by Edie Claire
“Open your eyes, Stanley,” she ordered. “Can you hear me? Stanley?” Her heart skipped a beat as his eyes fully opened and his thrashing ceased. His gaze roamed aimlessly in the air for a moment, then came to rest on her face. His eyes struggled to focus.
“Wang Li?” he rasped.
Mei Lin grabbed the pills off his side table, determined not to miss an opportunity. “My name is Mei Lin, and I’m a nurse,” she replied. “You’ve got a nasty fever right now. Can you sit up and drink a little for me?”
She helped him to prop up, and he cooperated beautifully. She raised the cup to his lips and he put his hands over hers, then gulped. After a few seconds, she pulled the cup away. “Do you think you can swallow some pills?” she asked. “It’s really important that you take this medication as soon as possible.”
He continued to stare at her, though it was clear from his constant blinking that he could not see her well. “They found her body on the rubbish heap,” he said miserably.
Mei Lin’s insides twisted. It was bad enough to have a raging fever and a throbbing leg… why must the poor man remember such horrible things in the midst of it? “Can you take this?” she asked, placing a pill in his hand and closing his fingers over it. To her delight, he raised the tablet to his lips and reached out his other hand for the cup.
“Perfect!” she praised when he’d swallowed the antibiotic. He had no idea how significant that small action might be to him. “Now, another one,” she prompted. He took the second half of the dose with equal ease and she prayed he wasn’t allergic. He was in no state to be interrogated about his medical history and at this point she had only the one option. Thankfully, the drug Sandra Gruber had prescribed was relatively unlikely to cause a serious reaction.
Mei Lin decided to go for broke. She had no idea how much longer he would be even this alert. “Now, just one more, and you’ll be done,” she encouraged, extending an over-the-counter fever reducer. When he swallowed that pill, too, she felt like jumping for joy. “That’s wonderful!” she praised instead, smiling broadly.
He glanced down toward his swollen leg. “Hell fire,” he mumbled.
“Yes, I’m sure it feels like that,” she sympathized. “Your cut has gotten infected. But you’re going to be all right. Do you think you can drink some more?”
Stanley managed a few more sips, but his spurt of energy quickly waned. He lay back on his pillow and stared at the ceiling. “I didn’t mean it. I’m so sorry. It was all my fault!” His voice rose in anguish. If he weren’t so dehydrated, Mei Lin suspected his reddened eyes would be teary.
“It wasn’t your fault,” she said automatically. “It was an accident. Nobody’s blaming you. Rest now. Everything will be better soon.”
Her words seemed to soothe him. His eyelids closed, his muscles relaxed, and within a minute he was snoozing again.
She put down the cup, rose, and stretched her limbs. Her patient was nowhere near out of the woods, but if he continued to drink and take the medication, he at least had a fighting chance.
She looked down at the dog, who had collapsed on the floor beside the bed shortly after she arrived and had remained in a dead sleep ever since. Had the frightened mutt been up all the previous night, watching over his master and waiting for help? If so, she was honored by his vote of confidence.
A smattering of raindrops struck the roof of the cabin, and she glanced out the window. Within seconds, a deluge followed. “Oh, no. I didn’t really want it to storm!” she lamented, crossing to open the door and look out. All day the sky had settled for an innocuous light gray, but now it had darkened to a threatening slate color, and the rain it was producing was not the usual soft trickle, but a steady downpour.
She cursed beneath her breath. Nothing prevented her from going for help in the rain, but if it continued falling this heavily, the low visibility and slippery footing would slow her down.
“Run!” Stanley yelled, making Mei Lin jump a foot. “Run, now!” She closed the door and whirled around to see him thrashing again. Before she could move even the few feet to his bed, his arms flailed so wildly that one of his hands struck the water pitcher and knocked it off the table. As precious sterilized water began to pour out onto the floor, Mei Lin made a dive for the pitcher and righted it, only to receive a glancing blow to the head from the hard plastic cup that flew through the air next.
“Cut it off!” he yelled, sitting up and gripping his knee above the swelling. “Cut it off, now!”
The awakened dog ran circles around Mei Lin’s feet, whining with distress. A crack of thunder split the air, and a dazed Stanley reacted by swinging both legs off the bed. “Get down! It’s the Ruskies!”
So much for leaving him by himself. “Easy, Stanley,” Mei Lin soothed, approaching him with caution. “Everything’s going to be all right.”
She prayed she wasn’t wrong.
Chapter 8
Thane plopped down on one of the many large logs strewn across the beach that edged the University of British Columbia. The spot was one of his happy places. Here he could watch for orcas, listen to the gulls, and gaze across the Strait of Georgia toward Vancouver Island, the place he’d called home for the majority of his life. He didn’t care much for Vancouver proper, or for any other large city, but if he had to spend two years in academia, UBC was a good place to do it. The campus incorporated the Pacific Spirit Regional Park, an urban wonderland of relatively undisturbed forest, as well as the stretch of beach he was enjoying now. Whenever he’d had his fill of confining walls and artificial light, he had always been able to take a hike. Literally.
Still, he was glad his time in the city was coming to a close. He was ready to get back to the real world and real work, and he had high hopes of landing a job in Juneau with the folks at Fish and Game. The current mammal biologist was retiring, and as far as Thane could tell, no shoo-in was waiting. There would be plenty of applicants, as always, but with his freshly minted research degree and Dave Markov’s recommendation, Thane thought he stood a decent chance. He certainly hoped so, because none of the people who held the equivalent positions in Western Canada were retiring anytime soon.
As soon as he turned in the final revisions to his thesis, he could move up to his grandparents’ place in Juneau, establish Alaska residency, and get the ball rolling. But first, he had to deal with Vanessa.
Even the thought made him wince. He’d managed to avoid her thus far, but only by coming straight to the beach from the airport. As soon as he returned to their mutual apartment building, the agony would begin. She’d been texting him all day, asking when he would get home. He’d been intentionally vague about the timing, but such tactics rarely worked with a control freak like Vanessa. She had probably already checked the flight schedules.
He envisioned her driving around the faculty lots, looking for his car. The possibility was not as far-fetched as it sounded. She was employed by UBC herself, in human resources, and she seemed to know where he usually parked, as well as where he liked to hike. But he knew she would never follow him down to Wreck Beach. For one thing, it was “clothing optional,” which made her uncomfortable. But what she really hated was the 473 steps it took to get here from the main campus up on the cliff.
He heard a ringtone noise and tensed. His mother was calling. Vanessa, he could put off for a while, but ignoring a call from Margot Tremain had only one result: greater grief down the road. He had been relieved not to hear from her all weekend, since he suspected she already knew about Vanessa’s proposal. Her calling him now was not a good sign.
“Hey, Mom,” he said as jovially as possible. “What’s up?”
“Nothing, dear. Just the usual,” Margot said crisply. For a woman who’d spent nearly all her adult life in a mill town like Port McNeill, her speech was oddly erudite. Thane had never understood why she bothered. She’d been a respected pharmacist at the district hospital for years; everyone knew she was smart and professional. Nevertheless, she had always placed a high va
lue on both speech and poise, much to the chagrin of her two laidback sons. “I was calling to see how you are,” she explained. “Is anything exciting happening?”
Oh, yeah, she knew, he thought. “I just got back from Juneau,” he answered. “I spent some time with Dave. It’s looking pretty good for a job up there.”
She was silent for a moment. Despite her desire to sound like a woman of the world, Margot Tremain had no desire to live anywhere besides Vancouver Island, and she would prefer that Thane and his brother lived there, too. Preferably with wives of her choosing and litters of grandchildren. Thane would be perfectly happy on the island if he could get a better job, and he looked forward to having a family someday. But his mother’s frequent intrusions into his personal life were not appreciated. “So far away?” she lamented.
“It’s two short flights. You used to love going to Juneau.”
She made no response to that. She never liked to talk about the time before his dad died. “Well, what’s happening in Vancouver?” she baited. “Anything new?”
Thane stifled a sigh. No way was he saying anything to his mother before he spoke with Vanessa. He owed the woman who had proposed to him that much. “Nothing to speak of. How’s the Sparecrow coming?”
“Slowly,” Margot answered, referring to his stepfather’s newest boat-rebuilding project. The Crow had been Doug Tremain’s pride and joy as long as Thane could remember. But if one boat was good, two was better — particularly for a restless retiree with plenty of time on his hands. “Your father is determined to get it in the water this summer, but I have my doubts.”
Thane tensed. He was never quick to anger, but his mother had a gift for pushing his few hot buttons. The way she said “your father” in reference to Doug was one of them. Thane had nothing against his stepfather; they had always gotten along well and were genuinely fond of each other. But there was an unspoken message of insistence in his mother’s tone, a demand that her sons forget they ever had another father.
Thane would never forget. He had been thirteen when Stanley Buchanan was kidnapped from outside a medical conference in Chicago and then ruthlessly murdered. For the sensitive young teen, losing the father he idolized had been a crippling blow. But his mother’s behavior at the time had unsettled him further. Margot had grieved openly at the funeral, accepted by one and all as the hapless victim, the bereft and suffering wife. Only Thane had seemed able to see that her copious tears were disingenuous. His mother’s unspoken animosity towards his father had been always been plain to his eyes; in fact, fear of their divorcing had nagged his entire childhood. He was disturbed and confused by her theatrics; but even as he tried to give her odd expression of grief the benefit of the doubt, the weeks that followed had brought even stranger behavior. Margot had grown increasingly tight-lipped at any mention of her late husband, until one day it seemed she no longer wanted to remember him at all. Worse still, she hadn’t wanted his sons to remember him, either. Within months she had uprooted them all to begin a new life in Port McNeill, wiping away the past as if everything the boys had experienced in Seattle was a misery better left forgotten.
“Listen, Mom,” Thane said as amiably as he could fake. He wished he could purge his soul of the bitterness it still carried, but dredging up the old wounds never ceased to affect him. “I’ve got to get going. I’ll come up and see you guys in a week or two. Okay? Tell Doug I’ll give him a hand with that boat.”
His mother agreed and got off the line. But she did not sound happy about it.
Thane rose and began walking up the beach, picking his way over the stretch of smooth gray boulders that were not yet covered by the incoming tide. His mind was troubled, as always happened when he revisited that part of his past. Whatever excuses he might make for his mother’s behavior after the tragedy, her refusal to acknowledge her sons’ right to remember their own father confounded him. The rapid disposal of Stanley Buchanan’s belongings and the disappearance of his photographs from their walls and mantel were hardly subtle gestures on Margot’s part. Nor was the immediate resumption of her maiden name. When she had married Doug a year later, her usurpation of the simple phrase “your father” had added insult to injury. But any protest from her sons had been willfully ignored.
Thane’s stepfather, in contrast, had been a model of parental concern. Doug had explained to the boys that their mother avoided the subject because talking about their father was too painful for her. He assured them that they could always talk to him; that although he had never met their father, he knew Stanley must have been a wonderful person, because he’d raised such incredible sons.
Yes, Doug Tremain was a fine man. He’d made all their lives easier, in many ways. But Thane’s good relationship with him had no bearing on whether he missed his own father.
“There you are!” a chipper female voice called out, driving a chill down Thane’s spine. He looked up.
No. He could not believe it. Was Vanessa really so desperate for his answer that she had trekked down 473 stairs to a beach she hated when she knew it was 473 steps back up again?
Holy hell. He had underestimated her.
“I’m so glad I found you!” she cried, moving toward him. She stepped up on a rock and teetered precariously before catching her balance. She was wearing heels.
Thane suppressed another sigh. If he hadn’t witnessed a good chunk of the process himself, he would never believe that Vanessa had been raised on the rural end of Vancouver Island. “Stay there,” he insisted, holding out a palm. “I’m coming.”
She clapped her hands gleefully. “I’ve missed you so much!”
Thane could think of no honest, yet kind reply. It was time to get this nightmare over with.
Chapter 9
Behind the omnipresent clouds, the Alaskan sun was well on its way down to the horizon from whence it came when Stanley Smith’s fever finally broke. An exhausted and relieved Mei Lin smiled as she placed a hand against his forehead and felt the difference. After so many fitful hours of shaking and sweating, he was at last sleeping peacefully. She was hopeful that he was responding to the antibiotic and that, when he woke again, he would be lucid enough for her to leave him for a while.
She stood up and stretched, then realized how hungry she was. If she didn’t eat something before running for help, she might very well collapse on the way. Turning towards the wall by the stove, she examined the contents of the cabin’s built-in shelves. Fixing a proper meal from the dried beans and bags of rice and pasta was beyond the scope of her patience, but as soon as she found a tin of granola she poured out a serving and began to munch. The shelves were stocked with dehydrated milk, pancake mix, jerky, oils, honey, spices, and an assortment of nuts and dried fruits. A half bottle of vodka sat covered with dust, indicating that Stanley probably wasn’t a drinker.
Mei Lin heard a noise behind her. She turned to see her patient raised up on his elbows, blinking at her in confusion. “Who are you?” he croaked.
She crossed to his bedside and sat back down. His eyes focused on her face, and she felt a fleeting sense of recognition, though she couldn’t think who he reminded her of. “My name is Mei Lin Sullivan,” she answered. “I’m a registered nurse.” And sort of a nurse practitioner, she failed to add. She had earned the appropriate master’s degree, completed the necessary clinical work, and even passed her national exam. The only credential she lacked was state certification. “The wound on your leg has gotten infected, and you’ve had a high fever. How are you feeling?”
He continued to stare at her, confused. “Leg hurts,” he said with effort. “Thirsty.”
“Not surprising,” she said pertly, propping up the pillows behind him and then reaching for the pitcher. She poured him a cup of water. “As soon as you’re able to drink by yourself, I’ll run to the Torpins’ place and we’ll figure out how to get you to the hospital. Do you have insurance that would cover an emergency evacuation?”
He reached out a shaky hand, took the cup she extended,
and pulled it to his lips. His movements were slow and awkward, but eventually he drained it dry. “No hospital,” he rasped, his eyes closing again.
Mei Lin felt a flicker of panic, but tried not to show it. “Nobody likes the hospital, Mr. Smith. But if this infection spreads to your vital organs, your situation could get very serious very quickly. Your life could be in danger.”
His eyes opened again, but his expression conveyed more vexation than fear. He attempted to pull his head and shoulders up off the pillow, presumably to get a look at his leg for himself. Mei Lin put an arm behind his back to support him and pulled away the sheet. One dose of antibiotic had made no difference to the wound’s grisly appearance — if anything, it looked worse. The entire back surface of his calf was red and firm with swelling. The edges of the cut were threatening to separate, and a whitish-yellow discharge oozed out the seam.
He made a sound of disgust and fell back onto the pillows, weakened even by the brief effort of leaning forward.
“You’re only doing as well as you are because you’ve got one dose of antibiotics in you,” Mei Lin explained, covering his legs with the sheet again. “But you need to be in a hospital.”
She ticked off all the reasons why, explaining the gravity of the situation as simply and as sensitively as she could, but he did not appear to be listening. Whether he was unable to stay awake or was blocking out the unwelcome information, she couldn’t tell. “Mr. Smith,” she tried again. “I need to leave you alone for a little while to bring help. All right?”
He spoke without opening his eyes. “No hospital,” he repeated, weakly but clearly. “You’re a sweet girl. But if I die, I die.”
Mei Lin stared at him in surprise. She was not unsympathetic to a patient’s right to refuse treatment, even if that meant hastening death. She could imagine several end-of-life scenarios where she might choose the same option herself. But Stanley Smith was no hospice case. He was an otherwise healthy man who, before this injury, had probably been more physically fit than the majority of men his age. As far as she could tell, the infection was the only thing that stood between him and another ten or even twenty productive years of life.