Trauma Plan (10 page)

“Caught it. Barely. But the point is that he’s a maniac, Kate. And you don’t even want to know the things that Vesta Calder’s neighbor said about him.”

“He’s giving you a way back to the ER.”

“You don’t know that, Kate. You don’t know that it would help.”

“It can’t hurt.”

There was a soft moan. “You don’t know that either.”

Kate reached for her water. “Well . . . I know that he’ll be at the ER until eleven tonight.”

* * *

Riley held her breath and pushed her hands hard against the bedroom’s lush carpet, straining to lift her chest from the floor in a bent-knee push-up. Equally balanced over both arms this time, not collapsing toward the right side like a kid’s wagon that lost a wheel. She groaned, pushed harder, and tipped toward the numb arm, her shower-damp hair sticking to her neck. “No!” she breathed through clenched teeth. “I . . .
will
 . . . do this.” She leaned harder onto her left arm but still felt her right hand cramp and the elbow begin to buckle.
Hold on, hold on
—

“Ugh!” She crumpled onto her right shoulder and kept rolling until she was flat on her back, glaring up at the airy vaulted ceiling. She lifted both arms toward it, watched the right one sag lower, and then smacked her bare feet defiantly against the soft carpet pile. “Why, why, why?”
Why me, Lord?

A tear slid from the corner of her eye, and Riley swiped at it with numb fingers, not sure if she’d halted it. Until warm water pooled in her ear.
Numb, weak, clumsy.
She bit her lip against more humiliating tears, thinking of what she’d said to Kate about catching Toddler Tim. That she’d barely kept him from hitting the floor.
Barely.
It seemed to be a key word in her life lately. Barely healed, barely a nurse, barely . . . a believer? Riley glanced toward the open study Bible on the bamboo table beside her bed. Her chest tightened. Since she was a chaplain, barely believing would make her a fraud.

Am I a fraud?

Riley jerked to a sitting position, then stood upright and padded across the carpet to her bed. She sat on the edge of the blue silk duvet and took a deep, slow breath, which did nothing at all to ease the growing ache in her chest. An emptiness that always came when her targeted anger subsided, a vacuum that stubbornly remained despite every kind of therapy that money could buy. Filled only by doubts that whispered,
I’ll never be whole again.

Riley traced her numb fingertips slowly up her cheek to the scar on her forehead, usually hidden discreetly beneath her newly styled bangs. It was one of twin divots left by the cold metal pins that had screwed the halo brace to her skull for three long months. A device designed to help her fractured neck mend, but one that also proved—with exquisite, unrelenting pain—that violence had skewered her life.

Riley could barely feel the scarred hole with her nerve-damaged fingers, but she felt it deep in her gut—in her soul—as if it were still new, bleeding and raw. She was broken and wasn’t fooling anyone with clever makeup, well-cut bangs, or her current position as the very first Alamo Grace trauma chaplain. The hospital’s ER charge nurses had testified to that painful truth at their meeting today. And Kate had confirmed it. Riley wouldn’t feel whole again until she recovered everything the violent attack had taken from her. She had to do it. With or without the support of the nursing staff. Even if that meant . . .

Riley glanced at the clock: ten forty-five. She scooted toward the bedside table and closed her Bible so she could grab the phone lying under its cover. She scrolled through her contacts and tapped the number. Then asked that the call be transferred to—

“Jack Travis,” he answered.

“It’s Riley Hale,” she whispered, heart in her throat. She squeezed the phone even tighter than she’d gripped Toddler Tim, slipping from her grasp. “I want to see your clinic.”

8

“Okay.” Jack stuck the computer printout to the clinic’s aging refrigerator with a Tylenol magnet. “We’ve got a working plan.” He glanced to where his building manager, Bandy Biggs, sat bowlegged astride a cracked vinyl chair. A steaming mug of coffee rested on the table beside the man’s small, well-worn Bible. “Rob Melton will have one of his patrol cars swing by a few times each night, show a presence. You’ll walk the parking lot before you lock up, make certain those new motion sensor floodlights are working.”

“And we’ll blind a half-dozen raccoons, a few squinty-eyed armadillos . . . and maybe Miz Andrea Nichols’s fine, pedigreed Persian cat.” Bandy lifted his worn ball cap, resettling it as a grin creased his sun-weathered face. “Cat’s here most nights. That fancy critter has no compunction about hangin’ out with us ordinary stock. Right, Hobo?” He reached down to tickle his terrier’s chin. Then adjusted a strap on the homemade cart supporting the little dog’s hips and withered hind legs. “Yessir. Miss Lah-De-Dah Kitty thinks we’re all cut from the same cloth.”

When Bandy looked back up, his expression was sober. “I understand what you’re doing, Doc. And I see the bind you’re in. I do. But we never had a problem here before Gilbert’s accident. The clinic board members know that. Our patients have always been respectful. And grateful, bone-deep . . .
soul
-deep.” He shook his head. “There’s something mighty unfriendly about posting those No Loitering signs. And when folks see that second line, ‘Police Enforced’—”

“I know,” Jack interrupted, raising his hands. The signs, bright red on reflective white, were equally inhospitable in Spanish. “I agree that a certain number of our patients will be put off by that.”

“Scared off, more like.” Bandy blew on his coffee, then raised a graying brow. “Not sure Hobo and me would be here now if those signs had been plastered around this place a year ago.”

I’m certain of it, buddy. And it would be my genuine loss.
Jack spread his palms. “The city owns the property, Bandy. They post the signs. It’s not like I could ask for a pink, heart-shaped ‘Mosey Along,
Por Favor
’ edition.”

“Too bad.” Bandy glanced around the fifties-era pink- and cocoa-brown-tiled kitchen. “It would fit right in.” He tossed Hobo the last crumbs of his toast. “I’m just sayin’ that Gilbert slept on that pavement out there because he was drunk, lonely, sick . . . desperate. I’ve been to all those ugly addresses myself.” His blue eyes studied Jack’s face, compassion softening his crusty features. “I don’t pry, but I’m guessing you might have traveled some painful roads too, Doc.”

Jack glanced toward the window, sure Bandy would like nothing better than to open his Bible and offer a hopeful verse, the same way Jack dispensed free samples of medications. But while the old bull rider knew very little about Jack’s past, he knew in no uncertain terms that his boss would welcome Scripture about as easily as—

“Unbelievable!” Jack lunged toward the window. “They’re out there. Right on the lawn!”

“Who?” Bandy stood, making his way toward the window with Hobo—wheels of his cart squeaking—close behind. “The action committee?”

“Andrea Nichols. With the neighbor who’s a real estate broker and that woman who owns the new dress shop down the street and—” Jack’s teeth ground together—“the developer who’s been pestering the city about purchasing this property.”

Bandy wedged in beside Jack at the window, gave a low whistle. “And his new contractor. See the young man holding the roll of papers? That’s Griff Payton, the developer’s son. Just moved back to the area from Odessa. Home to help with his daddy’s business.” Bandy saw the question on Jack’s face. “Hobo and I get out some; we hear things.”

“And now they’re going to hear a few things from me.” Jack stepped away from the window.

Bandy grasped his arm. “Hold your horses, Doc. You don’t want to do that.”

“Watch me.” He frowned as Bandy’s grip tightened with surprising strength for a man whose head barely reached Jack’s shoulder. “They have no business being there, Bandy. The city council doesn’t meet for two weeks; no decisions have been made about the clinic. If I don’t squash this now, Andrea Nichols will be rolling a bulldozer in, whether her idiot cat likes Hobo or not.”

“I’m only saying that you’ll snag more flies with honey than vinegar, son. Every time.” Bandy pushed back his cap. “I know that schmoozing doesn’t come natural, but every time you lock horns with these folks, you’re only shootin’ yourself in the foot.”

“And every time that heartless bunch circulates a petition or stirs up the media, my patients suffer. And I lose support for the clinic. I need funding, volunteers . . .”

Bandy glanced out the window. “I’d say you need a PR person more.”

“And I’ve got her,” Jack said, beginning to grin. He laughed at the expression on Bandy’s face. “Or almost have her.” He glanced down at his watch. “I said she could come by and have a look around before we open for clinic hours. So that means any time now. Trust me, she’s the prompt type.”

“Who?”

“A woman from Alamo Grace who’s been acting as trauma chaplain.” Jack enjoyed Bandy’s confusion for a moment, then let the name drop. “Riley Hale. Of the Houston Hales.”

Bandy’s eyes widened. “Rodeo sponsor Hales?”

Jack nodded. “Secret-weapon Hales. She already smoothed things over with one of The Bluffs neighbors. And if the Hale name is associated with this clinic . . .” He grinned at Bandy. “Better than a pedigreed cat?”

“I don’t understand. A chaplain? Why is she coming here?”

“Riley’s a nurse, too. But she had a bad accident, a broken neck that left her with weakness in her dominant arm. The hospital hasn’t let her return to clinical duties. So I offered—”

“To use her as a sacrificial lamb.”

“To help her regain her skills. It’s a win for all of us, Bandy.
If
 she agrees to volunteer.” Jack glanced toward the street. “Good. The Lexus is pulling away. Now I’m going to make myself scarce too. I’ll be in my office. You’ll show her around.”

“Why me?” Bandy peered at Jack out of the corner of his eye.

“Because you know this place like the back of your hand, and—”

“Why?”

Jack sighed. “Okay, because she doesn’t like me. We’ve butted heads a few times. She thinks I’m anti-chaplain, that I have issues with rules, and . . .” Jack frowned. “That basically I act as if I’ve been raised by wolves.”

“Ha!” Bandy doubled over and slapped his cap against his knee. Hobo barked.

“It’s not that funny. She’s a pain in the behind. You’ll see.”

“Can’t wait.” Bandy swiped at his eyes. He chuckled again, then sighed and glanced up at the kitchen ceiling—a habit that Jack knew meant Bandy was acknowledging some heavenly presence. “Quite a plan. Yessir.”

* * *

Riley waited for the flagman to wave her past the construction area before driving the remaining half mile to the clinic. She pulled the Honda off San Antonio Street and into the parking lot, surprised by her first real look at the controversial establishment. A decades-old wooden residence with a sagging porch and peeling white paint, its trim, shutters, and window boxes were a vivid pink, making it look more like a child’s birthday cake than a medical facility. Her mouth sagged open as she took it in. It was impossible to imagine Rambo Travis here. Combat boots, camouflage, surly attitude . . . and pink frosting? Nothing could be more incongruous.
Except maybe that I’m here . . . after all the run-ins we’ve had.

She eased into a parking place, easily recognizing the area she’d seen on the TV coverage of the incident with Gilbert DeSoto. Dumpster, graveled area, oversize lot with trees, grayed cedar fencing. There was an older-model truck-camper much farther back. And official-looking signs she hadn’t seen on TV. Lots of them. She scanned the nearest, a terse warning in Spanish:
No se permite vagabundos. Se llamará a la policia.
“No vagrants permitted. The police will be called.”

Riley switched off the engine, thinking that the recent fire must have prompted this new signage. As well as pressure from The Bluffs neighbors. The tacky tinderbox was indeed the last vestige of decay in the newly upscale community—a single snaggletooth in a cosmetically engineered set of pearly whites. Even during an economic downturn, The Bluffs remained a sought-after zip code. Only a block from this clinic was the exclusive new dress shop her mother raved about; Riley had an unused gift card tucked into her sock drawer. A few doors down from it was the trendy New Orleans–style eatery featured in
San Antonio Magazine
last month. The scent of spicy, blackened seafood had drifted through the car’s open window as she drove past. Riley glanced toward the residential end of the street, idly wondering how far away Vesta Calder lived. And which home belonged to the woman who’d driven her home from the hospital—the neighbor who knew Riley’s family.

What would my parents think if they knew I was here?

Riley’s stomach sank. What was she doing? It was crazy. A man had nearly died right where she was parked, the neighbors were about to march on this property like torch-carrying villagers outside Frankenstein’s castle, and a certifiable madman was in charge of the place. She was a safety officer, and this was a war zone. So why on earth was she—