A Spanktacular Fourth

by Tymber Dalton

  I cannot afford to go to a doctor.

  Her deductible was crazy-high, even for something like a walk-in clinic at the drugstore.

  After her shower, when she checked her e-mail, she had fifteen orders to take care of and get shipped that had come in overnight. That was in addition to the other twelve orders Sean and Max packed for her yesterday.

  Well, when it rains, it pours.

  At least it was money coming in.

  Plus she had errands to run today—shipping, picking up supplies, grocery shopping, and then she was going to stop by Essie’s and watch Eddie for her while she went to get a haircut. Wasn’t exactly a day she could lay around and feel sorry for herself.

  She left her hand unbandaged for now, to let it air out. Once she had the new orders packed, ready to go, and loaded in her trunk, she found the Epsom salts and fixed a large bowl of water, hot as she could stand it, and mixed it strong. Then she soaked her hand in it, wincing at the sting.

  I hope this works.

  If it wasn’t better by morning she’d go to a walk-in clinic. For today, she’d keep an eye on it. It wasn’t like it was suppurating, or she was turning into a walker or something.

  She carried the bowl into the office with her and set it in her lap, on a bath towel, and soaked her right hand in it while trying to mouse with her left and go through her morning routine.

  Trying to type one-handed to answer e-mails wasn’t easy, and she had to proofread her responses several times, but she managed.

  Once the water cooled, she dumped it and rinsed her hand off, then rebandaged it. It felt a little better already, which served to reinforce her belief that it wasn’t that bad.

  All she had to do was wait it out and take care of it.

  * * * *

  Once she finished her errands and put her groceries and other purchases away, she was still doing fine on time to make it to Essie’s plenty early. Considering they only lived six houses down, it wasn’t like she had a long trip there.

  And they won’t be living there much longer, either.

  That thought filled her with melancholy. With Essie pregnant and due in just a few months, the men were trying to push her into either buying another, larger house and selling that one, or building a new house.

  Essie had dug in her feet, reluctant to move, especially with Cali and her guys living at the end of the street.

  And doubly especially being pregnant. She’d stalled her men to let her wait until after she’d had the baby to make the decision, because she didn’t want to coordinate a move or a build while she was pregnant and dealing with a toddler, but they were going to be pestering her for an answer once she’d had it.

  Cali checked her hand. Still sore, maybe a little redness, but that was probably due to her obsessively washing her hands now. She swallowed down a couple more ibuprofen, rebandaged it, and grabbed something to eat before walking down to Essie’s.

  She’d timed it perfectly—Essie was ready to go and Eddie was asleep in a post-lunch nap. He might even stay that way until Essie returned, so even better.

  “Thanks for doing this. Mom’s working today.”

  “No worries. I’m happy to.”

  “So I heard on the news this morning they finally identified the woman killed in that accident outside the club.”

  Cali’s stomach rolled. “What?”

  “The woman who died. The pedestrian. I guess the people in the car are going to be okay. One was already released from the hospital. No charges for them, it was an accident. The security cams from across the road caught her. She literally stepped out into traffic. It looked like she was on her phone or something and not paying attention. What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

  With trembling hands, Cali dug out her phone and quickly hit the app for the Sarasota TV station and checked their news. Sure enough, they’d posted a story about it, a link to video as well as a text version of the story.

  Carol Fallowes, thirty-two, from Ft. Myers. As if it wasn’t bad enough, the cops said that while it would take time for the toxicology reports to come back, they suspected she was inebriated, because several mini bottles of vodka had been found in her purse, including three empties.

  Cali barely made it into Essie’s hall bath before she puked up what she’d just eaten. Essie hurried after her. “Honey? What’s wrong?”

  “That’s her.” She knelt beside the toilet, waiting for her stomach to settle.

  She couldn’t erase from her mind the image of the three sheet-shrouded lumps on the road.

  “That’s who?”

  Another round of puking later that was more dry heaves than anything, and Cali finally got the story out. “And she’s the woman we banned Saturday night. The one Tony kicked out.”

  “Oh, no.”

  On shaky legs, Cali climbed to her feet and rinsed her mouth out by cupping her hand under the bathroom faucet. “I didn’t know she was drunk. I didn’t really have much contact with her before he pulled her outside. I don’t even remember checking her in. I need to call Marcia.”

  “Do you want me to cancel my hair app—”

  “No, I’ll be okay. Just…” She turned to look at Essie. “I have a mental image from Saturday night, after the accident, and my period’s about to hit, and my hand hurts like fuck, and—”

  “Your hand? What happened to your hand?”

  “Baxter accidentally bit me on Saturday. The guys startled him. It’s a lon—”

  “A long story, yeah, of course it is, duh. I know your guys. Let me see.”

  “It’s fine. I’ve had worse.” Although, in the past, worse had also started feeling better by now.

  “Let me see it.” Essie grabbed Cali’s right wrist and was already peeling the bandages off so she could check. “Your hand’s swollen and warm to the touch.”

  “It’s summer in Florida.”

  “No, your hands are usually cool. And it’s red.”

  “I just cleaned and bandaged it. Now I’ll have to redo it.”

  “You need to get this checked out.”

  “It’s fine.” Cali tried to pull her hand back but Essie wasn’t letting go. “You’re a vet tech, not a human nurse, sweetie. I’ve been bit before. You know the risk, you worked with animals.”

  “No, you don’t understand. The vet clinic I worked at in Spokane? We had a girl who got a bite like this and it looked like this, and by the next day her whole hand swelled up like a balloon. They barely saved it. Had to do surgery on it to clean it out. Cat bites aren’t something to screw around with if they don’t heal immediately. When did this happen, again?”

  “Saturday afternoon.” Essie finally released her hand, and Cali reached for the medicine cabinet to get more bandages.

  “Yeah, it shouldn’t look like that after two days if it’s not infected. You need to get it checked out.”

  “I don’t have great insurance, okay? I’m not going to rack up several hundred dollars over a tiny cat bite.”

  Essie glowered at her. “I know damn well you can afford it. The guys make decent money.”

  “Sure, but that’s not my money. I have shitty insurance.”

  “You’re not on their insurance?”

  “We’re not married. Remember? Whole partnership thing? They’re not married to each other, either. You know that.”

  “I just figured you’d get on their insurance somehow.”

  “Nope.” She tossed the bandage wrappers and old bandages. “Now, you’re going to be late for your appointment if you don’t get moving. I need to call Marcia.”

  She finally got Essie out the door and then poured herself a glass of ice water to take out to the lanai. From where she sat, she could see Eddie asleep on a quilt on the living room floor in front of the TV.

  Calling up Marcia’s cell phone in her contacts, she hit the button to dial and nervously…waited.

  “Hey, Cali. What’s up?”

  “Listen, I need to talk to you in private. I mean, you’re going to want to
be in private when you hear this. You have a minute?”

  “Um, sure. Hold on. Let me close my office door.” Cali heard her moving around. “Okay. What’s up?”

  “Have you seen the news this morning?”

  “No. We’re at the office.”

  “Saturday night. The accident. The pedestrian.”

  “Yeah?”

  “It was her.”

  “Who?”

  “Carol Fallowes. The woman we banned.”

  The connection went silent for so long Cali had to look to make sure the call hadn’t dropped. “Marcia?”

  “Oh, shit,” Marcia whispered. “Please tell me you’re fucking with me.”

  “I wish I was. I just puked. My last image of her was three sheets covering lumps on the road, except I didn’t know it was her then.”

  “What the fuck happened?”

  “Security video from across the road caught it. She was on her phone and stepped right in front of the car. And they think she was drunk.” She told Marcia the rest of it.

  “Son of a bitch. I need to talk to Tony. I need to tell him. He must not know or he would have been calling me already.”

  “Apparently it took them this long to notify next of kin and release her name to the media.”

  “Fuck.” Marcia’s sigh drifted over the line. “Okay. Don’t say anything to anyone else yet.”

  “Essie already knows. I’m here babysitting.”

  “Well, I mean besides her and your guys. I know they won’t gossip. I need to talk to Derrick. Goddammit, I just knew today would be shitty, and there it is.”

  “Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.”

  “No, not your fault. And not Tony’s fault, either. Fuck. Okay, let me get off here. I’ll call you back later.”

  Cali returned to the house and slumped onto the couch.

  Fuck.

  Chapter Ten

  Cali decided not to tell her guys about it yet. They wouldn’t be watching the news while at work, their Mondays were frequently pretty busy, and she wanted to wait until she’d heard back from Marcia about it.

  Shit.

  She went onto FetLife with her phone and looked on Venture’s discussion group there. Nothing relating to the victim, just a few comments on the thread for Saturday night’s party about the power going off and thanking them for keeping the party going.

  After some rooting around through the RSVPs on the event for Saturday night, she found the group of people from Ft. Myers who’d come up Saturday, including the profile Cali was pretty sure belonged to the woman.

  No one was saying anything, though. As if they didn’t know about it yet.

  Wouldn’t her friends be worried about her?

  Except the more she dug into older threads people had commented on in a couple of Ft. Myers groups, it was obvious the woman was a troublemaker, snarky, and very divisive and dismissive in her attitude and opinions.

  Maybe no one knew she was dead yet. At least, no one in the lifestyle besides her, Marcia, Essie…

  And probably Tony now.

  Yikes.

  She hoped he didn’t take it personally, because if the woman was drunk, it damn sure wasn’t the club’s fault—or Tony’s—for kicking her out. Had it been Cali who’d seen it happen, she would have dealt with it the same way.

  Across the road from the complex that housed Venture lay a couple of small strip malls, including several restaurants—a sub shop, pizzeria, Chinese food—and they were frequented by patrons of the club because of the convenient location. It wasn’t uncommon for people to stop there for food and bring it over to the club to eat, or run out and get food and bring it back.

  Thank god the two people injured hadn’t been coming to the club. Just a car in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  Cali jumped when Marcia called her back nearly an hour later. “Okay, I told Tony. I didn’t want him blindsided by this.”

  “How’d he take it?”

  She sighed. “Pretty rough. I told him he’s not responsible for it, but…yeah.”

  “If she was drunk, it’s double-definitely not his fault.”

  “Yeah, but he’s a stand-up guy, and he’s just had a few shitty-ass weeks at work, been away from Shayla for over a month, and I guess he was working on a bad headache Saturday night on top of everything else. I suggested he talk to Doyle or Niall or Ted, but he’s got to go back out to Colorado later this week for another couple of weeks. He was really looking forward to unwinding with Shayla.”

  “No wonder he was so upset.”

  “Yeah. So, listen. I’m going to call everyone else and talk to them, our other volunteers. If anyone should ask you anything about this, once word of it gets out, refer them to Ed. I’ve already talked to him and Ross, and they’re going to take point on this. No one says anything about her, about her getting banned, or even acknowledges that she was there Saturday night. Wall of silence. If someone pushes, cite privacy rules, refer them to Ed, lather, rinse, repeat as necessary.”

  “Got it. Sorry.”

  “No, we got lucky for a lot of damn years. Technically, this isn’t our problem, either. It’s more a PR issue for us once it eventually gets out. Especially if she was drunk and had alcohol on her, which are more violations of our rules. It sucks, but it’s still not our fault.”

  Essie returned a short while later and Cali filled her in.

  “That’s probably best. Now, you head home and get ready. I’m going to load Eddie in the car and come get you.”

  “Why?”

  She pointed at Cali’s hand. “I’m not taking no for an answer.”

  Cali rolled her eyes. “I’m not going to a doctor.”

  “Okay. Fine.” She picked up her cell phone, called up a contact, and turned her phone so Cali could see it.

  She had Max’s cell phone on the screen.

  “Either you let me take you, or I call your men, tell them I think your hand is going to rot off, and they’ll come home and take you. Your choice.”

  Cali’s eyes widened. “You wouldn’t!”

  Essie’s gaze narrowed. “Watch me.” She started moving her finger toward the dial button.

  Cali lost the stare-down with her bestie. “Fuck! Okay, fine, goddammit!”

  Essie’s glare softened. “If you need me to help you out with it—”

  “No, I’ll pay for it.” She stood and headed for the door. “But you fucking owe me.”

  “I love you,” Essie called out after her with a playful lilt before Cali slammed the door behind her.

  She was ready to go with her purse and the house locked when Essie rolled into her driveway ten minutes later.

  “There’s a clinic in that Walgreens right down the road,” Cali said. “Take me there.”

  “Okie dokie.”

  Cali marched in there, Essie not far behind with Eddie slung on her hip, and signed in at the window. There wasn’t anyone else waiting, so the nurse practitioner was able to bring her right in after Cali finished filling out forms, and Essie came in with her.

  “So what are we here for today?” the nurse asked as Cali climbed onto the table.

  “Cat bite that my bestie is freaked out about being infected.”

  “Let’s get your vitals first.” She took Cali’s temp, blood pressure, and pulse. “Okay, you’re running a little bit of a fever. Let me see the hand.”

  Cali held her right hand out.

  The nurse practitioner removed the bandages, her expression growing grim. “When did this happen?”

  “Saturday. Early afternoon.”

  The woman compared Cali’s right hand to her left. “Yeah, I’m going to recommend you head over to Proctor-Collins’ ER right now.”

  Cali’s eyes widened. “What?”

  “Ha!” Essie said.

  “Ha!” Eddie echoed, Essie shushing him.

  “Yeah, this is infected.” Cali winced when the nurse squeezed the index finger. “It looks like it might have gotten up in the tendon area. You’re
going to need IV antibiotics for this.”

  Cali’s heart raced. “Can’t you just give me one of those Z-packs, or whatever they’re called, of oral antibiotics?”

  The nurse angled a hard stare at Cali. “These kinds of bites can turn septic in a matter of hours. It’s already infected, you’re running a temperature, and that’s beyond the kind of care I can give you.”

  Essie stood. “Come on. Let’s get you over there.”

  “This is ridiculous,” Cali protested.

  Essie’s expression hardened. “I will call Max and Sean. Would you rather waste time and money with me, or have me call them at work to come take you?”

  “Fine!” Cali grumbled. And the visit cost her fifty dollars, too.

  On the way over to the ER, Cali stared out the window. “This is ridiculous. I just wasted fifty dollars for her to send me to an ER, where I’m going to waste more money.”

  “Yeah, well, humor me, bestie.”

  Cali wasn’t sure why she’d thought the ER doctor would agree with her that she just needed some oral meds and she would immediately get sent home from there. Hopeful thinking on her part, she supposed.

  But her hopes sank when, after reading through the walk-in clinic nurse’s notes, the doctor took a look at her hand with as equally grave an expression on his face as the nurse at the walk-in clinic had worn.

  “Exactly when did this happen, Ms. Charleston?”

  “Saturday. Early afternoon.”

  “Okay. Are you allergic to anything? Any medications?”

  “Not that I know of, why?”

  “We’re going to get you started on an IV and give you some antibiotics and see what happens in a couple of hours.”

  “A couple of hours?”

  He rattled off a list of things to the nurse as he went to go type something into the laptop terminal by the wall.

  “You’re running a fever and the wound is definitely infected. If the IV meds knock it back, we can probably watch it while putting you on an oral course of meds. If that doesn’t take care of it, however, we might need to admit you to go in and flush it out. I think the nurse at the clinic is right that it’s by the tendon.”