Then, after giving her a good, long look that held suspicion, respect, and exhaustion all at the same time, he let out a heavy breath. “No. It was another organization. But the mission was the same.”
“War zones,” she murmured, remembering some of his more gruesome ramblings.
He nodded. “I was permanent staff for almost twenty years.”
Mei Lin swallowed. She could not imagine ever dredging up half as much courage as this man must hold in one pinky toe. “You’ve been staring death in the face for a good chunk of your life!” she exclaimed. “Why give up now?”
He turned his head away from her. But Mei Lin would have none of it. She moved
until her face was back in his line of sight again. “Why are you giving up, Stanley?” she repeated. “Tell me. Why?”
His blue eyes locked on hers, and for a long moment, they stared at each other in silence. Then, slowly, he raised his right arm above the blankets. He lifted his hand and wiggled his fingers. “Because of this,” he said bitterly. “This was everything to me.”
The skin on his arm was deeply scarred, but Mei Lin could see nothing wrong with the limb’s function. She waited.
“I was a trauma surgeon,” he explained. “And a damned good one, until a car accident left me with nerve damage. For the first couple weeks I could barely move my fingers. I couldn’t write; couldn’t type. Doing surgery was out of the question. Over time I’ve gotten some control back, but not enough. I’ll never do surgery again.”
“You were able to stitch up your own leg well enough,” Mei Lin pointed out. “I thought you’d been treated at the clinic.”
He huffed out sarcastically. “Yeah, I did a hell of a job on that. Clearly.”
“You had no antibiotics.”
He shrugged. “I’ve had worse cuts heal on their own, no problem.”
Mei Lin refrained from stating the obvious. He knew perfectly well that his immune system no longer had the vitality of a thirty-year old; he was just loath to admit it. And she could easily envision a man with his credentials and ego being reluctant to seek care from the local nurse practitioner.
He flexed his fingers again. “I can chop wood and run a can opener. I can even throw a few stitches and tie a few knots — at a snail’s pace. But I still can’t write. I can barely sign my own name.”
Mei Lin looked around the cabin. He could probably type now, but with no electricity and no cell service, the only keyboard he could make use of here would be a manual typewriter, which he didn’t appear to own. She frowned. Any number of modern accommodations could have allowed him to keep working in some capacity, yet he had chosen not to take advantage of any of them. And while she could understand his being depressed over losing a skill he had worked a lifetime to perfect, he had already reached a respectable retirement age. Needing to feel useful was one thing. Feeling suicidal was another. “Why did you move out here?” she asked.
Stanley looked away again. He put his arm back under the blankets, then shrugged. “I always wanted to live in a cabin in the woods,” he said without emotion.
Mei Lin’s heart sank. He wasn’t going to tell her the truth. At least not yet. She reached out to touch his forehead and was relieved to find his fever down a little. The antibiotic was working. But he had to keep taking it.
“That breakfast Amanda sent up was sheer heaven,” he murmured as he settled himself more comfortably in the bed. “If I knew I’d get cinnamon rolls out of it, I’d have cut my leg a long time ago.” His eyes closed then, and he remained still. He might be tired enough to fall asleep, but Mei Lin suspected he was feigning. Now that he’d gotten the information he needed, he probably just wanted her to leave.
She looked at her watch. The meeting with the lawyer was this afternoon, and she was hosting it at Elsie’s house. She had few responsibilities these days, but this one could not be shirked. She rose, topped off Stanley’s water pitcher and supply of crackers, and laid out his next doses of antibiotic. Then she wrote him a note, explaining that Jesse or Amanda would be checking on him later today, and that she herself would be back first thing tomorrow — whether he liked it or not.
As she gathered her things and crossed to the door, a strong wave of apprehension accosted her. Stanley wouldn’t take the medicine. She knew he wouldn’t. There had to be something else she could do! But what?
She contemplated for several moments. Then she walked to the bedside table and penned a postscript.
If your fever is down tomorrow, I’ll tell you about Mariel Gonzalez. I think you may be able to help me. But it absolutely must stay between us.
Chapter 13
Margot Tremain’s cell phone rang, and she looked down at the screen with a frown. Linda was already late for their lunch date. She was probably calling to make some lame excuse and beg Margot to wait around the cafe another half hour. Which would be annoying, because Margot was anxious to get the awkward conversation over with. Vanessa needed help, and her mother needed to understand that. Linda was a good friend, but Margot would not let her get away with blaming Thane for her daughter’s troubles. Margot felt terribly guilty for having taken Vanessa’s word over that of her own son, and she was not a woman who was comfortable with guilt. She preferred redemptive action.
The caller was not Linda. The party trying to reach Margot was identified as “Chicago Pol Dep.” She tensed. She wanted to believe the call was random… some scam, perhaps, designed to have her wire money to Algeria. But her gut told her otherwise. It had been a very long time since she had communicated with anyone in the Chicago Police Department, but her landline number — which forwarded to her cell — hadn’t changed in over a decade.
She huddled down in the booth and cupped a hand around the base of her phone. “Hello?”
A man with a vaguely familiar, gravelly voice identified himself as Lieutenant Baumgarten and asked if he was speaking with Mrs. Margot Tremain.
“Yes,” she replied with a tremor. “What is this about?”
The pause that followed was physically painful. “We’ve spoken in the past, Ms. Tremain, regarding—”
“I remember,” she said impatiently. “What is it? Has something happened?” Her heart was beating fast. Fear for Stanley’s wellbeing suffused her even as she cursed the man for making her worry about him — again.
“There’s no cause for alarm,” the Lieutenant said calmly. “In fact I have good news. Tony Russo is dead.”
Margot felt numb. The sounds and smells of the cafe still permeated her consciousness, but they no longer seemed real. “Dead?” she parroted. “Are you sure?” Deep in her mind, steel pistols flashed. Voices shouted obscenities; multiple gunshots rent the air. She’d witnessed none of the above, but the images haunted her nevertheless. For half a lifetime they had plagued her, along with a raw, gut-burning fear.
“Oh, he’s dead all right,” the Lieutenant confirmed with incongruous cheer. “Son of a bitch could escape conviction, but he couldn’t escape colon cancer. Figured you might want to know.”
“I do,” she acknowledged. Tony Russo. It was a common enough name. Many men shared it. But there was only one Tony Russo who for the past twenty years had held the power — and the will — to destroy her family’s lives. “Have you informed… my ex-husband?” she asked.
“We have not,” the Lieutenant replied matter-of-factly. “Do you know how to reach him?”
Margot’s face felt hot. “No,” she said defensively. “I haven’t heard from him in years. Why would I?”
The Lieutenant ignored the question. “Well, that’s too bad. I’d have liked to let him know. Your case is one that’s stuck with me. A real shame, all around.”
Margot had no desire to rehash the past. “Are you telling me you can’t find Stanley?”
“The department hasn’t kept tabs on your ex-husband for a while now. We know he’s back in the country, but his trail runs cold about a year ago. Wish I could do more, but I’ve got a file on my desk three inches thick. here. We don’t have the manpower to track down every person Russo ever had a hold on.”
“Of course not,” Margot mumbled. It was Stanley’s own fault. If he wanted updates, he should have told the department how to contact him. Still… “Can you tell me the last place he was living?” she heard herself ask.
“Officially, no,” the Lieutenant replied. “Unofficially, there are indications he was in Alaska.”
Margot sucked in a breath. Alaska. Of course. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He paused a moment. “Nothing’s ever for certain with lowlifes like Russo, Ms. Tremain. They do have very long memories. But looking back over your file, I can’t see anybody your ex-hu
sband was involved with who should pose a threat to you or your sons now. Most of them have been dead for years. Russo was the last of the group to have any real influence.”
Margot thanked the Lieutenant again, then hung up the phone and looked around. Everything inside the cafe was the same as it had been five minutes ago. She still hadn’t gotten the coffee she’d ordered, and Linda still hadn’t showed. But the outside world had changed very much.
Tony Russo and his compatriots were finally all dead. Her sons were no longer in danger. Not the sharp, agonizing danger that had loomed over their heads when she had moved them to Canada; nor even the scant, theoretical danger that had followed them into adulthood. It was over now. All of it.
And Stanley had no idea.
A waitress appeared, set down a cup of coffee, and asked if she was ready to order. Linda appeared at the doorway and waved. A child in a nearby highchair began to scream.
Margot reacted to none of these things. But as she reached for the steaming mug in front of her, she noticed that her hand was shaking.
***
Mei Lin stood at the edge of the cabin’s clearing, staring down the trail. She was not looking forward to the long, lonely walk back to the main road, and her anxiety over the prospect annoyed her. She’d made the trip once already, hadn’t she? Besides, she had no choice. She had to get back to town. Elsie’s lawyer had requested her presence at this afternoon’s meeting; he was flying in from Juneau specifically for the purpose.
She plucked up her courage and started walking. A bird chattered loudly from a branch overhead, and after an initial start at the noise, she smiled. She did like the wilderness. She just didn’t like being alone in the wilderness. Now, if she was making this same trek in the company of someone like Thane Buchanan…
Her thoughts veered off into a pleasant fantasy that worked wonders for her mood until she realized that her thoughts were once again dwelling on the only eligible man she’d had anything to do with in the last eight months. She blew out a frustrated breath, then plowed around the next bend in the overgrown trail. Thane was a uniquely intriguing person, and if she had met him under different circumstances, she might be justified in pursuing his acquaintance. But when she knew she was never going to see—
