At Close Range

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  “He’s improving.” The child wouldn’t let him or Cynthia out of his sight, but he talked more. Just not about anything that gave them any clue to—

  “It’s nice to hear your voice, friend.” Hannah’s words interrupted his thoughts. “What you did Friday night…I’m embarrassed…but…well, thank you.”

  “I was glad to do it,” he told her with complete honesty. “And will be there for you anytime you call. Day or night. You got that?”

  “Yeah, actually, I do.” She sounded pleased.

  And so was he.

  The sun was shining. Phoenix’s cerulean-blue sky was as vivid as ever. He had lifelong friends. And a new family at home. A woman to love. A boy to father. Life was good.

  Another baby died Monday afternoon. Sammie Blanchard. One of Brian’s patients. Three months old. A boy again.

  He found out about it the next morning when he arrived at the office an hour before his first scheduled appointment and found a Mesa police detective waiting for him with a subpoena for the baby’s records.

  The Blanchards hadn’t called him. Sammie was their fourth child. The fourth he’d cared for. And they hadn’t called him.

  “We understand from the mother that the infant was in your office about a week ago, with flulike symptoms.”

  “He was colicky,” Brian corrected automatically, unlocking the door to his suite of offices in the centrally located medical plaza. “The first of her four children to suffer what is generally a very common ailment. Also the first she didn’t breast-feed. We switched formulas and he’s been fine.”

  Brian had called every day last week, just to be certain.

  He hadn’t called yesterday.

  Sammie Blanchard was dead. He couldn’t believe it.

  Striding down the hall to his office, turning on lights automatically as he went, Brian tried to digest the newest tragedy, to make sense of yet another death. Had he missed something? Was there something he could have done? He’d been so certain they’d been looking at a classic case of colic. Sammie’s temp had been slightly raised, but that wasn’t uncommon. He’d given the baby a minimum dose of acetaminophen and Sammie had responded almost immediately. As he had to the changed formula. He’d had neither an elevated temperature, nor any signs of stomach upset the rest of the week.

  “I’m assuming the medical examiner has the body?” he asked the detective waving the man to a seat in front of the massive desk as he opened his office door.

  “The autopsy should be complete later today.”

  “Was there any sign of illness? Had he spit up?”

  So many questions. And rarely any answers.

  “His mother found him late in the afternoon. He’d been sleeping longer than usual and she went in to check on him. She called paramedics, tried CPR until they got there, but he’d already been dead long enough to develop blue patches.”

  Brian’s heart ached as he tried to focus on the detective in front of him when all he could see was chubby cheeks, blue eyes, a round head covered in downy blond fuzz.

  “I’ll get his file,” he said, sucking in as much air as he could as he retrieved what he needed from the file room. Everything was computerized, but Brian still insisted on keeping hard copy records of everything he did. Call him old-fashioned but he wasn’t going to have a life at risk because a machine was on the fritz and he couldn’t access the necessary information.

  “I’d like to ask you a few questions if I may,” Detective Angelo said as Brian returned to the office.

  “Of course,” Brian said, dropping into his chair as he met the police officer’s direct gaze.

  A gaze that was more suspicious than anything.

  And that’s when Brian remembered the Sun News article.

  Surely they didn’t think…

  They couldn’t think he had anything to do with this.

  “Where were you yesterday afternoon, Dr. Hampton?”

  Brian had answers for each of Detective Angelo’s questions. With the exception of one.

  “Do you have any explanation for Sammie’s death?”

  “No,” Brian said, feeling as helpless as he had that day Cara died. “Unfortunately I don’t.”

  “But if you had to guess, you’d say it sounded like SIDS?”

  Brian’s eyes narrowed and he realized he could no longer afford the luxury of emotions. This guy, as off base as he was, meant business. Apparently he had no more to do than the Sun News reporter.

  Brian had patients to see in less than half an hour.

  “Based on what I’ve heard so far, I wouldn’t dismiss that theory,” he said now, carefully.

  Barbara Bailey, his receptionist, arrived. He heard her drop her keys in the drawer by her desk through his open door. And waited for the water to start running into the coffeepot—a job she insisted on doing no matter how often he assured her he could make his own coffee.

  “You realize that Sammie’s Hispanic, right?”

  “I’ve been caring for his siblings for years. Of course I know their ethnicity,” he said, again measuring every word.

  This was crazy. Ludicrous.

  “I understand that you first met them at the free clinic downtown.”

  “I volunteer there.”

  “And frequently take patients on full-time, sometimes even free of charge.”

  “I’m a doctor, Detective. My job is to save lives. Not just make money.”

  “Mmm-hmm.” The detective wrote something down.

  “I feel as though I’m on trial here all of a sudden, Detective,” he said, leaning forward. “Do you have a warrant for my arrest?”

  “No, Doctor, I do not.”

  Brian thought he detected an unspoken “yet” on the end of that statement. Or maybe his imagination was getting the better of him.

  “Am I a suspect in anything?”

  “No.”

  Did he hear another “yet”?

  “If you think for one second that I had anything to do with Sammie’s death, or any child’s death, you are completely, one-hundred-percent mistaken,” he said, unable to keep the tremor out of his voice. “I love every single one of the kids who come through that door. And those that don’t, as well. I’ve given my entire life to the health and safety of children. I would rather die myself than even inadvertently cause the death of a child in my care.”

  “I hear you, Doctor.” Detective Angeles stood. “You’ll be available if we have any further questions?”

  “Of course.”

  “Thank you for your time. I’ll see myself out.”

  The police officer turned, and with his footsteps muffled by the plush carpet, left—ignoring, or failing to see, the hand Brian had extended.

  8

  “B obby? How are you?” Though the smile and tone of voice were upbeat, in deference to the other women milling about the sanctuary after Wednesday morning’s service, her eyes held a different message.

  And he knew Adele’s eyes. He’d known her well, as he had all of the women in the Ivory Nation, until Amanda.

  Blocking her from the view of the rest of the congregants, Bobby spoke softly. “You need a private moment?”

  “I’m great, Bobby! Thanks for asking,” she said with a smile, nodding an answer to his question.

  “Well, that’s good to hear,” he said more loudly and turned away.

  Moments later, as he stood at the door, hugging each of the sisters goodbye, he watched for Adele. And delivered his meeting instructions in her ear as he wished her a good week.

  Adele was behind the small new-age shop in Flagstaff’s historic downtown waiting for him when he arrived. As he’d known she would be. Loyalty was the backbone of the Ivory Nation. God’s entire world was at stake and Satan was around every corner, trying to stifle God’s people. Loyalty to the cause was a matter of eternal life and death. If God lived, Satan died.

  And in the Ivory Nation, if loyalty died, so would hundreds of people.

  “What’s up?” Bobby asked t
he pretty blonde, squeezing her hand. “Don’s not mistreating you, is he?”

  He’d personally discipline any man who abused one of their women. There was a time and a place for violence. Using it on one of their own—especially a member of the weaker sex, was unforgivable.

  “No.” Adele shook her head. “Don’s a good father and a good husband.”

  Bobby believed her.

  “So, what is it?”

  “I…was I anything to you, Bobby?”

  The question surprised him. “Why do you ask?” He didn’t play games with anyone. Especially not after being up all night monitoring the pay phone records that one of his Ivory Nation brothers on the Flagstaff police force had given him access to.

  “I never told anyone about us, but Don said something once, that made me wonder if…”

  Eyes narrowed, Bobby asked, “What did he say?” in a tone that let Adele know she’d be in more trouble if she didn’t answer, than she would be if she broke her husband’s confidence.

  “Just that I shouldn’t think too highly of myself because you and I…”

  “Made love.”

  Her face relaxed into the smile he’d always been fond of. “Yeah. He said that you have sex with every woman who joins the Ivory Nation.”

  A total breach of the brotherhood code.

  Shit.

  If this was any other woman, Bobby would do what he abhorred within the nation. He’d lie.

  But Adele was different: she’d been more to him than most. And now he knew she was tied to a weak man.

  “I used to have sex with every woman who applied for membership, after she’d been otherwise approved,” he explained. “Women give their hearts when they give their bodies. If they were willing to do this for me, I knew they’d be loyal in other ways.”

  Her face fell and Bobby reached out to lift her chin.

  “I never slept with them, Adele,” he said. “I never took them to my bed. I met them at a predetermined spot and had sex. One time only. There was no fore-play. No loving. Just physical penetration. Period.”

  Adele, who’d been single when they’d met, had shared his bed for weeks. She’d hooked up with Don almost a year after Bobby broke things off with her.

  “So I was special,” she said, half question, half confirmation.

  “Of course you were.”

  “What about now? Do you still do that?”

  Bobby shook his head. “I spent a weekend in communion with God when I asked Amanda to be my mate and He told me that I no longer had to carry the weight of determining the sisters’ loyalty. He said that He’d take over.”

  “You do all you can do and God will do the rest, right?” She quoted one of Bobby’s favorite sayings.

  “Right.”

  “What about the guys who brought girlfriends into the cause,” she asked.

  “They showed their greater loyalty by allowing me to taste of their women’s fruits. They knew I wouldn’t do more than God required.”

  “And they were okay with that?”

  “Every one of them was there, loving his woman while I did what I had to do.”

  She thought about that, and then nodded. Such was the trust Bobby demanded from the brothers and sisters in the Ivory Nation.

  “If you hadn’t met Amanda, do you think maybe we would’ve…you know…ever gotten back together?”

  Every Ivory Nation member understood that Bobby would never marry. He couldn’t. He was married to the cause. Just like Christ was married to the church. It was Bobby’s promise to God and to the people he was there to save. The cause would always be at the top of his pyramid.

  “Maybe,” he said, seeing no reason to hurt her.

  “Well…” She moved closer to him in the deserted alleyway, her hardened nipples brushing his arm. When Adele had been his woman, he’d insisted she lose her bras. As far as he knew, she’d never worn one since. “I’ve been thinking about you so much lately. Every time Don reaches for me…I can’t stand the feel of his hands on my skin anymore, I can’t stand knowing that it’s him inside me. So I remember how it was with you. And I pretend…”

  He was gratified. Not surprised, but gratified. And otherwise unmoved.

  “I just thought that, with Amanda gone, maybe you’d need a little…”

  “Adele, no,” he said as gently, but firmly, as possible. “Don’s a brother and—”

  “He wouldn’t have to know, Bobby,” she said, her hand gripping his balls, massaging them the way he’d taught her to do. And for a second he was tempted.

  But only for a second. He’d sworn celibacy as a way to honor Amanda and the love God had given them. He would die before he’d go back on that.

  “We’d know, Adele, and more importantly, God would know.”

  The pained look on her face cleared, and she grimaced. “You’re right,” she said, sounding more like herself. “I’d have hated myself if you’d said yes.”

  “Because you’d have done it?” The question wasn’t really fair. Or necessary.

  “Yeah.” Her honesty fed his ego and he was grateful to her for that.

  “I have something else to tell you,” she said when Bobby was considering how best to say goodbye.

  He remembered Don’s weakness—breaking code by telling Adele that Bobby bedded others. Please, God, let that have been a simple slip of a man who was more human than godlike, a man who was a little insecure. A man who knew that Bobby had more to offer a woman than he did.

  “What is it?” he asked when he was ready to respond to whatever he might hear.

  “I overheard a conversation at the cafeteria yesterday.” As part of her role in the Ivory Nation, Adele worked as a server at the Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff where Amanda had been employed—giving her access to young minds they could teach and convert. And keeping her pulse on the activities of enemies as well.

  Flagstaff was Bobby’s hometown.

  “And?”

  “A couple of girls were talking about David Jefferson.”

  The brother who’d betrayed him last year. Jefferson had taken Amanda to his bed instead of killing her as ordered. And then, while hiding Amanda away in his apartment in Tucson, he’d raped another woman in the name of the cause—a white woman married to a black man. Jefferson had put the cause at risk. Put the lives of his brothers at risk. And he was indirectly responsible for the death of a young man who’d become Bobby’s protégé. Who’d shared Bobby’s home after Amanda left.

  Jefferson had been murdered.

  And his crimes had made the news statewide for weeks.

  “What about him?” Bobby said, his tone carefully neutral. He couldn’t think about Jefferson’s murderer now. About the other traitor—the young man who’d become family to the Donahues. Tony Littleton had failed not only the Ivory Nation, but Bobby and Luke, too.

  It was a good thing Tony was dead. Bobby couldn’t afford the distraction of torturing and killing him.

  He couldn’t afford the bitterness that such an act would instill within him.

  God couldn’t afford to have Bobby act in such a manner.

  But if Tony were alive, God knew, Bobby would have had to do it.

  Which was why God, in His infinite wisdom, had seen fit to have the boy killed with his own gun.

  “These girls were talking about the rape,” Adele was saying. “I guess that botanist who got raped and her black husband recently moved to Flagstaff. The guy’s a history professor and he’s teaching at NAU. One of the girls is in his class.”

  Interesting. But not earth shattering. He had no interest in the biracial couple, no lesson to teach them that they hadn’t already learned. God would see them rot in hell.

  “So?” He’d have heard about the move eventually.

  “I was standing close to the girls because of their tattoos,” Adele said, describing the mark of the Alliance, a gang that liked to call themselves supremacists, but who, in reality, didn’t have a cause, except for beating up on peopl
e. Any people. They thrived on violence, not God.

  And suddenly Bobby was interested.

  “And?”

  “One was saying that the woman who led the professor’s wife back to her rapists last year was in touch with a friend of theirs in prison.”

  Amanda. She’d given the white woman back to Jefferson as a means to get to Bobby, to get Luke.

  “It sounded like Amanda’s in with the Alliance.”

  Amanda was involved with the Alliance? For once in his life Bobby was truly shocked. Not because someone who was on the outs with the Ivory Nation had turned to another group for protection. But because this was Amanda. His Amanda.

  She’d been as wed to the Ivory Nation as he was.

  “You are a good woman, Adele,” he said calmly, when what he wanted to do was cry out in agony. He had a God to serve. People to care for. “Keep this between me and you, okay?”

  “Sure, Bobby.”

  “Did you tell Don?” It was a hard-and-fast rule that all women had to follow or be cast out. If they had a man, they reported everything to him. Everything. If they didn’t, they reported to Bobby.

  “Not yet. I was asleep when he came in last night.”

  “You’ve told me. That covers you.”

  She nodded, and Bobby knew she wouldn’t repeat the story to anyone else.

  “Hey, Bobby?” she asked as he hugged her goodbye a moment later.

  “Yeah?” he asked, allowing his groin to push up against her.

  “Is it a sin if I keep fantasizing about you when Don touches me?”

  He didn’t even have to think about that one.

  “No. Everyone tires of a mate sooner or later,” he explained. “It’s human nature. It’s like eating only steak and baked potatoes. No matter how good they are we’d start to crave something else. Why do you think God gave us imaginations?”

  She nodded, and then squinted up at him in the bright sunlight. “What about you, do you care if I do?”

  That was an easy answer, too.

  “I’d be honored.”

  Adele smiled. And as he watched her tight ass walk away, Bobby made a vow to think of her when he got home and took care of his arousal. God was proud of him. Bobby was proud of himself. He’d just resisted the hardest temptation of his life.