One September Morning (40 page)

Lakeside Clinic
Charles

J
ust looking at her lying there. Her small breasts poking up at him through her T-shirt makes him hard as a rock.

He checks the door behind him, fiddling around the knob for a lock. No! Son of a bitch! The goddamned door won’t lock. Stupid safety feature for psycho patients.

But who would know if he jumped on top of the girl and humped her right here, right now? Nailed her on the couch?

He squeezes her breasts, firm little mounds. Damn, he wants to do her, but the risk of getting caught is too great.

What the hell was he thinking when he drugged her here? She’s going to have to be admitted now, and that means there’ll be lots of nurses and interns and staff around her, watching, watching all the time.

He kneels beside her, pounds his forehead in frustration.

Stupid, imbecile plan of his! He should have lured her somewhere else…his car or the park. He could have dragged her back into the thicket and had his way with her supple, lean body for hours. But no, he thought it would happen here. Idiot!

Rage burns through him, flaring up from his loins and firing through his soul. Damn!

Leaning close, her runs a finger over her fat lower lip, wishing her could dip inside that luscious mouth. His fingertips trail down, toying with her pert nipples once again, then framing her slightly rounded hips with both hands till his fingers sink into her tight little butt.

Did she realize how it had inflamed him when she wriggled that little butt on the couch, nestling into the pockets of the leather?

How he’d grown rock solid, eager to feel himself press against her tender flesh?

He would take her another time, another day. But he would definitely have her.

He goes to the phone and calls upstairs to the nursing staff in the psych ward. With any luck, he gave her the right dose of morphine, but the nurses could figure it out, hook her up on monitors, start fluids.

“This is Dr. Jump. I’m in my office in the office wing, and one of my patients just had a meltdown. Yes, Madison Stanton. She’ll need to be admitted for observation.”

Lakeside Hospital
Abby

S
o far this Monday morning, Abby has managed to avoid Dr. Jump at the hospital. She spent the morning leading a twelve-step meeting monitored by Dr. Holland, then attended a group therapy session during which Emjay Brown was very articulate, sharing anecdotes and describing feelings, encouraging another soldier to “let it out.”

Now, meeting with him for therapeutic communication in the Day Room, she flips through his chart as he shares a joke with Jake, a soldier who is also suffering from PTSD. Emjay Brown has progressed well since the first day she saw him, heavily medicated and sleeping, here in the Day Room.

“Tomorrow is a landmark of sorts for you, Emjay,” Abby says. “You’ll be setting recovery goals with some of the doctors.”

“You mean, they’ll evaluate me,” Emjay says with his wry expression. “I never did like test day.”

“You’ll do fine. You’ve embraced all the goals we established.” Looking down her list, she would give Emjay full points in all categories: developing positive coping actions, engaging in talk therapy, learning about his condition, practicing relaxation methods. “Good work, Emjay.”

“I had a pretty good intern,” he jokes. “You are going to be there tomorrow, right?”

Tomorrow…Abby isn’t sure how much longer she can take the strain of being in the same building with Dr. Jump. And once Jump finds out she didn’t turn in all those treatment plans, he might be terminating her internship, anyway. “I’m planning on it,” she tells Emjay.

“I don’t know. I’d like to get out of here, but I don’t know if I’m cured yet.”

“There’s no sudden insight or quick cure. Recovery is an ongoing, daily process, and you’re chiseling away at it, bit by bit.”

“One day at a time.” His voice is low, melodic. “I suppose you want me to give you some more stories so’s you can fill your clipboard?”

“If you want. It
is
called talk therapy.”

“I suppose we can do that.” He glances across the Day Room to Jake, the new soldier, who is playing solitaire. “Have you ever been on a chicken farm?”

Coming from out of the blue, the question makes Abby smile. “No, although I’ve driven by them on the Delaware shore.” The only reason Abby remembers is because, even from fifty yards away, the stench from the long buildings can be unbearable.

“I grew up on a chicken farm. Eastern Maryland.”

“How was that?”

He shakes his head. “Hated it. I signed on with the army just to get away.”

“What were you trying to get away from?”

“My old man liked his whiskey. Falling-down drunk half the time. It got to the point where I couldn’t leave, could never get away, ’cause I couldn’t count on him to take care of the chickens. Twice a day you have to go out culling in the chicken coops. You gag at the smell, chicken shit everywhere. Gets in your boots and your pores. They say eventually the ammonia burns a hole in your sinuses and you don’t smell it anymore, but that never happened to me. Nah, I smelled it every time I got downwind of the chicken coops, and stepping inside, it stings your throat…”

He rubs his chin, wincing at the memory. “But you have to go inside, gotta walk through from one end to the other and pick out the dead chicks before they infect the others. Put ’em in a bucket or a bag and count the bodies. Their little chick bodies, all stiff. Legs in the air.” He squeezes his eyes shut, and Abby notices his cheeks are wet with tears.

This is about more than raising chickens. She waits for him to continue, her gaze on his face, encouraging.

“You need to keep count if you want to run a business.” He sucks in a breath. “Gotta keep count.”

“It sounds like an unpleasant job.”

“Nobody should have to do that. No one. The bodies…” His voice is broken by a sob.

“What bodies are you talking about, Emjay?”

“I keep seeing them, soldiers. Men and women. They keep carrying their bodies out of the ravine.” He sniffs and wipes a sleeve over his face.

“This is in Iraq?”

He nods. “We were in traveling a convoy by this oil rig that somebody set on fire. It was burning like the fires of hell, damn hot, and we were doing our best to get around it fast. One of the armored vehicles took a different detour, trying to get away, but they ran into a drainage ditch. Flipped the vehicle, and the soldiers were trapped inside.” He blanches, his face tight with anguish. “They drowned. Drowned in the fucking desert. What’s the chance of that?”

“Bad things happen in war,” Abby says. “Things that the human psyche isn’t built to endure.”

“They made me count them. Someone had to count the bodies.” A sob slips from his throat and he drops his head into his hands. “They made me cull the bodies.”

Abby reaches over and rubs his back, firm strokes between the shoulder blades.

When his breath evens out, he continues. “Now—how many months later?—I dream about it. I’m walking through the desert, picking up dead bodies as I go, tossing them onto heaps. All for the U.S. Army, so they can have a list, their statistics. Their war.”

“When was the last time you had this dream?”

“Just before I took that midnight stroll down the boulevard with my rifle.”

She nods. “You know, there are ways of gaining some control over your dreams. You can make your mind go to a safer place at night.” The buzzing of the hospital pager at her waist disrupts Abby’s train of thought. “We’ll work on some strategies for programming dreams.”

The page is from Admissions. After Abby finishes the session with Emjay, she takes the elevator down, expecting to be assigned a new patient. However, when she passes the waiting room on the way of that wing, she nearly runs into Sharice Stanton, who is pacing frantically.

“Sharice?”

“Abby! Oh, Abby.” Tears flood Sharice’s eyes as she clutches Abby’s hands.. “It’s Madison. Something happened. A panic attack, I think. I dropped her off here for therapy and when I came to pick her up they told me she’s going to be admitted.”

“I’m so sorry.” Abby bites her lower lip. Would any of this have happened if Madison had been in the hands of a decent therapist? Guilt sweeps over her, a hood of regret, but Abby has to shake it off and move ahead. Right now Madison is the priority. “I’ll do everything I can to help you, Sharice.”

“Will she be in your ward? Maybe you can look in on her.”

“We don’t have minors in the psych ward. She’ll probably get a room on a pediatric floor. How did she look to you?”

“I haven’t been allowed to see her yet.” Sharice presses a hand to her forehead. “That’s one of the reasons I’m so worried.”

“But you’re her mother,” Abby says, shaking her head. “We’ll get you in. Let me see what I can find out.”

At the Admissions desk she learns that Madison is “still being stabilized” in one of the Admissions bays. As a psych intern, Abby has no authority or privilege in this wing of the hospital, but she strides down the hall, checking charts and peering into the slits between curtains. At last she finds Madison, but the sight of the unconscious girl, waxen and pale against the sheets, strikes fear in her heart.

A nurse glances up from taking her vitals. “If you’re the psych consult, you can come back at the end of shift. This little shorty’s going to be sleeping for a long time.”

“I know her.” Abby reaches under the sheet and takes Madison’s hand, which is cold to the touch. Her fingers are limp, her fingernails pearly with a pale blue tint. “Is she going to be okay?”

“Looks that way. Though the doctor had no business giving her that much morphine. Apparently the syringe was loaded up for some other patient and this girl went wild. Took a swing at him and he used the injection to calm her down.” The nurse glances up through an artistic spray of curls to check the IV. “This girl’s lucky to be alive.”

When Abby brings Sharice into the curtained bay, Sharice’s eyes well over at the sight of her daughter, so lifeless and sedated. She drags a plastic chair over to Madison’s bedside and rocks there, holding her daughter’s hand to her cheek.

“She’s so still,” Sharice murmurs. “Are you sure she’s breathing?”

“Her breathing is shallow, but at least she’s breathing on her own. There’s a good chance she’ll be nauseous when she wakes up. She should be okay, Sharice, but I feel responsible for this.” Abby glances toward the curtain; no sign of him yet. “I should have never recommended Dr. Jump as a therapist.”

Sharice holds a hand up. “Abby, it’s not your fault. I know your reservations, and I have some of my own.” She winces. “I found out that he lied about attending Rutgers with John. I don’t know, maybe it was a ruse to put him in our good graces. But I talked to Jim about it and, little white lies aside, he thinks Dr. Jump is just great.” Her hand squeezes Madison’s. “Whatever happened to Maddy today, we are going to get her through this.”

“Of course we are, but Sharice…” Abby squats beside her. “It’s not Maddy. Madison is not the problem at all—it’s Dr. Jump. I’ve figured out what happened to John. Jump’s the one who killed John, Sharice.”

“What?” The older woman’s eyes go wide, then she closes them. “No, Abby. That’s impossible. Don’t you know the creed doctors take? ‘First, do no harm.’”

“But Jump is no normal doctor. He suffers from a serious personality disorder, and he has the capacity to do heinous things to people without feeling any guilt or remorse.”

“Where are you getting this from?”

“From observing his behavior, catching him in a few of his lies. He’s a sociopath, Sharice, and I think he’s targeted me and…” Then it hits her. “Oh, my God. It’s not just me.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I’m not the only one he’s after. He’s targeted all of us…all of John’s family. That’s why he injected Madison today. Oh my God, Sharice, you’ve got to promise me you won’t leave Madison alone with him.”

“Now who’s having a meltdown? Listen, Abby, I appreciate all your help. But really, Jim and I thought Madison made considerable progress with Dr. Jump and it seemed to make sense to leave her under—” Her eyes grow wide as something behind Abby steals her attention. “Oh, hello, Dr. Jump.”

Steeling herself, Abby rises and faces her husband’s killer. Her attacker. Sofia’s kidnapper.

Under the hospital’s fluorescent lights, his skin looks slightly pallid, but with his broad smile and clear blue eyes he could be the poster child for MDs of America. “Sharice?” He stares right past Abby, taking Sharice’s hands. “First, I don’t want you to see this as a setback but as a breakthrough. Madison was trying to conquer some difficult demons today, and I’m afraid the monsters got the better of her.”

Speaking of demons,
Abby wants to say,
I hear you’ve got a direct line to hell.

With great restraint, she stands there staring at the floor tiles while he tells Sharice his version of Madison’s episode, a tale that sounds ludicrous even to Abby’s unseasoned ear. First, she finds it hard to believe that a man the size of Dr. Jump could not restrain a slender girl like Madison. And even if it was a struggle, he could have called for assistance. And the drug injection…as if anyone would leave a loaded syringe of morphine on his desk during a therapy session? Morphine is a special class of drug kept under lock and key, even in a hospital.

“So Madison is going to have to stay with us for a few days,” he says, checking the patient’s pulse. “In a few minutes they’ll move her to a room upstairs, which will be more comfortable for you.” He turns to Sharice and claps her on the shoulder. “Give you a chance to catch up on your TV viewing. I hear
American Idol
is addictive.”

Charming, charismatic—Dr. Charles Jump has honed his people skills well. It’s chilling to watch him in action, frightening to think of the damage he can cause in his quest for self-gratification.

Abby wants to stay and warn Sharice further, but Jump dismisses her outright, telling her that he needs a few moments alone with the patient’s guardian.

“I’ll check in on you later,” Abby tells Sharice, looking directly in her eyes. “You’re going to stay with Maddy, right?”

Sharice nods. “Jim is bringing me some things. We’ll take good care of her.”

As Abby leaves the room, Jump flashes her a chilling smile that penetrates her soul. It plants a hollow feeling of fear for Madison’s welfare, a feeling of dread for her own safety here at the hospital.

An hour later, as she’s working on her therapy notes upstairs, she finds that she’s still shivering.