Silent Pledge

by Hannah Alexander

  Mercy offered no response. What could she say?

  “Is he even planning to come back here when the E.R.’s finished?” Theo asked.

  “He has no choice,” Mercy said quickly. “He’s under contract.” But did he want to? That question had nagged her several times the past few days.

  Theo worked another moment in silence, then asked, “Mercy, is Tedi still having her nightmares?”

  “Yes. She climbed into bed with me just the other night, but they’re growing less frequent.” And Tedi no longer wet the bed, as she had done several times in the months after he hit her. Mercy glanced up at Theo and saw the remnants of guilt written across his handsome face.

  She knew he still battled the occasional temptation to have a drink. He was honest about it. But when the temptation struck he called someone for prayer. Sometimes he called her. And those times of temptation were becoming less frequent. Was it possible they were all healing from the past?

  “Dr. Jordan says spiritual healing is an ongoing process,” Theo said as he reached into the next bag and pulled out a box of macaroni and cheese.

  “I think he’s right.” Mercy found where Odira kept the canned food and filled the shelves with her new purchases. Their new pastor, Joseph Jordan, seemed to have a keen understanding of human frailties—to a point. But he was young and inexperienced. What did he know about divorce? What did he know about alcoholism and child abuse and the struggles of a lifetime? He was barely into his thirties and had been raised in a happy Christian family.

  “Now, stop wallowing in guilt and get to work,” she told Theo. “You have to get to the print shop pretty soon, and I want to get as much help from you in the meantime as I can.”

  He folded the next empty bag, rested his hands on the edge of the counter for a moment and took a slow breath. “Mercy…” He paused and held his breath, his jaw muscles working in silent testament to his thoughts, then he blurted, “Do you think it would be possible for me to see more of Tedi?”

  She couldn’t miss the urgency behind the words, and she had to struggle to quiet her own automatic reaction of discomfort.

  “I was going to wait a little longer before I talked to you about it,” Theo said, “but it’s just…I just…”

  “It’s a natural request,” Mercy said softly. “What father wouldn’t want to see his daughter more than twice a week for supervised visits?”

  He turned and made eye contact with her then, and the sudden relief in his expression was obvious. “Actually, the supervision’s great. Maybe if we had a little more time together…” His gaze sobered and grew more searching.

  Mercy’s discomfort increased, and she stepped away from him. “I’ll go get the rest of the groceries. I don’t want the frozen vegetables to thaw.”

  “No, I’ll get them.”

  The sudden, invasive ring of a telephone shot through the room. She found the origin of the sound and answered.

  “Dr. Mercy? Thank goodness you’re there.” It was Lauren. “Your cell phone’s here at the office, and I couldn’t find you at the hospital. We need you.”

  “Why? What happened?”

  “The police found Delphi Bell. They brought her here. Can you hurry over?”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Sixteen-year-old Chase Riddle was in bad shape, but so far he’d been fortunate. The train had smashed into the front of his truck and sent it crashing backward. The fire department had been forced to do an extrication with the Jaws of Life, which had taken twenty minutes. Considering that it had taken an extra ten minutes for the rescuers to reach him in the first place, and five more to transport, Chase had already lost thirty-five minutes of his golden hour—that precious span of time during which treatment was most beneficial.

  Lukas placed a chopper on standby as soon as he saw the patient, who was on a long spine board with C-collar and head blocks. Four-by-four gauze pads barely covered a bloody laceration on Chase’s forehead. He opened his eyes at the sound of Lukas’s voice, and he knew his name and where he was, but he didn’t know the day. Bruises and abrasions covered his upper torso, and he winced when Lukas pressed against his chest and abdomen.

  Lukas went to the secretary’s desk and ordered stat trauma workups with lab and radiology. “Is the chopper on standby?” he asked.

  “Better tell Mr. Amos if you’re going to ship the patient out,” Shirley warned as she picked up a pen to write the orders.

  Lukas suppressed a grimace. “I’m not sure yet. Would you please notify him of the possibility? I’m a little busy at the moment. Who’s the surgeon on call today? I need him to evaluate our patient.”

  “That’s Dr. Hemmel.”

  “Just great,” Lukas muttered. Hemmel was the one surgeon Lukas would not want for a consult. But rules were rules. “Get him here for me.” Lukas returned to the trauma room, where Tex had just finished connecting the monitor leads and was starting the second large-bore IV. Chase was wide awake now, his expression alert and anxious where he lay on the table, fully immobilized. His nose and cheeks were scratched and darkening with bruises. Sections of his short, scruffy blond hair were spiked with drying blood.

  “My truck, how’s my truck? Dad’s going to kill me if…” He winced. “My chest hurts.”

  “I already told you, your truck’s been canceled,” Tex told him.

  Lukas bent over him. “Are you having trouble breathing?”

  “Some. It really hurts to take a deep breath. Can’t you do something?”

  “Yes, as soon as we find out how badly you’re hurt.” Lukas turned to find the X-ray technician pushing her portable machine into the room. “We’ll be right outside the door for a moment.”

  He and Tex stepped into the hallway while the tech did her job.

  “I’m worried about him, Dr. Bower,” Tex said softly. “He’s confused. He keeps asking me if his truck is okay and if his parents are coming. I’ve told him at least three times that his parents are on their way and that his truck didn’t make it.”

  “How are his vitals?”

  “His heart rate is better following the fluids, and his blood pressure is good, but he does seem to be in a lot of pain, so his BP could be elevated for that reason. And guess what?” Tex’s blond eyebrows drew together in a deep frown. “I just found out the CT machine’s broken. They’re working on it now, but it won’t be fixed anytime soon.”

  “Why am I not surprised?” Lukas said. “Now we’ll have to transfer. He needs a CT.”

  After they reentered the trauma room, Lukas did a more detailed neurological exam and was even more uneasy. Chase was definitely slow to respond.

  The ultrasound tech arrived with her imaging machine, and Lukas stepped out once more to give her room to work. While he waited, he did another quick search for his keys. They were in the top drawer of his call-room desk when he pulled it open—just where he had left them first thing this morning.

  Was he losing his mind?

  There was a sharp rap at the threshold. “Bad news, Dr. Bower.” Tex came striding in. “We’ve got those X-rays.”

  He turned and followed her out to the viewing screen. “Why is that bad?”

  “See for yourself, but it looks like he’s got an upper-rib fracture.”

  “So would you transfer him if you were the doctor?”

  “Absolutely.”

  After Lukas read the X-rays he agreed with Tex. “Shirley,” he called to the secretary, “launch that chopper.”

  Mercy’s ice cleats crunched into the quarter-inch of ice that coated the sidewalk in front of the clinic. Two maintenance men from the hospital hacked and shoveled and sprinkled salt around the entrance, and Mercy could have hugged them. That would have been her next job. At this rate, she might actually avoid chopping ice altogether today.

  The men nodded to her as she stopped, removed her grippers and opened the front door to step into the cozy warmth of the waiting room. She was greeted by pretty chatterbox
Lauren McCaffrey.

  “Oh, good, Dr. Mercy, you’re here.” The perky RN with long blond hair and a permanent smile to go along with her pointed chin stood and held the inner office door open for her. “Delphi’s back in exam room two. We’ve warmed her up and taken her vitals. Josie’s with her now. There’s a nasty bruise on her face, and she’s favoring her right arm. It looks broken or dislocated to me. You’ll want to check it out. I’d have done an X-ray, but she needed warming up worse than we needed info on her arm.”

  “Thanks, Lauren.” Mercy still struggled, on occasion, with the stiffness she felt with this nurse, in spite of the fact that she’d been an answer to prayer when the patient load picked up so dramatically in October. Lauren had always displayed a little more than friendly interest in Lukas, and since he had begun doing temporary work elsewhere, she inquired about him often.

  “Guess where they found her?” Lauren asked.

  Mercy looked at Lauren and waited.

  “You know that motor home that’s for sale at the east end of town on Highway Z? She had somehow jimmied the lock and was staying there. Of course there’s no heat in that thing. She had one of those skinny little mattresses wrapped around her when the police found her. They said she looked nearly frozen solid, but when they got her here she didn’t look that bad. They’d received a call from somebody who lives nearby who’d seen someone going in and out, probably to the bathroom or to get something to eat. I can’t believe she looks as good as she does, considering the circumstances.”

  “Okay, I’ll go check her.”

  “Like I said, Josie’s with her.” Lauren leaned over a chart at her makeshift desk, then looked up before Mercy could get away. “Oh, I almost forgot. Dr. Bower called for you while you were gone. I told him about the ice storm. You know my cousin works up there in the E.R. at Herald, don’t you? Anyway, Dr. Bower and I had a nice chat, and I’m sure he’ll get in touch with you later.” She leaned forward and lowered her voice, although there was no one near the desk area to hear her. “He sounds lonely, if you ask me. It sure will be nice when we get our own E.R. up and running. Then he can come back home, and I can go back to working for him and get out of your hair, and everything will be perfect again.”

  Mercy frowned as she walked away. Apparently she didn’t always manage to hide her irritation with Lauren. Perhaps she should start trying harder—and while she was at it, she should try to demonstrate some of her appreciation for Lauren’s efficiency and attitude of caring.

  In the exam room, Delphi lay curled on her side beneath three layers of blankets, with her back to the door.

  “What’s her core temperature, Josie?” Mercy asked as she walked around the bed.

  “Ninety-two on presentation,” Josie said. “Ninety-five a couple of minutes ago. We managed to get some warm tea down her before she clamped her mouth shut and wouldn’t take any more.” The black-haired nurse with the large gentle eyes looked down at Delphi. “She hasn’t said more than five words since she came in.”

  Delphi’s eyes were squeezed tightly shut, and droplets of tears clung to her lashes. A deep purple bruise circled her right eye, and angry red rimmed her cheek. Except for shivering, she didn’t move, didn’t acknowledge Mercy’s presence.

  Mercy pulled an exam stool over and perched on it, facing her patient. She reached out and took Delphi’s left hand. It was cold.

  The woman stiffened and drew away.

  Mercy released her. “Okay, Delphi, you need to tell me what happened so we can take care of you.” She reached up to smooth some strands of dirty brown hair from Delphi’s face. “Where do you hurt?” She kept her voice and her touch feather-light, something Delphi had always responded to after an altercation with Abner.

  “I know you left him and you’ve been hiding out,” Mercy prompted.

  No response.

  “Delphi, I need your help. Abner has been looking for you. He came to see me at the hospital, and he’s called here.”

  The tears multiplied and seeped from behind the closed lids. Delphi’s pale, frightened face scrunched up as if in pain. Her mouth came open, and a half cry, half sigh of anguish escaped her cracked, dry lips.

  “Honey, all that means is that he doesn’t know where you are,” Mercy quickly reassured her. “And he won’t find you through anybody in this office.” Her staff was loyal and dedicated to patient confidentiality as much as was possible in a small, gossipy town like Knolls.

  “The cops might tell him.” Delphi’s eyes opened, her nasal voice barely above a whisper. She continued to shiver. “There was people watching when they hauled me out of the motor home.”

  Mercy knew Delphi had a point. Although most of the people in the Knolls police force knew about Abner—in fact, most of Knolls knew about Abner—it would take only one set of loose lips to betray Delphi.

  “Time for a temperature recheck,” Josie said brightly as she shut the exam-room door and raised the blankets.

  Delphi didn’t react as Josie worked, but now that her eyes were open, they fixed on Mercy as if to a lifeline. “He hates you.”

  “Me?” That thought gave Mercy a quick rush of fear, which she firmly dismissed. Abner pretty much hated everybody.

  “I told him once that you wanted me to leave him.”

  That was not news. Abner had already made it clear he blamed Mercy. “What shape would you be in now if you’d stayed?”

  Delphi studied Mercy’s expression for a long moment, then her face scrunched up, and tears trickled from her eyes again. “But he knows I’d come here.”

  “You didn’t come here. The police brought you.”

  “I did come. Saturday night, after…I saw lights in here, and I tried to get in. I called out, but nobody came.”

  “Oh, Delphi,” Mercy breathed. It hadn’t been a dream. “If that ever happens again, go to the hospital.”

  “I don’t want the abuse to ever happen again. I can’t go back to him, Dr. Mercy.”

  “I’d like to get you out of this clinic as quickly as possible, just in case.” Mercy knew the odds were low that Abner would make a move on his wife in a public place, but she hadn’t expected him to hunt her down in the hospital and blame her for Delphi’s disappearance, either. Still, spouses seldom became abusive in front of witnesses, because then their behavior would legitimize the victim’s accusations.

  “All right, Delphi, you’re warming up just right,” the nurse said. “Some of that shivering’s stopped. Dr. Mercy, the owners of the RV didn’t press charges, and the police aren’t going to come back unless you call for some reason…. You know—” Josie stepped to the window and peeked out between the slats of the shades “—like in case you want police protection or something.”

  “Oh, sure, and then they’d park their cars out in the driveway and light a beacon to lead Abner straight here?”

  “Didn’t think you’d go for that,” Josie said. “But my van’s parked out back with chains on the tires. All we’d have to do to get Delphi out of here is put her in the back of the van and drive away, in case Abner’s out there watching somewhere.”

  Mercy couldn’t resist a teasing grin at her nurse. “You’ve been watching too many Mission: Impossible reruns.”

  “Not me. That’s my hubby.” Josie gestured to the patient. “Delphi didn’t say anything, but there’s obviously a problem with her right elbow. It won’t bend past forty-five degrees.”

  Mercy handed Delphi a tissue and watched as the woman stuck her left hand out from beneath the blankets and awkwardly used it to wipe her face and nose—awkward, because she was lying on her left side. “I hurt my right elbow when I fell,” Delphi said.

  “Or Abner pushed you?” Mercy lifted the blankets enough to get a look at the arm.

  “Tripped me. It’s how I hit my face.” She winced as Mercy examined her.

  There was a deformity at the elbow, but the circulation to the rest of the arm didn’t look bad. Her fingers were pink and the pulses were good.

&
nbsp; “Okay, Josie,” Mercy said, “set her up for X-rays. We may give Delphi a side trip to the hospital for a couple of days.”

  “No!” Delphi exclaimed. “You said he’s already gone lookin’ for me there. He knows I got hurt, and if he hears they found me, he’ll be back there.”

  “He won’t look in ObGyn.” Mercy reached beneath the blankets and pressed the bell of her stethoscope against Delphi’s chest. The lungs and heart sounded good. “There aren’t any patients, so nobody but the nurse and I will see you. Now let’s get those X-rays.”

  “Dr. Bower, did we not have a similar conversation just recently?” came Amos’s peevish voice over the line.

  “Yes, we did,” Lukas said. “And I just received my patient’s films. He has three broken ribs, including an upper-rib fracture. We need a CT scan, but our machine is broken. As the patient’s advocate, my responsibility is to get him the best possible care.”

  There was a long pause, during which Lukas heard Chase’s parents enter the department and rush to the trauma room.

  “Please request an examination from our surgeon on call,” Amos said at last. “We will do as he says.”

  Lukas hung up, relieved. Dr. Hemmel was with Chase now. He must see the necessity for a transfer. Everything would be okay.

  “Buck? That you?” Clarence Knight leaned against Ivy’s kitchen counter and held the telephone to his ear. He heard men talking and laughing in the background of the fire station, but he recognized Buck’s voice over the telephone.

  “Yeah, it’s me.”

  “Clarence here. I called to see how Kendra’s doing.”

  “She gets out Thursday morning.”

  “All right! Then she’s doing better?”

  Buck sighed and lowered his voice. “I don’t know, Clarence. They’ve got her on all these high-powered drugs, and she sounds like she’s stoned out of her mind when I call. Her psychiatrist says she doesn’t seem suicidal, but…” He sighed again. “I just don’t know.”