“I don’t want to be in mud! I won’t be able to breathe!” Josh’s voice inched up an octave.
Nate looked at Emma, hollow-eyed with helplessness.
“Shhh.” Emma spoke to Josh in low, soothing tones while all Nate could do was stand next to them feeling cold and alone, afraid he’d messed up somehow, said the wrong thing.
Emma clutched Josh to her, her strong, jutting chin clenched. “You’re not going to die. I’m not going to let anything happen to you. Do you hear me? I am not going to let you die.”
Eventually Josh’s sobs subsided and he fell asleep. Nate watched his wife stroking Josh’s hair, the movement strangely hypnotizing. He thought suddenly of one of their first dates. He’d dated a lot by the time he met Emma. It was easy for him to meet women. He was handsome and charming, confident, with an easy smile. Girls loved that shit. But there was always something missing.
Until Emma.
He’d spent hours cooking that day, trying to impress her. But as soon as she arrived, her hospital pager had gone off, notifying her that a patient had died. She’d been a resident at the time and off duty. But she’d grabbed her coat and slid her shoes back on.
“I have to go to the hospital,” she’d said. “Her daughter has nobody to grieve with.”
The humanity in those words, how much Emma cared, took Nate by surprise.
“I’ll go with you,” he said.
He’d stayed late into the night, watching this woman he’d just met as she comforted a stranger. He’d fallen in love with her then.
“I can’t watch someone I love die again,” she whispered to him now, her voice wobbly.
“Dr. Palmer, he seems like he knows his stuff,” Nate said, trying to stay upbeat. “We have to trust that, right?”
Emma plopped down next to him on the couch, dropping her head onto his chest. Nate wrapped his arms around her.
“Why haven’t you ever mentioned him?” he asked. “Dr. Palmer, I mean. He saved your life, and you’ve never said a word about him.”
Emma blew out a long breath. “I asked him to stay away from me.”
Nate was stunned. “Why?”
“I didn’t want to remember. Dr. Palmer felt bad for me, so he visited all the time. At first in the hospital, then at the foster house where I was staying. I started playing basketball for a while, just to keep busy, and he’d show up at my games. My foster parents encouraged him, but every time he showed up it just reminded me of that night. If I could go back and change what happened, I would. But I can’t. I couldn’t. And it was too hard to move on with him around.”
Nate tried to imagine how it would feel to be thirteen and lose your parents, to have your father die in your arms. He tightened his hold around Emma as the sound of her phone buzzing came from her purse. She bent to retrieve it, barely glancing at the screen before dropping it like she’d been scalded.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
“Yes. It’s the hospital.”
“But we’re here.”
“I mean, the clinic. It’s probably just Marjorie returning my call.”
Nate squinted at his wife. He got the distinct feeling that Emma wasn’t telling the truth. It was nothing specific, but there was something cagey about the way she shifted her gaze that gave Nate the telltale tingle he got when someone was lying to him. Yet her face was as inscrutable as ever.
It was just the pressure they were under, he told himself. Emma wouldn’t lie to him.
She pressed her cheek against his chest. “You know, I totally understand that the accident was no one’s fault,” she said after a minute. “Life’s too messy to attribute blame so neatly. You can’t blame a deer for jumping in front of a car. You can’t blame a kid for not knowing how to save someone’s life. There was no culpability, just fragments to pick up.”
She lifted her chin and met his gaze, her eyes clear as a summer sky. “But this… I can’t bear the thought of Josh dying because I didn’t do enough to save him.”
* * *
NATE WALKED outside the hospital for the first time in twenty-four hours. Autumn was sullenly sliding into winter, the bare branches cackling in the biting wind. The clouds were bloated with rain, the air smelling faintly of woodsmoke.
He climbed into his car, pointing it in the direction of home while putting the phone on hands-free and listening to a voice message. It was from his old high school buddy Jonathan Kellington, a manager at one of the banks in town.
“Hey, Nate. Your loan application came back today and I’m, well, I’m really sorry, man, but it’s been declined. Without any collateral and no disposable income, it’s pretty unlikely a bank will lend you that type of money.” There was the sound of Jonathan clearing his throat. “Again, I’m really sorry. I hope Josh is doing all right. Give me a call if you want to grab a beer or anything.”
Nate threw his phone down, his chest feeling like it had gone supernova. The phone clattered against the passenger’s side floorboard.
A bubble of self-loathing expanded in his chest. What kind of man was he? He couldn’t provide for his family. And now his son was sick and he couldn’t do shit to save him.
Nate gripped the steering wheel and turned onto Main Street. When he reached the bridge where Robbie had died, he pulled to the side of the road and stared at the cross, remembering Robbie’s last words to him.
You’re gonna be sorry, man.
Nate had been pissed at Robbie for turning him and a bunch of the guys in for cheating on a math test. Nate would probably have detention for the rest of his senior year. That was some thanks after he’d done his best to keep the popular kids off Robbie’s back the last few years. Sometime around ninth grade, Robbie had put on weight, and with his bad skin and stutter, some of Nate’s jock friends had been merciless. Then he’d added fuel to the fire by tattling.
Nate was walking to his locker when he saw Robbie surrounded by a group of jocks. Robbie had called out to him, but Nate looked away, pretending he didn’t see when one of the guys shoved Robbie to the floor. They could kick the shit out of Robbie, Nate had decided. He deserved it.
And they had.
Nate felt a sense of desperation descending on him, an urgent need to do something. He slid a toothpick from the tin in his pocket. He pressed it into the bed of his thumbnail, letting the pain wash over him.
He hated himself for doing this, the weakness, the self-loathing and embarrassment that flooded him afterward, like a teenager caught masturbating. He wished he could stop, but some horrible compulsion told him he deserved to suffer. He hadn’t helped Robbie. He couldn’t help Josh.
Drip, drip, drip. The sound of his blood hitting the seat snapped him back to the present.
Nate clenched his fist, trying to contain the bleeding. He snapped the bloody toothpick in half and tossed it in a used Starbucks cup, swiping a crumpled napkin at the drops of blood. He picked up the phone he’d thrown on the floor. His thumb was throbbing, blood pooling around the cuticle. He pulled a card out of his wallet and dialed the number. After a minute, Agent Lisa Hamilton answered.
“I’m in,” he said. “Meet me at the station.”
* * *
AN HOUR later Nate was sitting across from Lieutenant Dyson. He’d stopped and bought a box of six raspberry-filled donuts and was rapidly eating his way through the whole thing.
Dyson was watching him, a worried look on his face. “You sure you want this case, Nate? You got a lot going on right now. We’d all understand if you need to take a step back.”
“Please,” Nate said simply. He didn’t want to beg, but the money he’d get from a promotion was the only way he’d be able to pay for his son’s treatment. It was the only thing he could do to provide for his boy. “I need this.”
Dyson studied his face. Finally he nodded. “All right. I’ll give you until the end of the year, and we’ll see where you’re at. And I’m gonna assign Kia as your partner.”
Nate opened his mouth to protest. The end of the
year was barely a month away. Dyson held up a hand. “We’ll see what headway you can make while also dealing with Josh’s illness. I was serious when I said I want you applying for this job. But your son is sick, and that isn’t something to be discounted. We can’t let it affect this case. Kia can help. Besides, you know we can’t have any question of bias being raised. If the case necessitates any direct contact with Ben, it should come from her.”
Nate knew he was right. So he nodded, and Dyson called Kia into the office. She entered, shuffling her feet awkwardly and rubbing nail-bitten fingers over her square jaw.
“I’m sorry about Josh,” she told Nate, looking at her feet. “We all are. We’ve taken a collection and donated to that GoFundMe account.”
“What GoFundMe account?”
“You know, the one Pastor John and his wife, Bertie, started?”
Nate vaguely remembered Bertie saying something about a GoFundMe account, but he was genuinely surprised and humbled at the goodness of the people in this community. “That’s really good of you guys. Emma and I—we appreciate it.”
Agents Lisa Hamilton and Phil Greene arrived a few minutes later, carrying steaming coffees and a box of Krispy Kreme donuts that they set in the middle of Dyson’s desk. Nate accepted the coffee gratefully and dumped sugar into it. He stood to allow Agent Hamilton and Kia to take the only chairs available, while he and Greene leaned against the wall.
Hamilton slid a silver-and-blue DEA badge across the desk to Nate, the metal gleaming in the light. “Keep that with you,” she said. “You’ll need it in addition to your detective’s shield when on task force duties.”
Nate fingered the badge, a strange feeling settling over him. Pride. And also guilt. Like he didn’t deserve it or something, which was dumb. He’d worked hard for this.
“We’re really happy you decided to join us. And we get Detective Sharpe too, it seems.” Hamilton handed Kia a badge. “Let’s get started. We’ve had a few developments.”
She moved her coffee out of the way and slid a photo across the table. “The substance in the baggie found at Mr. Martinez’s house tested as oxy and fentanyl powder. We found fingerprints from a woman named Violeta Williams.”
“Santiago Martinez’s girlfriend?” Nate asked.
“Unknown, but that is the current assumption.”
A very young woman stared back at him from the picture. Long, dark hair and glittering, angry eyes; a colorful tattoo of thorny red roses climbed her right arm, disappeared under her sleeve, then reappeared at her throat.
“Violeta Williams works at a restaurant in Seattle, but she’s been off the past two days. We know she was at the house with Santiago Martinez at some point. What we don’t know is if she’s the one who killed him.”
Agent Greene spoke up. “According to footage from the restaurant’s security cameras, she was last seen leaving with a man. Want to wager a guess who it was?”
Nate took a giant bite of his donut, raspberry jam oozing into his mouth. He licked his fingers. “I’m not a betting man, but I’d put money on Ben Hardman.”
Greene grinned, his teeth very white against his dark skin. He fingered his Burberry tie. “Maybe you should become a betting man, then.”
CHAPTER 11
“MOMMY, CAN I GET a lightsaber?” Josh asked.
He was lying on a hospital bed attached to about a million lines snaking out of his body into a special machine that was extracting his T-cells. He seemed more curious than upset about the needle in his arm.
“Don’t you already have one?” I asked.
“Yeah, but I want one with lights and stuff so I can do battle with the Empire.”
I smiled. Josh had started calling the leukemia the Empire. “Sure, we’ll get you a lightsaber.”
Josh turned to the lab tech. “You’re really going to turn my blood cells into mini Millennium Falcons?”
“That’s right.” The lab tech smiled. He was clean-shaven with thick, black glasses and a rash of red zits sprouting up his chin, but I could’ve kissed him for how well he was handling Josh. “We’ll take your blood to our lab and then we’ll separate the white blood cells. That’s called leukapheresis. Don’t worry if you can’t say it; it’s pretty tricky. I just call it Luke-Skywalker-esis. Once we do that, we freeze Luke-Skywalker-esis and send him off to our mother ship, where we train him to fight the Empire in your blood. That way, when we inject the reprogrammed T-cells—the mini Millennium Falcons—back into your body, they’re all trained up.”
“Cool!” Josh exclaimed.
I laughed, feeling the first sense that maybe everything would be okay. AML was a terrible disease, but CAR T-cell therapy had a high success rate. Maybe he’d be all right. I just had to make sure we could pay for it.
My phone buzzed again, but I continued ignoring it. Gabe had already texted twice, saying he needed to speak to me, but I hadn’t been able to leave Josh’s side.
The lab technician finally withdrew the needle from Josh’s arm, capped the little tubes, and put them in a white lab envelope.
“Okay, that’s all for us here. We’ll see you both in about three weeks with some fighters ready to put in your blood.” He gave a funny little salute and then left the room.
Back upstairs in his hospital room, I fluffed Josh’s pillows, pulled the blankets over his thin little body, and flicked the TV on for him.
Because my job was more flexible than Nate’s, we’d agreed that I would take the week off while he continued working as normal until we could establish some sort of rotation. Dr. Palmer had promised to let Josh go home if he was still doing well by Friday. We just had to return in two weeks to start lymphodepleting chemo. The chemo would prepare Josh’s body for the reprogrammed CAR T-cells. But until then it was R & R for Josh.
Moira swept into the hospital room. She’d promised to come every day after visiting Matt in the nursing home, and here she was, bearing gifts.
“How’s my little Jedi!” she sang. “I’ve brought you all your favorite toys. I don’t know how you’ve managed with just TV to keep you entertained.” She gave me a meaningful look, then dumped out the objects in the canvas bag she’d been carrying: Josh’s favorite Star Wars blanket, a teddy bear the size of my upper body, a box of Lego.
“Grandma!” Josh immediately launched into an update on the Millennium Falcons the doctors were preparing to put into his blood. As he was talking, my phone beeped. I glanced at the text.
I’m here. I know someone who can help. Meet me in hospital café. G
I looked up as a shadow darkened the doorway.
Gabe.
He was wearing a baseball hat, his eyes obscured by the shadow the bill cast. He’d shaved, but his sharply angled jaw and full lips were instantly recognizable.
I froze, terrified Gabe would come in and introduce himself to Josh. Maybe it had been stupid telling him Josh was his son. Even stupider telling him the hospital Josh was getting treated in. But I hadn’t expected him to come here, to find us.
His gaze landed for a long moment on Josh. I waited, breathless, but a second later Gabe disappeared, the doorway again empty.
I was debating what to do when my cell phone rang. I answered, my voice shaky.
“Hello, Mrs. Sweeney, this is Nicole from Avail Insurance calling about your claim for Joshua Sweeney’s CAR T-cell therapy.”
“Hi. Yes.” I motioned to Moira that I would be right back and stepped into the hall outside Josh’s room.
“I’m really sorry, but unfortunately your insurance plan doesn’t provide coverage for CAR T-cell therapy.”
I almost dropped the phone. I’d assumed they would cover at least some of it.
“What?”
“The insurance plan you’re on doesn’t provide coverage for CAR T-cell therapy,” she repeated.
“But the therapy is FDA-approved.” I parroted Dr. Palmer’s words, my throat so dry I could barely speak.
“Yes,” she agreed. “But CAR T-cell therapy is still so new i
t’s being reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This is very typical when new therapies are first approved.”
“What is covered then?”
“As I said, we’re looking at policy coverage on a case-by-case basis. I’ve spoken to Josh’s referring doctor and the administration office at Cascade Regional Hospital, and we have a policy of care we can offer for your case.”
My heart leaped with hope, but it was short-lived.
“Naturally, you’ll still need to pay your deductible and all copays, but we can cover physical removal of the white blood cells and reinjecting the cells. We won’t, however, be able to cover reprogramming the cells, as those are sent to a specialist lab. The lab will bill your hospital once they’ve received the white blood cells, and you’ll need to pay Cascade Regional directly before the cells can be reinjected into your son.”
The breath left my body in one giant gasp.
A month. I only had one month.
I pressed a shaking hand to my mouth. “How much will I need to pay?”
“Ninety-eight thousand and four dollars.”
* * *
I SANK onto the toilet seat in the accessible bathroom, sweat beading on my forehead. I’d grabbed my purse and the canvas bag Moira had brought Josh’s toys in and escaped the hospital room, promising to bring Moira a blueberry muffin when I returned.
I yanked a handful of prescription pads from my purse. For the next few minutes I signed prescriptions from my colleagues for OxyContin as if my life depended on it. I thought about signing a few from me, but decided it was too risky.
Water leaked in a steady drip from the tap, merging with the sound of my heart throbbing in my ears. I transferred the signed prescriptions to the canvas bag, flushed the toilet, washed my hands, and went downstairs to the café, my mind made up.
Gabe was nowhere to be found, and for a second I panicked, thinking he’d changed his mind. But then I saw him outside talking on his phone. Gabe waved and made a drinking motion with one hand, asking for a coffee.
Do No Harm Page 7