Where There's Smoke

by Sandra Brown

  Using her key, she let herself in and, ignoring the pin-up calendars and the odor of stale tobacco smoke, she moved behind the metal desk where she remembered last having the folder. When she found it, she tucked it under her arm, and was about to leave when she heard movement beyond the door that connected the office with the garage. She opened the door and was about to call out when the unusual situation stopped her from speaking.

  The oversized garage door was closed and the building, having few windows, was dim. A pickup had been squeezed between two Tackett company trucks. Into the pickup one of her men was loading small machinery, pipe, and other supplies that were the tools of their trade. He was checking the items against a list that he carried in the breast pocket of his shirt. Consulting it one last time, he climbed into the cab of the pickup.

  Janellen scrambled from her hiding place and rushed forward to block his exit, placing herself between his bug-splattered grille and escape.

  “Miss Janellen!” he exclaimed. “I… I didn’t know you were here.”

  “What are you doing here on a Saturday morning, Muley?”

  His face turned red beneath his tan, and he tugged on the bill of his cap with the blue Tackett Oil logo on it. “You know as well as I do, Miss Janellen, that I ran my route this morning.”

  “After which you’re officially off.”

  “Just thought I’d get a head start on Monday morning. Came by to pick up some stuff.”

  “With the garage door shut and all the lights out?” She pointed at the back of the truck. “And you aren’t loading that equipment into a company truck, but your own pickup, Muley. You’re stealing from us, aren’t you?”

  “That’s old equipment, Miss Janellen. Nobody’s using it.”

  “So you decided to help yourself.”

  “Like I said, nobody’s using it. It’s going to waste.”

  “But it was bought and paid for by Tackett Oil. It’s not yours to dispose of.” Janellen drew herself up and took a deep breath. “Take the things out of the truck, please.”

  When he was finished, he hooked his thumbs into his belt and faced her belligerently. “You gonna dock my pay or what?”

  “No, I’m not going to dock your pay. I’m firing you.”

  He underwent an instantaneous attitude change. His thumbs were removed from his belt loops. His hands clenched into fists at his sides. He took two hulking steps toward her. “The hell you say. Jody hired me and only she can fire me.”

  “Which she’d do in a heartbeat when she found out you were stealing from her. After she cut off your hand.”

  “You don’t know what she’d do. Besides, you can’t prove a goddamn thing. For all you know, I was going to offer to buy this stuff from you.”

  She shook her head somewhat sadly, feeling betrayed. “But you didn’t, Muley. You made no such offer. You sneaked in here on a Saturday when you didn’t think anyone would be around and loaded the stuff into your pickup truck. I’m sorry. My decision is final. You can pick up your last check on the fifteenth.”

  “You rich bitch,” he said with a sneer. “I’ll go, but only because I think this company is in deep shit. Everybody knows Jody is on her last leg. You think you can run this company as good as her?” He snorted. “Nobody ever takes you seriously. We laugh at you, did you know that? Yeah, us guys come in here after our shifts and talk about you. It’s amusing how you’re trying to take over for your mama ’cause you ain’t got nothing better to do with your time. Like fuck, for instance. We’ve got a running bet, you know, on whether or not you’ve still got your cherry. I say it’s in there as solid as cement. Even if you are heir to all that Tackett money, who’d want to fuck a woman so brittle she’d break when you mounted her?”

  Janellen reeled from the ugly insults. Her ears rang loudly and her skin prickled as though stung by a thousand fire ants. Miraculously, she held her ground. “If you’re not out of here in ten seconds, I’ll call Sheriff Baxter and have you arrested.”

  He flicked his middle finger at her and got back into his truck. He turned on the motor, gunned it, and shot from the garage like a rocket.

  Janellen stumbled to the switch on the wall and quickly lowered and locked the garage door, then ran into the office and locked that door, too.

  She crumpled into the chair behind the desk and, bending slightly from the waist, hugged her elbows. She’d stood up to a two-hundred-thirty-pound brute, but now that it was over, she was shaking uncontrollably and her teeth were chattering.

  In hindsight, confronting Muley had been foolish. He could have harmed her, even killed her, and never come under suspicion. It would have been believed that a vagrant thief had killed her—perhaps the one who had broken into the Winstons’ home.

  She rocked back and forth on the cracked vinyl cushion. What had possessed her to challenge him? She must have a bravery gene she didn’t know about. It had produced that spark of temerity when she’d needed it.

  It took her a half-hour to calm down. By then she had begun to realize the ramifications of her impulsiveness. Her spontaneous decision to fire Muley had been correct. Now, however, she must inform Jody. She had little doubt that Jody would back her decision, but she dreaded telling her. Perhaps she wouldn’t tell her until she had found a replacement. But how would she go about doing that? It wouldn’t be easy to find a man as qualified. Muley was a good pumper—

  Bowie Cato.

  His name sprang into her mind and caused her heart to flutter. She’d thought about him a lot, more than just in passing, more than was decent, more than she liked to admit. Frequently she’d found herself daydreaming about his bowlegged gait and recalling the way his brown eyes viewed the world with a sad cynicism.

  Dare she call him and ask if he was still interested in a job?

  He’d probably left town.

  Besides, what kind of fool would hire an ex-con after firing an employee for stealing?

  Jody would have a tizzy. Her blood pressure would soar, and it would be Janellen’s fault if she became seriously ill.

  She enumerated a dozen solid objections but reached for the phone book and looked up the number of The Palm. Her call was answered on the first ring.

  “Is… Yes, I’m calling for… Who is this please?” Her brave gene had returned to hibernation.

  “Who did you want?”

  “Well, this is Janellen Tackett. I’m looking for—”

  “He ain’t here.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Your brother’s not here. He came in last night after that town meeting. Stayed ’bout half an hour. Knocked back three doubles in record time. Then he left. Said he was going flying.” The man chuckled. “I sure as hell wouldn’t have got into an airplane with him. Not with all that scotch sloshing behind his belt and considering the mood he was in.”

  “Oh dear,” Janellen murmured. The pimp-mobile hadn’t been in its usual place this morning. She had hoped it signified that Key was up and out early, not that he hadn’t come home at all.

  “This is Hap Hollister, Miss Janellen. I own The Palm. If Key comes in, can I give him a message for you? Want him to call home?”

  “Yes, please. I’d like to know that he’s all right.”

  “Aw hell, you know Key. He can take care of himself.”

  “Yes, but please have him call anyway.”

  “Will do. Bye-bye.”

  “Actually, Mr. Hollister,” she cut in hastily, “I was calling for another reason.”

  “Well?” he said when she hesitated.

  Janellen dried her sweating palm on her skirt. “Do you still have a young man working for you named Bowie Cato?”

  Lara was weeding her petunia bed when a blue station wagon careened around the nearest corner, hopped the curb, sped up her driveway, and screeched to a halt in the loose gravel. The driver’s door burst open and a young man dressed in swimming trunks clambered out, his eyes wild with fright.

  “Doctor! My little girl… she… her arm… Jesus, Go
d, help us!”

  Lara dropped her trowel and came out of the flower bed like a sprinter off the starting blocks. She stripped off her gardening gloves as she ran to the passenger side of the car and opened the door. The woman inside was even more hysterical than the man. She was holding a child of about three in her lap. There was a lot of blood.

  “What happened?” Lara leaned into the car and gently prized the woman’s arms away from the girl. The blood was bright red—arterial bleeding.

  “We were on our way to the lake,” the man sobbed. “Letty was in the backseat, riding with her arm out the window. I didn’t think I was that close to the corner when I turned. The telephone pole… oh, God, oh, Jesus.”

  The child’s arm had been almost severed. The shoulder ball joint was grotesquely exposed. Blood was spurting from the severed artery. Her skin was virtually blue, her breathing shallow and rapid. She was unresponsive.

  “Hand me a towel.”

  The man yanked one from a folded stack of beach towels on the backseat and shoved it toward Lara. She pressed it firmly against the wound. “Hold it in place until I get back.” The mother nodded though she continued to sob. “Apply as much pressure as you can.” To the father she said, “Clear out the back of the car.”

  She raced for the door of her clinic. Even as she gathered up the paraphernalia for a glucose IV, she called the Flight for Life number at Mother Frances Hospital in Tyler.

  “This is Dr. Mallory in Eden Pass. I need a helicopter. The patient is a child. She’s in shock, cyanotic, unresponsive, significant loss of blood. Her right arm is almost severed. No sign of head, back, or neck injury. She can be moved.”

  “Can you get her to the Dabbert County landing strip?”

  “Yes.”

  “Both choppers are currently out. We’ll dispatch to you asap.”

  Lara hung up the phone, grabbed her emergency bag, and ran back outside. In what must have been a frenzy, the panicked father had emptied the back of his station wagon. The driveway was now littered with deflated air mattresses and inner tubes, a picnic basket, six-packs of soft drinks, two Thermoses, an ice chest, and an old quilt.

  “Help me get her into the back.”

  Together Lara and the child’s father lifted her from her mother’s lap and carried her to the rear of the car. Lara climbed in and guided the child’s body down as her father laid her on the carpet. The mother scrambled in and hunkered down on the other side of her daughter.

  “Get me the quilt.” The man brought it to her, and Lara used it to cover the child to retain her body heat. “Drive us to the county landing strip. I hope you know where it is.”

  He nodded.

  “A helicopter will soon be there to take her to Tyler.” He slammed the tailgate and ran to the driver’s side. Within two minutes of their arrival, they were under way.

  Working quickly, Lara removed the blood-soaked towel from the girl’s shoulder and replaced it with small 4 × 4 sterile gauze pads. She pressed them into the wound, then tightly bound the child’s shoulder with an Ace bandage. The bleeding could be fatal if it wasn’t stanched.

  Next she began searching the back of the child’s hand for a vein. The patient began to retch. Her mother cried out in distress. Calmly, Lara said, “Turn her head to one side so she won’t choke on her vomit.” The mother did as she was told. The child’s air passage was clear, but her breathing was thready, as was her pulse.

  The father drove like a madman, honking wildly at every other car on the road, racing through intersections, and cursing through his tears. The mother cried noisily and wetly.

  Lara’s heart went out to them. She knew how it felt to watch uselessly while your child died a bloody death.

  Dissatisfied with the small vein she’d located in the back of the girl’s hand, she made a swift decision to do a cut-down. She pulled the child’s foot from beneath the quilt and, as the mother watched in horror, used a scalpel to make a small incision in her ankle. She located the vein, made a small nick in it and inserted a thin catheter, through which she connected the IV apparatus. Her fingers moving hastily but skillfully, she closed the tiny incision with a suture to secure the catheter in place.

  She was dripping with perspiration and used her sleeve to mop her forehead. “Thank God,” she murmured when she saw that they had arrived at the landing strip.

  “Where’s the helicopter?” the father screamed.

  “Honk the horn.”

  A rheumy-eyed man in greasy overalls came hurrying out of the corrugated tin hangar and went straight to the driver.

  “You Doc Mallory?” he asked.

  The father pointed toward the rear of the station wagon. The mechanic bent down and gaped at the gory scene. “Doc?”

  Lara opened the tailgate and got out. “Have you heard from Mother Frances Hospital?”

  “They had one chopper picking up a man having a heart attack out at Lake Palestine and the other at a wreck on Interstate 20.”

  “Did they notify Medical Center?”

  “Their chopper’s at the same wreck. Hell of a pileup, I guess. Said they could dispatch one from somewhere else. They’re putting out the call now.”

  “She’s got no time!”

  “Oh, God, my baby!” the mother wailed. “She’s going to die, isn’t she? Oh, God!”

  Lara looked at the tiny body and saw the life ebbing from it. “God help me.” She covered her face with her gloved hands, which smelled of fresh blood. This was her recurring nightmare. Watching a child die. Bleeding to death. Incapable of doing anything to prevent it.

  “Doctor!”

  The child’s father grabbed her arm and shook her. “What now? You gotta do something! Our baby’s dying!”

  She knew that all too clearly. She also knew she alone couldn’t handle an emergency of this magnitude. She could control the shock temporarily, but the girl would most certainly lose her limb if not her life if she didn’t get emergency treatment immediately. The small county hospital wasn’t equipped to handle trauma of this magnitude. A nasty cut, a broken radius, yes, but not this. Taking her there would be a waste of valuable time.

  She rounded on the awestruck mechanic. “Can you fly us there? This is a life-or-death situation.”

  “I just tinker on ’em. Never learned to fly ’em. But there’s a pilot here who might fly you where you need to go.”

  “Where is he?”

  “In yonder.” He hitched his thumb in the direction of the hangar. “But he’s feeling right poorly hisself.”

  “Is there a plane available? Better yet, a helicopter?”

  “That pro golfer that retired here a while back? He keeps a chopper here. Fancy one. Flies it back and forth to Dallas once or twice a week to play golf. He’s a regular Joe. Don’t reckon he’d mind none you using it, considering it’s an emergency and all.”

  “Hurry, hurry!” the mother pleaded.

  “Can this pilot fly a helicopter?” Lara asked the mechanic.

  “Yeah, but like I said he ain’t—”

  “Keep the IV bottle elevated,” she said to the mother. “Monitor her breathing,” she told the father. She was taking a chance by leaving her patient but didn’t trust the loquacious mechanic to convey to the pilot the urgency of the situation.

  She rushed past him and entered the building at a run. Several disemboweled aircraft were parked inside. She didn’t see anyone. “Hello? Hello?”

  She went through a door on her left, entering a small, stuffy room. In the corner was a cot. A man was lying on his back, snoring sonorously.

  It was Key Tackett.

  Chapter Eight

  He smelled like a brewery. Lara bent over him and shook him roughly by the shoulder. “Wake up. I need you to fly me to Tyler. Now!” He mumbled something unintelligible, shoved her away, and rolled onto his side.

  Inside a rusty, wheezing refrigerator Lara found several cans of beer, some foul-smelling cheese, a shriveled orange, and a plastic container of water, which was what s
he had hoped for. Gripping the handle, she removed the lid and tossed the entire contents into Key’s face.

  He came up with a roar, hands balled into fists, eyes murderous. “What the fuck!” When he saw Lara holding the dripping pitcher, he gaped at her with speechless incredulity.

  “I need you to fly a young girl to Mother Frances Hospital. Her right arm is hanging on by a thread and so is her life. There’s no time to argue about it or explain further. Can you get us there without crashing?”

  “I can fly anywhere, anytime.” He swung his legs to the floor and picked up his boots.

  Lara spun around and left the building. The father rushed up to meet her. “Did you find him?”

  “He’s coming.” She didn’t elaborate. He was better off not knowing that their pilot had been sleeping off a drinking binge. The mechanic was standing beside a helicopter, giving them the thumbs-up signal. “What’s your name?” she asked the young father as they hurried across the tarmac.

  “Jack. Jack and Marion Leonard. Our daughter’s Letty.”

  “Help me get Letty to the helicopter.”

  Together they lifted her out of the station wagon and rushed her toward the helicopter. Marion trotted along beside them, holding up the bag of glucose. By the time they reached the chopper, Key was in the pilot’s seat.

  He’d already started the engine; the rotors were turning. The Leonards were too worried about their daughter to notice that his shirt was unbuttoned and that he desperately needed a shave. At least his bloodshot eyes had been concealed with a pair of aviator sunglasses with mirrored lenses.

  Once they were aboard, he swiveled his head around and looked in Lara’s direction. “All set?”

  She nodded grimly. They lifted off.

  It was too noisy to carry on a conversation, but there was nothing to say anyway. The Leonards clung to each other while Lara monitored the girl’s blood pressure and pulse. She trusted that Key knew how to reach the heliport at Mother Frances Hospital. He had slipped on a headset; she saw his lips moving against the mouthpiece.