The Demon Always Wins: Touched by a Demon, Book 1

by Jeanne Oates Estridge

  “If you called him and apologized,” Javier said, “Dr. Lyle might be willing to come in. He seemed pretty keen to join us.”

  A demon with a business card. She’d have to tell Nana about that one. She shook her head. “Even if I were willing to have him in here, we haven’t verified his credentials and malpractice insurance.”

  Javier looked at his shoes. “He’s good.” Before she could speak, he added, “He worked for Doctors Without Borders for the past two years. And he has tons of five-star reviews from the practice he was at before that.”

  The demon had gone to elaborate lengths to set up a background. That suggested substantial resources. With effort, she kept her voice level. “You checked his credentials, knowing how I felt about him?”

  Javier didn’t meet her eyes. “I figured, once you were over being upset about Dr. Wilson, you’d change your mind.”

  “You figured wrong.” She took the card from his hand and tore it into pieces. “No Dr. Lyle.” She started to drop the pieces into Javier’s trash can but thought better of it. She would take them home and burn them with a little rosemary and sage. It would be safer. She blinked as the old knowledge surfaced. Maybe she hadn’t forgotten everything after all.

  The amount of damage the demonic doctor could do if he ever got into the clinic was staggering. She touched Javier’s wrist. “I need you to have my back on this.”

  “But why?” he asked.

  It was a reasonable question. It was too bad she didn’t have a reasonable answer. “Something about Dr. Lyle doesn’t feel right.”

  A couple of years earlier, an OB/GYN had offered to set up a weekly gynecology clinic. Alexandria desperately needed such a service—there were women there who hadn’t had a pap smear or a breast exam in years—but something about the man felt off. Six months after she refused his offer, he was indicted for molesting his patients.

  “Okay.” Javier lifted his hands. “I’ll see if any of the current docs have friends who would be willing to volunteer.”

  “Thank you, Javier.” She poured every watt she possessed into her smile. “I really appreciate it.”

  Dara spent the next two hours combing through her donor database, looking for people who might help make up the financial shortfall. The problem was, Alexandria was a small town and she’d asked everyone on the list for donations before, some of them multiple times.

  She was girding her loins to make her first call when the phone rang. It was Ed Norris from the county commission. Hope rose like bubbles in a scrub sink. She hadn’t expected to hear from him for at least another week.

  “I don’t know how to tell you this.” Ed sounded so miserable that her soap bubbles burst, one by one. “After reviewing all the numbers, we have to decrease your funding.”

  On top of everything else that day, it was like a punch in the stomach.

  “How bad?” she asked, screwing up her face in anticipation. Even a ten percent cut would be almost impossible to make up on top of the rent increase.

  “It looks like we’ll have to cut your budget by fifty percent.”

  She gasped. “What?”

  “I’m sorry, Dara.” The wretchedness in his tone told her how sincere he was. “The firefighters haven’t had a raise in two years. Their union contacted us to say if they don’t get one, they’ll strike.” After another apology, he hung up.

  She stared at the phone in her hand, trying to understand what had happened. Her fingers felt numb. In the space of twenty-four hours, they’d lost three volunteers, their rent had doubled, and their biggest source of funding had been cut in half. The clinic’s financial status, always precarious, had tipped into outright disaster. Her stomach heaved, and for a moment she thought she might vomit. The clinic’s run of trouble was more than mere mischance. Their misfortune had the demon’s handprint all over it.

  Chapter 11

  Belial found Dara at the supermarket. Dressed in flamingo-pink scrubs, she stacked small, rectangular tins with pictures of over-bred felines on the lids in the bottom of her otherwise empty cart. Under the bright overhead lights, her upper lip gleamed with some shiny substance.

  The fact that she was buying cat food indicated that a low-level operative was stationed in her household. He tucked the information away for future reference. You never knew when such an operative might come in handy.

  After loading perhaps two dozen cans, she picked up a box of cat treats from the shelf. She hefted it in her hand as though she were weighing whether the recipient truly deserved such a reward. Probably not, but people were often very fond of operatives from the Feline Division. According to Dara’s dossier, this particular cat had been brought into their home by her husband and was assigned strictly to surveillance duty.

  “If I were to check your cupboards,” he said, “would I find any people food at all?”

  The box of treats slipped from her fingers and bounced into the cart, knocking over the stack of cans with a crash of metal on metal. She wrapped her fingers around a ruby cross that had replaced the string of pearls she’d broken at the clinic. A faint odor of camphor reached him. She not only knew who he was, but she’d taken steps to counter his influence.

  “I’m imagining your kitchen.” He closed his eyes and pressed his fingertips to his temples. “I see expired canned goods on the shelves and a refrigerator bare except for a wedge of moldy cheese.”

  He hoped to elicit a smile, but her cold expression didn’t waver.

  “Why aren’t you shopping out at the beach?” she asked.

  She knew he lived at the beach. She must have read the application he’d faxed over to Javier this morning.

  “Prices are better here. They charge a fortune out at the beach.” He kept his tone bland. “Just because I’m a doctor doesn’t mean I have money to throw away.” Accounting would certainly agree with that.

  He waited for her to confront him, to say, “You’re not a doctor, you’re a demon.” Instead, she inched her cart forward.

  He looked into her basket, frowning his disapproval. “Name three items of fresh food I’d find in your kitchen.”

  “I don’t cook much.” Was it courtesy or a lingering doubt about his identity that forced her to respond?

  “You won’t be much use at the clinic if you neglect your health,” he said. “It’s possible to create quick, nutritious meals, you know.”

  She hunched a shoulder, dismissing his input.

  “Trust me,” he said. “I’m a doctor.”

  Her face betrayed nothing but frustration that he was blocking her escape. She knew what he was, but for some reason, she wasn’t prepared to confront him. To test that supposition, he pushed a little harder.

  “Let me be your personal shopper.” He lowered his voice on the word “personal,” investing it with a hint of eroticism that made her cheeks flame.

  Before she could call him to account, he added, in the most everyday of tones, “I could help you find quick, healthy food that that’s low calorie.”

  She caught her breath at the subtle jibe. He found her figure alluring, but every woman in America thought they were fat. She’d been about to jerk her cart out of his way and stalk off, but now she peered into his basket.

  “Are you asking me to believe that you’re a health-food addict?” she asked.

  He smothered a smile. Women never could resist the push-pull of alternating praise and criticism. She scrutinized the contents of his cart—a pair of tuna steaks, some arugula, a cucumber and an avocado. Nourishing, delicious, and it would all fit easily into the saddlebags of his Ducati.

  “I am,” he said. One of the greatest pleasures of Aboveworld missions was fresh produce. “Come home with me—I’ll make you a healthy dinner.”

  Color flooded her cheeks. “No, thank you.”

  He smiled. “We can cook at your place, if that would make you more comfortable.”

  “What would make me comfortable is for you to leave me alone,” she said, but she didn’t move on. The fa
ct that she lingered told him her feelings toward him weren’t as black-and-white as she wanted him to believe.

  “The situation with Dr. Wilson was very unfortunate.” He deepened his voice, making it sound sincere. “Surely you realize that wasn’t my intention.”

  “I have no idea what your intentions are.” Her grasp on her cart tightened, but still she stayed near him, where she could smell his scent and verbally spar with him.

  “I can see how badly you need volunteers,” he said. “Can’t we put our first meeting behind us and let me bring my skills on board to help in your clinic? The work you’re doing is worthwhile. I’d like to be part of it.”

  She shook her head without meeting his eyes.

  “Why not?” he asked. He hoped for a glimpse into her thought processes, but all he could read on her face was stubbornness.

  “You’re not a good fit for the clinic.”

  “Why not?” he asked again. “I’m exactly what you need. How many diabetics do you see in a week? A dozen?”

  “More.” Her tone was short, but she didn’t refuse to answer.

  “Then why not bring me on?” He pitched his voice low and persuasive, willing her to breathe his scent deep into her lungs. “I have all the skills you need.”

  “Except people skills.”

  “Viola liked me,” he said. “So did Kelsey. And Javier. And Gabby.”

  Her eyes flashed up to his. She looked startled.

  “Remembering names,” he said. “It’s a people skill.”

  Her jaw muscles tightened. “Not badgering people is another. Why is this so important to you? There are dozens of other places that would welcome you with open arms.”

  He smiled. “I can never resist a challenge.”

  “Try,” she said.

  Satan must see that this dogged pursuit of a position at the clinic was only irritating her.

  “Is it your decision?” he asked. “Unilaterally?”

  “Yes.”

  “There’s no one to whom I can appeal your verdict? A board of trustees, perhaps?”

  “I have final say over all matters pertaining to day-to-day operation.” Her eyes swept over him, dismissing him as a threat. “Now, please stop bothering me.” And before he could frame another sentence, she walked away.

  He stared after her, his eyes narrowed. She was wrong about his potential as a threat.

  Very wrong.

  Chapter 12

  Dara stared at the nameplate beside the door to the office of the Bermuda County General Hospital community liaison in surprise.

  “Lilith Rojas,” it read. Where was Ruth?

  Dara had planned to use this monthly meeting to ask for help with the rent. Without an infusion of cash, the clinic was in trouble. Her shoulder muscles tightened. Based on her encounter with Dr. Demon at the grocery, even with an infusion of cash, they were probably in trouble.

  And now her go-to person at the hospital had disappeared. She tapped on the doorframe.

  Inside the office, a woman with jet-black hair and eyebrows as sleek as a swallow’s wings looked up from her computer. At the sight of Dara, her scarlet lips widened into a broad smile and she rose to her feet.

  “You must be Dara Strong.” She beamed as though meeting Dara was a privilege. “You were on Ruth’s calendar.” She crossed the room in a few strides on long legs, made even longer by a pair of stiletto heels that would give a mountain goat a nosebleed. Dara’s feet, in their sensible flats, ached in sympathy.

  Lilith had the figure of a Barbie doll, with the same tiny waist and high, pointed breasts. The hand she extended had long fingernails, painted blood-red. “Craig Jenner can’t say enough good things about you.”

  “That’s very kind of him.” Craig was the CEO of the hospital and Matt’s old tennis partner. Dara shook her hand. “What happened to Ruth?”

  “She relocated to Seattle to care for her mother.”

  Dara couldn’t remember Ruth ever mentioning her mother being ill, or even that she’d had a mother. “I wish I’d known. I would have come to say goodbye.”

  “It was very sudden, I understand.”

  “It’s fortunate they were able to hire you so quickly.” Dara had dealt with the hospital, first as a nurse and more recently as executive director of the clinic, for over ten years. She’d never seen them move so rapidly on a hire before.

  “Craig and I met at a symposium last year. He knew I was interested and contacted me when Ruth turned in her resignation.” Despite Lilith’s friendly smile, there was something piercing, almost clinical, in her gaze.

  To break away from that penetrating stare, Dara looked around the room. Her eyes widened. “Goodness.”

  The office had changed beyond recognition since the previous community liaison occupied it. Ruth’s furniture had consisted of sleek pieces of canvas and chrome, her only vegetation a snake plant shoved into one corner. Now the room overflowed with leafy green plants, including a fig tree that filled one entire corner of the room. Even the smell of the room was different. Instead of toner and coffee, it smelled like sugar donuts and black licorice.

  How had all this happened in such a short time?

  Lilith shrugged. “I made redoing it part of my employment negotiation.”

  The community liaison had a lot of influence over the clinic—they sat on the board of trustees—but it had never been a position of power within the hospital. If Lilith had convinced them to invest in redecorating her office, she must have a lot of sway.

  Lilith strolled over to some overstuffed chairs grouped around a low, round table. She dropped into one of the chairs and her skirt rode up, displaying smooth, tanned thighs. She waved toward the opposing chair. “Come. Sit.”

  Dara sat and folded her hands in her lap.

  The table held a coffee carafe and a tray of braided pastries shaped like figure eights. Lilith broke a piece off one and popped it into her mouth. Her eyes closed and her shoulders moved sinuously as she chewed. “Mmmm.” Her tongue—small, pink and surprisingly pointed—flicked out to lick a bit of glaze from her lips, and her humming increased in volume.

  Dara shifted in her chair and wondered if she should leave and come back later.

  As if she’d read Dara’s thoughts, Lilith gave a throaty chuckle and her eyes popped open. “Rosquitas—they’re a Peruvian pastry, made with anise and sesame. My one addiction.”

  That accounted for the donut-and-black-licorice odor.

  “I used to work at the California Hospital Network.” Lilith offered another smile. “I was public relations manager.”

  No wonder Craig was so pleased to acquire her. Dara accepted a cup of coffee and one of the little pastries. Where to begin? She didn’t want to start with a request for money.

  “So tell me all about your clinic.” Lilith’s friendly request made it easier.

  Dara described her patients’ demographics—the one trait they all shared was their poverty—and the community health profile. Lilith asked the occasional question, but Dara sensed the information she was providing wasn’t what the other woman wanted to hear.

  Lilith picked up a manila folder from the table. “I was looking over your budget numbers. I’m trying to get a sense of where the money goes, but there’s no detail here.”

  Dara blinked. Ruth had never asked for detail. “I can email you our profit and loss statement as soon as I get back to the office.”

  “That would be great.” Lilith was beaming again. “I want to help however I can.”

  Her interest and support were almost too good to be true, especially after the week Dara had had. She decided to go for it.

  “There is one area where I could use some assistance.” She described the rent increase that the landlord was demanding. “And I don’t know how we’ll come up with the money.”

  For an instant, Lilith’s eyes seemed to glitter. Then her charcoal-tinted eyelids swept down. When she reopened her eyes, the gleam was gone.

  “That’s outrageous.
” She sounded as indignant as if the money were coming out of her own pocket. She entered a note on her tablet. “How bad a position does that put you in?”

  She looked so concerned that Dara shared her next bit of bad news.

  “We’ve also lost funding from the Bermuda County Commission. Next year’s grant is being reduced by fifty percent.”

  Lilith’s fingers twisted in the heavy gold chain she wore around her neck. “That’s terrible. Don’t they realize what a community asset you are?” Despite her indignant tone, the flicker was back in her eyes. It gave Dara pause. “Sounds like you’re in a crisis, then?”

  Without knowing why, Dara backed it down a notch. “Not yet, but if something doesn’t change, we could be.”

  “Your clinic is too great an asset to be allowed to fail,” Lilith said. The gleam Dara thought she’d seen was gone. Lilith appeared to be genuinely worried. “The hospital has an interest here. I’ll talk to Craig and see if he’s got any pull to make your landlord or the county commission reconsider.”

  Dara gave herself a shake. Demonic influence wasn’t the explanation for every bad thing that happened in life. She had a sudden image of Sarah convulsing in the aisle of the church, her eyes rolling back in her head as her body went limp. Although Nana wouldn’t agree, most often, the forces at play were not supernatural.

  “Any other issues?” Lilith asked. “How about volunteers? Any problems in that area?”

  The demon doctor sprang to mind, but Dara could hardly tell Lilith about him.

  “Only the usual.” Dara forced a smile. “Never enough of them.”

  Lilith peeped at Dara from beneath her lashes. “Not according to rumor. The hospital is abuzz with gossip about a certain handsome doctor who got his hat handed to him at the Strong Clinic Tuesday night.”

  “Gossip?” Dara stared at her in dismay.

  Lilith waved away her concern. “Don’t worry about it. In a town this size, there’s not much to talk about.” She picked up another rosquita and nibbled at it. “I don’t suppose you want to give me the skinny on what happened with Ben Lyle?”