by Irene Hannon
“Next on my list.” Dev stood. “So how did the trash party go last night?”
“It was productive.” Cal gave him a recap of the items they’d found, his excursion to the nursing homes, and Moira’s plans to visit the Woman’s Exchange.
While he spoke, twin creases appeared on Dev’s brow. “This is sounding less and less favorable to our humanitarian of the year.”
“That’s my take too. I called the first nursing home from my car after I left the second one, and I managed to get Olivia’s last name. It’s Lange.”
“What ruse did you use?”
“I didn’t need one. When I asked for Olivia, the operator asked if I meant Olivia Lange. Then I called the second place and asked for her with her full name. That receptionist told me she no longer worked there.”
“So your hunch panned out. It was the same woman.” Dev tapped a finger against his mug, his expression speculative. “I wonder why she left?”
“According to my tour guide at the last place, no one knows. She just didn’t show up one day. I’m thinking it might be worth paying her a little visit—after I gather some background.”
Dev shifted his coffee from one hand to the other. “Funny how things work out, isn’t it? That day we took the drive into the country to look over the accident scene, I assumed this case was dead in the water. All we found was a tooth that might not even be human. But this thing is really heating up. Proof that persistence pays off.”
“Moira’s more than ours.”
“I don’t know. I think you’re as committed now to solving it as she is.”
“Let’s just say I’m intrigued.”
“By the case—or the lady?”
Cal didn’t dignify that with a reply.
“I guess that’s my answer.” Dev smirked at him as he lifted his cup, took a sip—and sputtered out an “ow!”
“Burn your tongue?”
“Yeah.” Dev grimaced. “I can’t believe this coffee is still scalding. I need some water.” He took off down the hall.
Cal watched him leave, not feeling the least sorry for his wisecracking partner.
Yet as Dev disappeared, Cal’s mood grew more serious. A burned tongue was one thing.
But in light of the potentially dangerous Mexico assignment and the mystifying case of the vanishing woman, he hoped nothing else got burned.
13
Ken stared at the syringe in his hand and swiped at the film of sweat beading on his upper lip. “I can’t do this.”
His father’s unyielding gaze locked on him. “Yes, you can. You have to. I can’t do it one-handed. The degeneration is too advanced. Look.”
Alan Blaine lifted his hand, once strong and steady as it wielded a scalpel with confidence and precision during even the most delicate neurosurgery. Ken had watched his dad plenty of times. The talent and dexterity in his fingers had been awesome.
Now the arm that had guided that scalpel was thin and weak, the muscles atrophied, the fine motor skills in those once-adept fingers deaf to the commands of his brain.
As his father clumsily tried to pick up the fork on the tray of his wheelchair, tears flooded Ken’s eyes, blurring his vision.
The utensil clattered to the hardwood floor in his parents’ bedroom.
Ken bent to pick it up, choking back a sob as he returned it to the tray.
“If I hadn’t fallen two weeks ago, it would be done already.” His father’s mouth tightened in disgust as he inspected the plaster cast and sling immobilizing his broken left arm. “Now I need your help. I’d ask your mother, but she wouldn’t approve—nor have the fortitude for the task. I know you’re only sixteen, but you have the inner strength to deal with this—and the courage.”
No, he didn’t. His insides were quaking just thinking about it.
When he didn’t respond, his father groped for his hand. Although his words were slurred these days, his eyes were every bit as alert and decisive as they’d always been.
“Please. Help me.” There was a touch of desperation in his voice now.
That was something Ken had never heard before.
His heart began to pound, just like the breast of the terrified robin he’d once rescued after it got trapped in the protective netting around his mother’s ornamental peach tree.
“I . . . I can’t.” He choked out the words, clinging to his father’s hand as he pleaded with the man he’d loved, admired, and tried to emulate his entire life. “Please don’t ask me to do this terrible thing. It’s wrong.”
“It isn’t a terrible thing. And I wouldn’t ask you to do anything wrong.” His father struggled with the words, working hard to form them into coherent sounds. “This will be a blessing. I’m not going to get better. You know that. We’ve talked about it. ALS is merciless. Soon I’ll be bedridden. Paralyzed. Unable to speak. I may need a feeding tube to eat and a ventilator to breathe. And in a few months or a year, I’ll die anyway. I want to go on my own terms, before I lose any more of my dignity.”
“But it’s . . . it’s murder.” Ken barely whispered the word.
“No, it’s not.” His father’s voice steadied, a hint of the old forcefulness and resolve adding weight to his words. “I’m asking you to do this. That makes all the difference.”
“It’s still against the law.”
“No one will ever know what took place in this room except you and me. After you administer the injection, bury the empty vial and the syringe in the woods behind the house. My death will not be unexpected, given the rapid progression of the disease. The truth will remain our secret.”
The syringe felt slippery in his sweaty hand, and Ken gripped it tighter. “Medication isn’t supposed to be an instrument of death.” A quiver ran through his words.
“Not death. Peace. When all hope of recovery is gone, when there is nothing to look forward to except pain and deterioration and dependence, isn’t this another way to relieve suffering? The very thing a physician is honor-bound to do?”
Ken furrowed his brow. Was it? He’d never viewed it that way before, but everything his father had ever said had made sense. And despite the ravages of the disease, Alan Blaine remained lucid, his thinking sound and logical.
But it still felt wrong.
“I hear what you’re saying, but isn’t this like . . . like playing God?” Ken groped for an out, scrambling for an argument his father hadn’t considered. “Doesn’t it go against the Hippocratic Oath—and our faith?”
“I’m not playing God.” His father’s voice was growing weary from the exertion of so much talking, but it had lost none of its conviction. “The Lord has already made it clear he intends to call me home. I don’t think he’ll care if I arrive a little early. I made my peace with this decision long ago.” He settled his hands in his lap and looked toward the second-floor balcony that jutted over the steeply sloping rock garden in the back. “If you won’t help me, I’ll find another way. But this would be easier—and more merciful.”
Ken felt as if icy fingers had clamped onto his lungs, squeezing out every last breath of air. He knew that, left with no other options, with few other resources at his disposal, his dad would do whatever was necessary to achieve his goal.
An image of his father’s smashed body splayed on the rocks below the balcony strobed across his mind—and knotted his stomach.
“All right.” His acquiescence came out in a croak.
Relief flooded his father’s eyes. “Thank you. Think of it as the last gift you’ll give me. And it is a gift. Never forget that. Now here’s what I want you to do.”
Despite the unsteadiness in his hands, Ken managed to follow his father’s calm, clinical instructions. Once he’d filled the syringe with a lethal dose of morphine, he capped the empty vial, set it on the tray of the wheelchair—and began to shake.
“It’s okay.” His father touched his arm. “This is what I want. You’re doing the compassionate thing by saving me the agony of enduring a life that’s no longer productive
or worth living. Promise me you’ll never have any regrets or remorse about this.”
How could he promise that, when his mind was filled with doubts and misgivings, when guilt and grief were already settling into his heart?
“Look at me, son.”
Ken lifted his gaze from the syringe in his hand, blinking back tears.
“Someday you’ll be a fine doctor. You have the healing touch, and you’ll save many lives. Don’t agonize over the ones you can’t save. Accept that sometimes death is a blessing. Think of mine that way. Now promise me—no remorse and no regrets.”
A shudder rippled through him. He tried to speak. Failed. Tried again.
“I promise.” He finally managed to squeeze the words past the tightness in his throat.
His father pulled him close, and Ken laid his head on the man’s wasted shoulder, as he’d done on occasion as a small child. Except then the shoulder had been strong and broad and capable of bearing the heaviest burden.
A sob escaped his lips.
“No tears.” His father extricated himself from the embrace. “It’s time. I want this over before your mother comes back from her bridge club.”
Ken backed off, and though he tried his best, he couldn’t stem the silent tears trailing down his cheeks.
“After you give me the injection, I want you to leave.”
He stared at his father. “But I want to stay with you and—”
“No.” His father held up his hand, his tone firm. “I’ll drift off quickly. You need to take care of the syringe and vial.”
“But Mom will . . . she’ll be the one who finds you.”
“Better that than to let her heart break bit by bit as I wither away. This is kinder in the end. I want your word you’ll leave—and not come back until she calls for you.”
His father’s words were becoming more garbled, the effort to talk wearing him down. But Ken had no problem understanding what his father wanted. What he expected. And all his life, he’d done his best to live up to his father’s expectations.
“All right.”
“Good.” His father shifted sideways and flopped his hand toward his thigh, working to position his index finger. “There. Go through the fabric. Inject it slow and steady.” His voice was calm.
Ken went down on one knee. Pulled his father’s lightweight pant leg taut. Positioned the needle.
Hesitated.
“Just do it, son. It’s an act of compassion and charity. There’s a better place waiting for me.”
Pulse hammering as hard as if he’d run a five-hundred-yard dash, Ken slowly slid the needle in and pushed the plunger, shooting the deadly liquid into his father’s body.
It seemed to take forever in the quiet room, the silence broken only by the muted strains of a Vivaldi CD.
When the syringe was at last empty, he withdrew it and looked up at his father, his vision blurred with tears. “I love you, Dad.”
“I know. What you just did demonstrated that better than words ever could. You’re a good boy. Honorable and conscientious. I’m proud of you, son.” He touched his cheek. “Now go. But open the French doors first so I can see the sky and breathe the fresh air.”
Ken lurched to his feet and once more followed his father’s instructions.
After he’d repositioned the wheelchair for a view toward the outdoors, he crossed to the hall door and paused on the threshold for one more look at the man who’d been the center of his world for sixteen years. His father managed a crooked smile and a weak lift of his hand in farewell.
The tears started again, and Ken forced himself to turn away. Clutching the syringe and empty morphine vial, he raced down the steps and out the back door, heading for the property line at the edge of the woods. Once there, he stopped and looked back toward the open French doors.
To the room where his father was dying.
“I’m proud of you, son.”
As the words echoed in his mind, he tried to stifle his sobs. That’s all he’d ever wanted—for his dad, the great neurosurgeon, to be proud of him. Alan Blaine wasn’t effusive in his praise, but when he gave it, it meant something. And it was always deserved.
If his father was proud of him, he’d done the right thing.
But that didn’t mitigate his feeling of desolation and loss.
He stumbled into the woods. Dropped to his knees. Doubled over. Retched until there was nothing left in his stomach.
For several minutes he lay there, spent. But at last he rose and staggered deeper into the same woods where he’d once played Robin Hood, smiting imaginary villains, pretending to be a hero.
He didn’t feel like a hero today.
After collecting a stick and a flat rock, he again dropped to his knees and crawled into a tangle of shrubby growth. With his improvised implements, he stabbed at the loamy soil, damp from the recent rain, thrusting them into the earth over and over and over until he’d created a small, deep hole. Then he dropped the syringe and vial inside and refilled the dark, dank cavity as quickly as possible.
After he finished, his hands felt dirty—and not just from the earth and decayed leaves.
Would they ever feel clean again?
Yet he’d promised his father he wouldn’t harbor regrets or remorse, and it was a promise he’d do his best to keep. Whatever it took.
Because he’d never broken a promise to his dad.
Backing out of the scrubby brush, he wove through the undergrowth to the small creek where he used to catch tadpoles. The water was cold, but he plunged his hands in and scrubbed away the dirt as best he could.
Once he’d cleaned up, he returned to the edge of the woods and sat, back against a tree. A cardinal trilled overhead, and he closed his eyes, welcoming the numbness that settled over him. Here, in this quiet place, he could almost pretend everything was normal.
Until his mother’s panicked cry an hour or so later shattered his fleeting serenity.
“Ken? Ken!”
He squeezed his eyes tightly shut, trying to block her out, to keep reality at bay.
But her cries grew louder. More insistent.
And then she was shaking him, harder and harder and . . .
Ken’s eyes flew open and he gasped, his pulse pounding as he blinked into the darkness.
“I’m sorry to wake you. You were shouting and thrashing. I could hear you down the hall.”
That wasn’t his mother’s voice.
Ken blinked. Shifted his head to the left.
Ellen stood beside the bed, silhouetted from the light in the hall, her face in shadows. He checked the clock on the nightstand: 2:30.
“Sorry to disturb you.”
At his shaky apology, she hesitated, as if debating whether to say more. In the end, though, she turned and disappeared into the dark hall.
Slowly he exhaled and released the sheet he’d bunched in his fists. The air-conditioning kicked on, and at the sudden movement of cool air he shivered.
No wonder.
He was soaked with sweat.
As his shivering increased, he groped for the blanket and pulled it up.
Better.
But he couldn’t so easily chase away the chill of the familiar nightmare. The one that returned every time he thought about helping a future Let the Children Come donor make his or her contribution a bit sooner than they expected.
Still . . . it was better than the nightmares he’d had before the ordeal with Olivia.
Another chill snaked through him, and he tucked the blanket under his chin, trying to quash the memory of those bad dreams. After all, God had smiled on him that night, intervening to lessen his culpability for the stomach-knotting ethical choice he’d wrestled with day and night. He’d only had to end the drama, not initiate it, and that had been a compassionate deed. Then, to seal the deal, God had erased the evidence with a torrential rain.
What better confirmation could there be that the Almighty’s priorities meshed with his?
He needed to put that
unfortunate incident behind him and focus on Verna Hafer—the cause of tonight’s nightmare. How providential that she’d told him about the alteration she’d made in her will mere days before the earthquake.
Another sign from God.
Still, he preferred to space such generous donations six or eight months apart. But what choice did he have? Children’s lives hung in the balance.
Besides, she was confined to bed now, her dignity gone. She had nothing to look forward to except pain and ultimate death. Why prolong that misery? Better to permanently end her suffering, just as he’d ended his father’s, even if it was sooner than planned.
And it would be a double blessing, because in death she would help hundreds of children live.
His father would be proud.
Moira picked up a necklace handcrafted of beads and copper, keeping one eye on the front door of the Woman’s Exchange. She’d already been here twenty minutes, and unfortunately most of the consignment part of the shop was in the back, out of sight of the tearoom entrance. She was running out of merchandise to browse through in the small front section.
If Ellen Blaine didn’t show up soon, the clerks behind the counter and the hostess for the tearoom were going to get suspicious.
Draping the necklace back on the stand that held several others, Moira picked up a cookbook. She could kill a few minutes paging through that.
And thinking about Cal’s call last night.
Her lips curved up. That had been the best part of her day. Not only because he’d discovered some interesting information during his nursing home visits that suggested Blaine might, indeed, have things to hide, but because Cal hadn’t been in any hurry to end their call. He’d seemed to enjoy their chitchat as much as she had.
Or maybe that was wishful thinking. The man clearly still loved his wife, even after five years. Could be he was just lonely, and their conversation had helped fill up some empty evening hours.
