Operation: Healing Angel

by Margaret Kay

  “So, you are not in any pain right now?” Doc asked.

  The only pain he felt was his waning erection and unfulfilled release. “No.”

  Doc was more confused why he laid in bed. “Are you going to take the day-to-day back from Cooper this morning?”

  “I’ll talk with him. I’ll need him to handle things when I go to Diana’s practice for the x-rays.”

  “Do either of you need anything from me right now?”

  “We will need your help when we go for the x-rays,” Diana said. “If you will have time.”

  Doc nodded. “Sure.”

  “And then you can head home after,” Shepherd said. “Give me about fifteen minutes, then we can head out.”

  “Sure thing. I’ll meet you in the garage in twenty. I have a few notes to log in my office.” His lips tugged into a grin. “Elizabeth will be happy that I’ll be home for most of the day.”

  November

  Twenty minutes later, Shepherd and Diana descended to subbasement level two in the elevator. Doc waited for them there. He put his phone into his pocket as they approached. “I’ll be home early enough for us to take Olivia to the zoo. If you won’t need Cooper this afternoon, we’re thinking of inviting the Cooper family to go with us. Hahna probably has never been to a zoo.”

  Shepherd thought about it for a second. “I think Madison is scheduled for Ops this afternoon.” He brought the schedule up on his phone. She was. “I’m sure Dupont will put in a few extra hours to cover. Let her know to reach out to him if they want to go to the zoo.”

  Diana listened to the conversation. Once inside his big, black SUV, she asked. “You were just talking about Madison, as in the woman who came to get me last night?”

  “Yes. She and Cooper adopted a four-year-old little girl from overseas about six months ago, Hahna. Doc and his wife Elizabeth take care of her when they are both working.”

  “They’re together? I would never have guessed.”

  Shepherd grinned. “They are both professionals. Home is home and work is work.”

  She was also surprised that they were parents. Madison was a gun and badge carrying mother. She again wondered about the job they did and how dangerous it was. “Is John Cooper an FBI agent too?”

  He nodded. “He carries a badge too, not FBI. We have CIA, DEA, ICE, ATF, Homeland, and NSA agents in-house. Again, that is classified information.”

  “No worries, Sam. I am never going to tell anyone. I was just curious.”

  At her office, Doc helped him stand. He grabbed the handles that dangled from the ceiling, holding on and supporting his weight. Doc took his sidearm. She snapped the x-rays from the side, positioning him in a lateral lumbar extension with Doc’s help.

  Doc and Shepherd both viewed the iPad with the x-ray images as Diana explained the condition. “You can see right here that you have a bilateral pars fracture at both L-4 and L-5, creating a spondylolisthesis. What that means is that these bones, when you even slightly arch your back, which is your normal posture, they compress and pinch the spinal cord and the nerves. It’s called spinal cord stenosis. This is why you have had the numbness and the pins and needles sensations as well as the extreme weakness in your legs. The effect mimics partial paralysis. And it causes the pain too. When you fell last night and arched your back, the compression on the spinal cord from these bones pinched it tightly. That is why you felt so much pain.”

  “Is surgery the remedy?” Doc asked. Maybe they did need that appointment at Walter Reed, after all.

  “Some do opt for surgery to fuse the bones, but I can fix it without surgery. I can draw the bones back to where they belong with chiropractic care and physical therapy. It could take several weeks, but I have successfully treated this condition on multiple occasions.” She wouldn’t tell them that she had never seen a case this severe or this persistent. That was irrelevant. The treatment was the same regardless of the severity of it. “I want you to understand though, that I cannot effect a permanent repair but with periodic chiropractic treatment it can be maintained.”

  She gave him an adjustment, drawing the bones back from the spinal cord. Shepherd confirmed that he had more sensation afterwards. She would repeat the adjustment every other day in conjunction with his physical therapy and massages. She was confident she could resolve this. Shepherd believed her.

  At the two vehicles, they said goodbye to Doc. Diana watched him drive away as Sam raised the lift to bring him into the driver’s area of the SUV. She climbed into the passenger seat. She gave him directions to her house, fifteen minutes away. When he pulled into her driveway, she realized she could not invite him in. Her home was not handicap accessible. There were two stairs to mount to get to the front door. She would have to have a ramp installed for him to be able to enter her house until he could walk.

  “I’d invite you in, but,” she said as she pointed at the stairs leading to her front door. “But.”

  “No worries. I’ll wait here until you are ready and then you can follow me back to the parking garage. Keep your car close behind me and you can pull through the gates as I open them. I’ll reach out to my tech guy this afternoon to get you access.”

  “Okay. I won’t be long.”

  She rushed through her house, packing clothes and personal items for a few days in an overnight bag. Her laptop and books were packed into her backpack. She realized that she had reading and homework to do before class in the morning. She would do it at Sam’s that afternoon. He too would have to understand the demands on her time.

  Then she remembered Mike. She had told him she’d give him a call today. That was a call she dreaded making. He would ask questions about her mystery patient that she could not answer, and he would probably ask her out again. She opted instead to send him a text, realizing at that moment that he had not reached out to her either. She found that odd. Wouldn’t he at least text her to make sure she was okay?

  She kept her text short. Hey, I’m sorry about last night. One of my patients was in bad pain. I’ll explain more at class tomorrow. Have a good Sunday. She read it over before hitting send. Then she carried her bags out to her car in the garage. She waved at Sam and then got into her car.

  She glanced at the display on her phone a few times as she drove behind Sam’s SUV, wondering if Mike would reply. Finally, as she pulled into the parking garage, she tossed her phone into her purse. She followed Sam’s SUV down to the gate which she squeezed through after his car passed. Her car just barely fit into the space between the two garage doors. When she pulled into the private parking area in front of the door and elevator, she noticed several more cars parked there that hadn’t been there when they’d left. He really did have a twenty-four by seven operation.

  She met him at his vehicle. “Let me have your backpack. It looks heavy.” He reached his hand to take it. He sat it onto his lap. Then he led her to the elevator. “You will have your own code. You enter the code and press your hand to the pad for access at all the doors,” he said after he had, and the elevator door opened. “I let my Ops people know that your car would be following me through the gates. Otherwise, they would have seen it on the security feed and armed guards would be greeting us. Unauthorized vehicles are not permitted in this private parking garage.”

  “I’ve been meaning to ask, is this considered a federal building? And are you a federal agent, like Madison?” She watched the expression on his face tighten as she asked.

  “This building is not considered a federal building, per se. And yes, I carry federal credentials.” He didn’t elaborate. “Does that bother you?”

  The elevator door opened on ten. “No, I was just curious,” she said as she stepped from the elevator. “That explains why you carry a gun.”

  In front of his door, Shepherd stopped and faced her. “Is that something that bothers you?”

  Her lips tipped into a small smile. “It’s not an issue. It was just something I noticed and didn’t understand. I’m not afraid of guns. My dad tau
ght me to shoot when I was a kid. My dad and my brothers went hunting every fall. We lived in a small town in Wisconsin and went to our lake cabin every weekend, which is in a pretty remote area. Mom and us kids actually spent most of the summer at the cabin.” She smiled wider. She had many fond memories of her childhood at that cabin.

  “That sounds nice,” Shepherd agreed. He swung the door to his apartment wide.

  “I do have about three hours of reading and homework I need to do today,” she told Sam as she sat her backpack onto the couch.

  “I have some work I could do during that time,” Shepherd said. “And I need to work out today. I normally do as soon as I wake up.”

  Her smile spread over her face. “I normally workout on Sunday’s too. Would you mind if I left for a few hours and went to my gym? I keep my gym bag in my car.”

  Shepherd smiled wide. “We have a well-equipped gym in the basement, just past the elevator. And a hot tub in the locker room area. I could hit the weights down there while you work out, and then we could hit the hot tub together.”

  “That would be nice.”

  “Let me take your bag to the bedroom and then I’ll bring you to Smith to get you access to the building. He’s in. I saw his car in the garage.”

  “Sounds good.”

  She followed him back into the hall and into the elevator. They descended to the eighth floor, and the doors opened. “This level is restricted. You won’t have access to it on your own. But, the tenth floor is restricted to most people and you will of course have access to it.”

  She nodded.

  He brought her to a room with an open door. It was a room cluttered with electronic devices and computers spread over several worktables. There were no windows and only one man was within. He appeared young, perhaps in his late teens or early twenties. He had shaggy, blondish-brown hair. On his nose sat wire-rimmed glasses. He glanced up and smiled at them.

  “Hi Shep. I’ve got everything ready.” He moved a computer tablet across the table.

  “Thanks. Diana, this is Caleb Smith, one of our tech-guys.”

  “Hello,” she greeted.

  “Hi,” Smith acknowledged. He directed her to press her hand to the screen three times. Then the other hand. “This will give us a good reading on both hands. If you have any injuries to your palms, the scanner may not be able to read correctly, especially if you have bandages on. Keep that in mind and plan to come through the public entrance if that ever happens to both hands.”

  Diana nodded.

  He pointed to the ten-key pad on the tablet next. “Pick a four-digit code. It can be anything but one-two-three-four. That’s our universal panic code.”

  Diana’s eyes went to Sam. “Panic code?”

  “The security system here at the building and the systems installed at the home of every person who works here is monitored in our Operations Center, next door. Entering the code one-two-three-four alerts Ops that someone is in trouble. Ops will attempt to contact the person. The police will be called, and our people will be dispatched to help. Or if someone is being forced, under duress, to enter this building, entering in the panic code will allow access but will notify the analyst on duty in Ops that there is a problem and then armed security will be scrambled.”

  Diana let out a slow breath. She couldn’t imagine why anyone would need measures like that in place. At Caleb’s prompting, she entered a four-digit code. He had her enter it three times. She used her father’s date of birth, well month and day.

  Shepherd advised Smith what areas she would have access to. He programmed them in. Then he nodded towards Ops. “Is everything quiet today?”

  “Yeah, though I won’t jinx it by saying too much.”

  Shepherd chuckled. “I’m back on. Call me if you need me.”

  “Nah, Circles and I got it. Miller called in, is gonna be a few hours late. He’ll stay on and cover. We’re good.”

  “Thanks,” Shepherd acknowledged.

  “Okay, you’re all set,” Smith said after a few more keystrokes. “The input into the system is live, so you’re good to go. Test it on the way out. I gave access to her into the stairwell and elevator from any floor.”

  “Thank you,” Diana said.

  She followed Sam from the room. Inside the elevator, she punched her code into the keypad and then pressed her hand to the scan pad. Then she hit ten on the elevator buttons. The doors closed, and the elevator ascended.

  Back in his apartment, they went to the kitchen. It was lunchtime already. “After lunch, I should probably do some schoolwork,” she announced.

  “How about you put in about two hours and then we can go workout.”

  “Would it be okay if I take over the bedroom to do my schoolwork?”

  “You can have either bedroom, my office, or the kitchen. You name the room and it’s yours,” he offered. “Where do you normally study at home?”

  “My bedroom.”

  “The master bedroom it is.” He gave her a warm smile.

  Hours later, when he entered the bedroom to see if she was ready for an exercise break, his eyes took in the scene. Diana sat cross-legged, with books scattered all around her on his bed. Her hair was twisted into a bun on the top of her head that a pencil stuck through. Her eyes were cast down onto her lap, at the pages of a very thick book. It looked perfect. It looked right to him that she was comfortably studying on his bed.

  “You look like someone who deserves a break. Let me take you away from all this.” He smiled as he spoke.

  Diana startled out of the deep concentration she was in. She had forgotten she was at Sam’s place. She glanced up at him and then lifted her phone from the bed beside her to view the time. “I’d say. I normally get up and stretch and move around at the top of every hour. I don’t think I’ve moved since I sat down and that was over two hours ago.” She got off the bed and stood. She stretched in all directions. “I only have about an hour left. A good workout sounds good, though.”

  “I’ll change up here and then we can get your bag from your car. You can change in the lady’s locker room.”

  Diana was surprised by the nice facilities in the lady’s locker room that greeted her. Full size lockers, individual, enclosed showers with shampoo, conditioner, and body wash in dispensers. There were private changing stalls, a vanity with a makeup mirror and a selection of deodorant, lotion, and hairspray. She wondered if they were supplied for anyone to use or if a few of the women who worked here kept their personal supplies out. She’d have to ask Sam. She didn’t want to use anyone’s personal products.

  She changed into her workout clothes and then stepped into the gym. It was massive. At the far end of the room to the left was children’s play equipment, bikes of different sizes, a climbing gym and a slide. Sam was on a weight bench to the right. She joined him there.

  “Wow, this is quite a gym. Is this for everyone in the building?”

  “No, only Shepherd Security personnel have access to it.”

  “If I worked in this building, I would pay double what I pay to my gym to be able to work out here. If you ever need an additional revenue stream, you may want to consider it.”

  Shepherd had to admit, he’d never thought of it, though he did like the idea of this being a private agency only space. But she wouldn’t understand it. “That is an idea.”

  Diana put in an hour on the cardio equipment. There was a cross-country ski machine, her favorite piece of equipment. After, she joined Sam, who still worked out with the free weights. She’d watched his technique as she skied. It was perfect. He knew what he was doing on the weight bench. No surprise, given his incredible musculature.

  Shepherd was impressed by how flawless her form was as she lifted. And she knew all opposing muscle groups to work. Of course, she would, he chuckled to himself. He was impressed with her on so many levels. He appreciated intellect and confidence, and Diana Palmer was bursting with both. Add to that her natural, abundant energy, and her grace, and he couldn’t deny tha
t she checked off every box of the qualities he wanted in a woman.

  After they’d finished, they went back towards the locker rooms. “The hot tub is accessible through a door at the back of the showers in each locker room. I’ll meet you in there.”

  Diana changed into her bathing suit. Her gym had an Olympic sized pool, which she often swam laps in, in addition to the hot tub she used after almost every workout. She had to admit, Sam’s gym had everything but the pool. And she had fun working out with him.

  Shepherd rolled into the hot tub room just a few seconds before Diana entered. He was disappointed to see a conservative, high necked, one-piece black bathing suit clinging to Diana’s perfect form. But then again, it was a swimsuit she wore in her gym. He knew her well enough to know that it would be functional and not revealing.