Solemn Oath

by Hannah Alexander

  Mom and Dad looked at each other again. Then Dad shook his head, and for a moment the smoky aroma of sizzling fajitas and onions and the chatter of the other diners filled the table.

  “Tedi, that’s wrong,” Dad said at last. “I couldn’t do it on my own. Only Christ could do that.” He leaned forward and rubbed his hands across his face the way he always used to do when he was frustrated. “Maybe I should talk to Jason Cuendet. He might listen to me.”

  “No, Dad!”

  “Why not?”

  “I told you, nobody’s supposed to know about this. Abby made me promise.”

  “She made you promise?” Mom asked. “How could she do that?”

  “Tedi, a promise has to come from a free will, or it isn’t a promise,” Dad said.

  “But what if he gets mad when you talk to him?” Tedi asked.

  Mom cleared her throat, leaning forward with her arms on the table. “Tedi, why don’t you bring Abby home with you tomorrow after school, when I have some time to spend with you. Maybe I’ll get her alone and talk to her. If that doesn’t work I’ll have to talk to Lindy.”

  “But Abby’ll—”

  Mom reached over and patted Tedi on the leg. “Maybe I’ll talk to both of them. I am a doctor, you know. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad coming from me.”

  “But if Abby thinks I put you up to it…”

  “She’ll be mad,” Dad said. “So what? Sounds to me like you’re more worried about your friendship than you are your friend. Better get your priorities straight.”

  Mom nodded at him. “I couldn’t have said it better. Thank you, Theo.”

  Tedi scowled at them. She felt like a traitor. “I guess you know Abby’s going to kill me.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Monday morning Estelle Pinkley walked past her secretary’s desk and caught sight of the stack of data on the corner of the credenza next to the fax machine. It was data on one young man. The stack had been growing taller for the past three weeks, and Charlotte had remarked at least twice to Estelle that nobody could have that many legitimate emergencies.

  Estelle picked up the top few sheets of copied medical charts. “Charlotte, how many area hospitals does this represent?”

  The secretary turned from her computer. “Seven as of Tuesday, Mrs. Pinkley. The influx has finally slowed, thank goodness.”

  “Thank you. Would you collate the pages, putting information from each hospital into a separate file and putting all the charts into chronological order, please.”

  Charlotte looked at the stack and swallowed. “How soon do you need that?”

  “Today. How soon can you have it?”

  “I could try for noon, I guess, but—”

  “Good.” Estelle turned to leave, then turned back. “And, Charlotte, even more than usual, this is strictly confidential. This is sensitive material, and we don’t want to take any chances.” It might soon be a subject of conversation for the whole city of Knolls, but not if she could do something about it first.

  “Yes, of course.” Charlotte always took her lunch at the same time as Estelle, and she never failed to lock up. No one had been given the opportunity to sneak a peek.

  “Thank you. Let me know if you need help with it, and I’ll pitch in. I’ve got some free time this morning.”

  Under the weight of Charlotte’s surprised stare, Estelle stepped into her office. She locked the door behind her and picked up the telephone.

  Denise, Bailey Little’s efficient legal secretary—and a recent, unobtrusive attender of Estelle’s Lutheran church—had Bailey on the line within a minute.

  “Yes, Estelle, what is it?” His words came through the line hard and tight.

  Years of experience had honed Estelle’s self-control to an art form. A hothead from birth, she had learned early in her practice to maintain a veneer of friendly control through the most trying of circumstances, and Bailey had always been one of the very most trying.

  “Hello, Bailey,” she said sweetly. “I trust you’re having a good day. I have a sudden need to meet with you. Do you have some time this afternoon to fit me into your schedule?”

  “This afternoon? Have you lost your mind? I have clients.”

  “I’m sure they’ll be gracious enough to wait.” Estelle’s voice grew a little firmer. “We need to talk.”

  “Don’t tell me your little COBRA investigator found something,” he taunted.

  Estelle smiled in order to retain a pleasant tone in her voice. “This hospital is clean. The meeting will be of utmost interest to you, however.” She injected a fake sigh of sympathy. “I’m afraid you will also find it personally unpleasant.”

  There was a cold five-second silence on the line, then, “Why?”

  “I’ll just have to show you. There’s too much material to fit into my briefcase, and I don’t care to lug it all the way over to your office, so you’ll have to come here. Let’s say about two o’clock.” She did not make it in the form of a question.

  Bailey’s typical aura of anger jolted through the line like a striking snake. “Is this a joke?”

  “I’m sorry, is two o’clock not convenient for you?” Estelle drawled facetiously. “I could make it three, I suppose, but this information is melting the finish off the table. If it waits too much longer, I may have to call Harvey at the Knolls Review and see if he can take it for me.”

  There was another pause. “He wouldn’t.”

  “Why, because you and Harvey are friends?” Estelle shook her head in silent reflection. “But do you know what makes you such good friends, Counselor? The fact that for both of you business comes before personal relationships. When he sees this bounty his mouth will water. He won’t be able to resist. If you were in his shoes, you would do the same.”

  There was a third shocked, furious silence, but before Bailey could snap a reply Estelle hung up. He would be here. He had too many dirty secrets that needed to be kept quiet.

  She sighed. If Bailey Little weren’t such a threat to this hospital, he would be nothing more than a man to be pitied.

  She placed her palms flat against the desk to push herself to her feet, but the telephone rang again. She picked up and braced herself to hear another of Bailey’s tirades.

  It wasn’t him.

  The news from this voice brought a fresh, hopeful smile to her face.

  The after-lunch ball game was already in the top of the second inning when Tedi stepped out of the school building and heard the shouts and laughter and screams of the kids on the playground. Maybe her team wouldn’t call her to take her turn at bat. And if they did, when she struck out, maybe they wouldn’t make her run out and take her place in right field. The balls didn’t come out that way very often anyway, which was why they stuck her out there. Any time the ball did come toward her, the center fielder had to run over to her side and catch the ball or it didn’t get caught.

  Tedi hated baseball. The problem was, with only eighteen kids in her class, she had to play or they wouldn’t have enough to practice.

  Still, she hovered beside the building in the shadow of an evergreen tree and watched as Abby stepped up to the plate.

  Abby was the best hitter in the sixth grade, and everybody knew it. She could place the ball wherever she wanted, and she could hit a home run just about every time. Some of the newer kids—kids who didn’t value their lives—asked her how she got so good with such a scrawny body and skinny arms. They usually found out pretty fast how much muscle could hide inside a skinny arm. And her dad used to practice with her. He’d been a semipro ballplayer before she was born.

  But even though Abby tried to teach Tedi how to catch and hit and pitch and throw, her efforts never worked. Tedi was hopeless.

  The bat smacked the ball and shot it high into the air. Too high. It curved into the sky and got lost in the sun and dropped uselessly outside the right field foul line. Tedi could see the frustration in Abby’s face from where she stood, and she also saw fresh determination as her best
friend stood poised with the bat, ready for the pitcher to throw her another one.

  And something else touched Abby’s expression as Tedi watched her. It was the same look she’d had in her eyes the day she cut herself, and the day she refused to call her parents to tell them where she was after the fire. It was the same look she had the day after her dad moved out of the house. Her mouth was set in a grim line, her chin jutting out, her gaze narrowed.

  Abby’s lips turned white as she pressed them together and watched for the right pitch. She placed her feet just right again and gripped the bat. When the ball reached the plate, she swung with the force of her whole body. A loud thwack reverberated across the playground, and the ball shot straight along the inside of the right foul line in probably the hardest, longest line drive in the history of the school. Everybody on the ball field shouted as Abby ran. She didn’t limp or seem to feel the place on her leg where she’d had the stitches.

  Tedi forgot she was lying low and shouted for her friend to round third. Then she caught her breath in disbelief when the ball bounced toward the school building and toward her. She scuttled backward, but the ball bounced again and flew at the basement window—the window where the protective screen had been removed for cafeteria repairs.

  As Abby stomped third base on her way home, glass shattered into shards and flew from the impact of the ball like tiny icicles. The screaming and shouting across the field stopped in a combined awed gasp. Abby’s foot slapped home plate, and she slowed her steps and glanced in the direction of the broken window.

  “Look what you did, Cuendet!” outfielder Trent Pullman hollered. “Now what’re we gonna do for a ball?”

  Abby frowned and glanced back toward the dugout where her team had fallen silent. “We’ve got to go get it,” she called to them. “It’s the only one we have.”

  Nobody moved. They just sat staring at her.

  Abby’s frown turned to a scowl. “What are you scared of? It was an accident!”

  Tedi knew she was a wimp, but she continued to wait behind the tree, hoping Abby didn’t see her there. She wasn’t about to get into trouble for something she hadn’t done, especially something she hadn’t wanted to do in the first place.

  But then Abby turned and took a few steps toward the broken window. She hesitated, then glared at the others. Sighing, she broke into a trot, the old look back in her face, blazing from her eyes. She ran all the way to the window without glancing in Tedi’s direction. She dropped to her knees at the broken window, bent down and peered inside, and hesitated.

  Jagged shards of glass scattered across the grass around the outside of the window. Tedi saw Abby tense and lift her hand, then shift her attention back toward the field to see if anyone had followed her. They hadn’t.

  Even while Abby stuck her arm through the broken window close to the out-jutting slivers, Tedi knew what she was going to do.

  Tedi jumped from behind the tree. “No! Abby, don’t!”

  Abby jerked and swung around, eyes wide, glasses falling down her nose. Her left forearm connected with the point of a shard, and the point dug in. Abby cried out and tried to jerk backward, but the shard dug more deeply. Blood spurted.

  “Abby!” Tedi ran toward her. “Somebody call the nurse! Call Mr. Walters! Call for help!”

  Lukas sat at his spot at the large E.R. desk and studied his marks on the T-sheet he had filled out on a man with a possible concussion—the patent had been showing off during his lunch break at work and attempted to break a board with his head. The CT would be back any time, and Lukas would better know how to treat the man’s self-inflicted injury.

  Lukas looked up to see Buck leaning against the counter reading the Knolls Review, borrowed scrubs stretched tightly across his broad shoulders. “No apartments in here for rent,” Buck muttered. “No job openings.” He dropped the paper back where he’d found it. “Just some stupid pictures of the fire the other day.” He gestured to the front page, which held an enlarged picture of a skinny young man with curly black hair standing by a fire engine. It was eighteen-year-old Explorer trainee Kyle Alder, flexing his nonexistent muscles and smiling into the camera.

  “How do you like that, Doc? Here I am suspended, and that wet-eared kid who can’t even hold a fire hose with both hands is front-page news. It just doesn’t figure.” Buck shook his head and paced across the room and back.

  Buck had come into work this morning as scheduled, with no word about where he’d been staying or what he’d been doing. They had been so busy, there had been little time to discuss it. Until now.

  “Have you heard from Kendra?” Lukas asked, then braced himself for a storm. Buck turned to pace across the room again, and for a moment Lukas thought he wasn’t going to answer.

  “Heard about her,” he said at last, turning back to face Lukas. He was silent for a moment, then said softly, “One of the guys from the station said she called looking for me there, and some idiot had to blurt the news that I was suspended.”

  “I’m surprised she didn’t know it already,” Lukas said.

  Buck shook his head and turned for another lap around the room. “She might even call for me here, but I won’t take the call. I’ve already told Carol not to bother me.” He glanced over his shoulder at the secretary at the computer a few yards away, who was talking on the telephone and entering data in the computer at the same time, and had no time to eavesdrop on their conversation if she’d wanted to. “I heard Kendra got a job. She’s working at the print shop for Jack. I don’t think he needed the help, but he knew she would need the money.”

  “Maybe she needs more than just the money right now,” Lukas said. “If she’s busy, she won’t have so much time to think about the past. Isn’t that what has her so upset?”

  “That’s not the way I hear it,” Buck said. “Sounds to me like I’m the only problem she’s got.” Buck stopped pacing and came over to lean once more against the central desk counter. He sighed heavily and his shoulders slumped. He lowered his voice, even though Carol wasn’t listening and no one else was in the room at the moment. “I went back down to the station and talked to some of the guys. They say the chief’s been real sulled up lately.”

  “You would be, too, if you had a job like his,” Lukas said. “Believe me, responsibility is no fun, and now his best man is out on suspension.”

  Buck nodded, then shot Lukas a brief smile at the compliment.

  “Don’t worry, Buck. I’ve talked to Personnel, and you can have more shifts here for a while. The reason they didn’t want to switch you from part-time to full-time here at the hospital was because they didn’t think the suspension would last long.”

  Buck raised his brows in surprise, and his expression lightened. “That’s what they said?”

  “That’s what they said. It has nothing to do with your ability to do the job. You now have an excellent letter of recommendation from me in your file.” Lukas didn’t mention the fact that he’d also sent a copy of the letter to the fire department. “And you’re still getting a paycheck from the department, aren’t you?”

  “Well…yeah.” More of the tight worry eased from his face.

  “Then why don’t you just allow a little time to pass before you get all bent out of shape. You know, Buck, you might start practicing a little patience once in a while. It’ll do you some good.” The possibility occurred to Lukas that he might do well to take some of his own advice. “While you’re practicing, though, do you have a place to stay? I’ve got an extra bedroom. You could bunk at my place until Kendra realizes what she’s missing.”

  Buck’s expression lightened further. “I could?”

  “Sure. I’m never there anyway.”

  Buck looked at Lukas for a moment, then said in perfect seriousness, “But I would starve if I stayed with you.”

  Lukas sighed and shook his head. “You could raid my refrigerator for doggie bags.”

  “Guess I could bring my own doggie bags…start hanging out at the restaurants at n
ight when they close and see if they have any leftovers.”

  “That’s not what I do.”

  Buck gave him a teasing look. “I hear you don’t even know where a grocery store is in this town.”

  “I do now.”

  “I guess I could move in with you for a while. Maybe I could mow your yard for you and clean out your gutters. Your place could sure use some work.”

  “I’m not looking for hired help, Buck. You don’t have to—Hey, my place isn’t that bad.”

  A smile spread across the younger man’s face from one oversize ear to the other. “Doc, you have trees growing in your gutters.”

  “Those are just little maple saplings.” Lukas chuckled. “Okay, maybe my place could use some work.”

  “And maybe I’ll take you up on your offer,” Buck said. “It sure beats sleeping in my truck down at the lake.”

  The phone at the end of the desk shrilled, and Lukas grabbed it. It would be Radiology calling with the results. “How’s the CT?”

  “Actually, Lukas, I have better news than that.” It wasn’t Radiology. It was Estelle.

  “Oh, sorry. I was waiting on a call.”

  “How would you like to have your day made?”

  He could hear the excitement in her voice. “Sounds good to me.”

  “I heard from Dr. Jarvis George this morning. Do you want to guess what he said?”

  “He’s coming back to work?” Lukas couldn’t believe she would be this happy about that kind of news.

  “Dr. George is in Kauai on an extended vacation-honeymoon, and his dear, wonderful new wife has convinced him to retire. Goodness knows he doesn’t need the money—he’s invested quite well over the years. Do you know what his retirement means?” Estelle demanded. “It means you now have the privilege of being the first on-site full-time director of Knolls Community Hospital Emergency Department.”