Rules in Blackmail

by Nichole Severn

  He nodded eagerly, the hint of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

  “Nurse Bowman will let you pick something from our special treasure chest.” Marissa gave Eva a nod as she walked to the door. “Have a safe drive home.”

  This time Jeremiah actually flashed her a real smile. She couldn’t decide whether he was happier about the treasure chest or going home.

  The ER had been buzzing for the past several hours. A couple had misjudged the time it would take to reach their preferred hospital and ended up having to stop at the Edge for their little girl’s entrance into the world. A two-car accident with five victims; a bicycle crash involving two teenagers who suffered broken bones, nasty lacerations and no shortage of bruises; and two concertgoers who’d taken tumbles while crowd surfing had shown up with fractures similar to Jeremiah’s. There was also a knife fight between two thugs in a drug deal gone wrong. Both victims had arrived in the backs of police cruisers.

  And yet another little boy, Timmy, who arrived with a scary-looking laceration to the upper arm, caused by a bad idea. The boy had decided he wanted to practice knife throwing the way a character in some movie he’d watched recently had done. Amazingly he had actually hit the tree with the knife he’d sneaked from his mother’s kitchen. The trouble had occurred when he braced his left arm against the tree and attempted to dislodge the knife with his right, slicing across his left arm only a couple of inches above the elbow. He was a very lucky little boy. A little deeper, and he might not have arrived at the ER in time. The brachial artery was closest to the surface near the elbow. Marissa was very thankful the injury was not so deep and had missed the artery.

  At the double doors that led back into the lobby, Jeremiah slipped free from his mother’s hand and raced back to where Marissa stood near the nurses’ station and gave her a hug. She crouched down and hugged him back. Her heart reacted. She had so wanted children of her own.

  Not meant to be. At least not so far, and with no prospects of a boyfriend, much less a husband, the outlook was rather dim.

  When the child skipped back to where his mother waited at the open door, Marissa waved goodbye. As the doors closed, she turned back to the chart she was reviewing.

  “Dr. Frasier.”

  Marissa paused and looked up at the registration specialist, Patsy Tanner, who’d called her name. “Yes, Patsy?”

  “There’s a man in the lobby who says he needs to see you.” She shrugged. “I told him you were with a patient but he just keeps pacing the room. He asks for you every five or so minutes.” Her expression turned uncertain. “He looks very upset.”

  A frown furrowing its way across her weary forehead, Marissa dredged up a smile. “Thank you, Patsy. I’ll take care of it.”

  Sometimes a father or husband or even boyfriend of a patient would grow agitated and demand to speak with the doctor who had cared for his loved one. Since Marissa hadn’t lost any patients or even attended to any patients with a dire prognosis this evening, she couldn’t imagine the trouble would be too serious. Perhaps one of the two who’d been carried off to jail after their knife battle had a disgruntled friend. She sent a quick text to Security and asked that they keep an eye on the situation as she spoke with the man pacing the lobby.

  The moment Marissa stepped beyond the double doors that stood between those waiting for care and the emergency department, she knew it wasn’t going to be so easy.

  Even before the man turned around, she recognized him. The rigid set of his broad shoulders. The silky dark brown hair that brushed his collar. He wore jeans and a shirt, not the khakis and a polo he’d preferred before their lives had fallen apart. William Bauer turned around as if he sensed her presence, despite the fact that eight or nine other people were scattered around the room, speaking softly or searching their social media feeds on their phones.

  It had been that way between them in the beginning. Even a few hours apart had felt like an eternity. They had sensed each other across a crowded room, their hearts seeming to beat harder and harder until they touched.

  Marissa’s ex-husband strode toward her, his gaze narrowing, homing in on her. The anger twisting his lips—the lips she had kissed so many times—warned this would not be a pleasant visit by any definition of the word. Unfortunately, this was not his first unannounced appearance, and she feared it would not be his last.

  When he stalled toe-to-toe with her, his six-foot-two form looming over her five-foot-six one, she asked, “Why are you here, William?”

  “You changed your cell number. I had no choice.”

  Thankfully he kept his voice down, but there was no mistaking the fury in his tone.

  Marissa glanced around the room. “Why don’t we step outside where we’ll have some privacy?”

  The subtle shift in his posture told her he liked the idea of privacy. Uneasiness pricked her, but security was nearby. Her ex-husband stepped back, allowing her to go ahead of him. She moved toward the exit, keeping her step steady and her smile pleasant. No need to let anyone see the worry and the dread pulsing beneath her skin.

  She and William had been married for five years. The first year had felt happy, or at least as happy as any two people with newly minted medical degrees diving into their residencies could feel. More often than not they were either flying high with adrenaline or utterly drained from exhaustion. They had married at the courthouse the day after they finished medical school. Miracle of miracles, the NRMP, National Resident Matching Program, had matched them both to hospitals in the Chicago area. A whirlwind trip to the city had ended with them leasing the cheapest apartment they could find, and they’d been completely thrilled that it had a reasonably large shower, a bedroom and was near both their hospitals.

  Then, slowly but surely, everything had changed.

  Marissa had done exceedingly well. She’d garnered praise and numerous opportunities for her hard work. William, on the other hand, had floundered. He couldn’t seem to keep up. His work was subpar. He didn’t get along with anyone. He’d barely survived his residency. By the end of the second year, they had argued every minute they were together, which wasn’t nearly enough to sustain a relationship.

  A little less than two years ago, he had been asked to leave the practice he’d joined after residency. It was either he leave voluntarily, or legal steps would be taken to remove him. The senior doctor in the practice was a mutual friend. Though Marissa and William had already been divorced for a couple of months by then, he’d called to explain that he had grave concerns about William’s mental health.

  Sadly, he hadn’t been telling Marissa anything new. The breakdown in their marriage had mirrored the disintegration of his mental health. Twenty-three months and two weeks ago, he’d finally snapped and he’d turned physical. Marissa had ended up with a concussion and a fractured arm much like little Jeremiah’s. At her ex-husband’s trial, the judge had been particularly peeved by the fact that William was a doctor, and subsequently sentenced him to a year for felony domestic violence. He’d been released six months ago.

  The first thing he’d done was come to Marissa and apologize for his behavior. Since that time he’d been volunteering in the community and appeared to be working hard to redeem himself. Marissa had no idea how he was earning any sort of income. He’d exhausted the meager savings they had managed prior to the divorce with his need to prove his status with a new car every year. Unfortunately, his salary as a general practitioner was not that of a cardiothoracic surgeon, as he appeared to want the world to believe.

  However much he wanted to act as if he had learned his lesson, Marissa knew better. He was still drinking. Before and, foolishly, even after the divorce, she had tried to help him, but she’d soon recognized that she could not help a man unwilling to help himself. No matter that they had been officially divorced for eighteen months and twenty-two days, he never left her alone for long.

  In part, sh
e blamed herself. If she’d made a clean break after he attacked her physically rather than attempting to help him, things might have been different. Now, no matter how many times she told him to back off, he always found a way to insert himself into her life. He discovered something among his things that belonged to her. A letter addressed to her had come to his apartment. A relative was ill and he thought she might want to know. When he’d run out of legitimate excuses, he’d started showing up simply to argue about how she had ruined his life.

  She suspected this evening’s visit was the latter, though he had never showed up at her ER before. Too many potential witnesses.

  Once they were a few yards from the ER entrance but still within sight of the security guard who monitored that entrance, William lit into her.

  “Why would you change your phone number? You’ve had the same number since we moved to Chicago.”

  He stood very close to her, his face so near she could feel his breath on her cheek, could smell the liquor when he spoke. William was a handsome man still. Classic square jaw, straight nose, nice lips, assessing brown eyes. But once things started to fall apart, his eyes were always bloodshot from the sheer volume of alcohol he consumed daily. The final year of their marriage, he would come home from work and drink until he passed out in his chair or on the sofa or wherever he happened to be when the saturation point of alcohol in his blood took control. It was as if he couldn’t bear his life, so he attempted to wash away each day’s memories with booze. Every month or so he would promise to join Alcoholics Anonymous. He even went once.

  So ironic. He’d been the best all through high school. Best GPA. Best player on the football team. Best all-around student. Class president. College had been much the same. Even in medical school, he had been the golden boy among the professors and his peers. Never had to work very hard to achieve his class ranking.

  Whether it all merely caught up with him in the end or he just couldn’t keep up the pace any longer, he plummeted. From all reports, once he went into practice he was a satisfactory doctor. There had never been any complaints from patients. Certainly no malpractice suits. It was his colleagues who couldn’t tolerate his bullying and bad behavior.

  And his wife. For a while, Marissa had taken his mental abuse and, ultimately, his first and only departure into physical abuse. But that mistake would never be repeated. She refused to be a victim like that ever again. Granted, he had been drunk out of his mind at the time, but she would not allow him to use his drinking as an excuse. He had hurt her and that was that.

  “I changed my number because I would like you to stop calling me.” She kept her gaze steady on his. It was important that he understand her decision was not up for discussion. She knew this man intimately. At the moment he appeared reasonably sober, and she wanted him to see and to hear that she meant business. The life they had once shared was over. They were not friends, and they never would be.

  “You’ve finally found someone else, haven’t you?” Rage blazed in his dark eyes.

  An alarm she knew better than to ignore triggered. There was something about his eyes, his tone that seemed different tonight—colder, harder. “This is not about anyone else, William. This is about you.” She kept her voice steady, her tone firm. A year of counseling had helped her to overcome feelings of guilt about the breakdown of their marriage and to stand up for herself, even against the man she had once loved and with whom she had expected to spend the rest of her life. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to my patients.”

  “Is that another kick in the teeth?” he growled. “I don’t have a career anymore. No patients. No nothing.”

  She braced herself and summoned her waning courage. “You don’t have a career anymore because you drink too much. You need help, William. I can’t help you. Until you commit to changing your life, this is how it will be.” She backed away a step. “You should go back to AA and seek private counseling.”

  He grabbed her arm, his fingers clutching like a vise. A wave of panic flooded her.

  “Don’t tell me what to do,” he warned. “If you had been a better wife, maybe I wouldn’t have needed to drink. You could have helped me, but you chose to throw me—our life—away.”

  It was the same exchange every time. When he grew angry, he always blamed someone else for his mistakes. “Goodbye, William.” She yanked her arm from his grasp and turned away.

  One day he would surely come to terms with the reality that he made his own choices, and he executed those choices.

  “Issy.”

  She hesitated. Shouldn’t have. Damn it.

  “Look at me. Please.”

  How was it that she could still feel sympathy for this man? He had made her life miserable for four years before the divorce. He’d done his damnedest to do the same thing the past six months since his release from prison, but she had managed to handle it better. It was always easier to deal with issues from a distance. And though he insinuated himself into her present every chance he got, they did not share a home...they did not share a bed. He was no longer her responsibility, legally or morally.

  She took a deep breath. Turned to face him. “First,” she said, “if you ever touch me again, I will take out a restraining order, and then you’ll have yet another black mark on your record. Now, what is it you want to say?”

  He stared at her for a long moment. Even from several feet away, she could feel the sheer hatred emanating from him. The bright exterior lighting allowed her to see the desperation in his eyes. She shook her head and started to turn away but his lips parted and, once more, she hesitated.

  “I’m going to kill myself.”

  Shock slammed into her gut. She sucked in a sharp breath. “You don’t mean that.”

  He nodded. “I do.”

  “Please, William, you need help. See someone before you destroy any chance of ever rebuilding your life and career. Everyone deserves a second chance. Give yourself one before it’s too late.”

  He shook his head. “I’m going to kill myself. But first—” he stared at her so hard she could feel the cold, ruthless pressure of his fury “—I’m going to kill you.”

  He walked away.

  Marissa’s knees buckled, forcing her to grab for the sleek limestone wall to steady herself. She watched him settle behind the steering wheel of his car and drive away. As much as she wanted to believe that he was only attempting to frighten her, she knew better than to be that naive. As a physician, she was well aware that people could snap and do unspeakable things.

  William had been teetering on the precipice of total self-destruction for years now. Her first obligation as a physician was to report the threat. Since he was no longer practicing medicine, that was one less concern. She would call the office of his former practice and let their mutual friend know about the threat he’d made. If William was so angry with her, it was highly probable that he felt a similar rage for his former colleagues.

  Making her way back inside, she prepared a mental list of everyone she should call. Her brain raced with the idea that this wasn’t supposed to happen to her. She had been a good student all through school. She’d never gotten involved with drugs or alcohol. Even in college and then medical school, she was the consummate Goody Two-shoes. Focused, reliable—that was Marissa Frasier. As her marriage fell apart, she’d endeavored patiently and persistently to try to repair their relationship. But nothing worked. When she had done all within her power, she had extracted herself from the ever-increasing volatility of the situation. He’d already destroyed her ability to love him. She’d felt sympathy—as she did now—but that was no basis for a marriage.

  The waiting room was nearly clear now. Maybe things would slow down, giving her a chance to pull herself together once more. A few more deep breaths to slow her racing heart, and she was getting there. Once she was through the double doors and headed toward the nurses’ station, she rel
axed.

  Eva caught her in the corridor before she reached the doctors’ lounge. “Are you okay, Dr. Frasier?”

  Marissa produced a smile. Eva was one of those people whom everyone liked. With her white-blond hair and creamy porcelain skin, many of the older patients called her an angel. But it was her green eyes that Marissa first noticed. Their eyes were a very similar emerald green. Marissa, too, had the extrapale skin, but her fiery red curls set the two of them apart. Patients were always saying that if not for the difference in hair color, they could pass for sisters.

  Marissa took her friend’s hand and pulled her into the lounge. With a quick glance around she said, “It’s William. He showed up again. Here.” She moistened her lips and wished her heart would not start that confounded pounding again. “It was different this time.”

  “Are you serious?” Eva took both Marissa’s hands in hers. “Listen to me—this situation is not getting better. He’s escalating. If you continue to interact with him—”

  Marissa shook her head. “I won’t. I can’t.” She inhaled a deep breath. “He said he’s going to kill himself, but first he’s going to kill me.”

  “That’s it.” Eva released her and reached into the pocket of her scrubs for her cell phone. “I’m calling Todd. You need protection.”

  Eva’s fiancé was an investigator at the Colby Agency. Eva had urged her repeatedly to go to the agency for help about William. Somehow Marissa had been certain she could do this herself, but now she wasn’t so sure.

  His desperation and fury had been palpable. He was not playing.

  He wanted her dead.

  The bottom dropped out of Marissa’s stomach and she wrapped her arms around her middle. How on earth had they gotten to this place? How could a man who had once loved her—and she knew in her heart that he had—now want to kill her?

  She had no answer. William was broken. He had allowed envy and whatever other hidden mental health issues that plagued him to take over. Add the alcohol on top of that, and he was a mess. A desperate mess who didn’t care anymore. He wanted the pain and misery to end, and he wanted the person he saw as responsible for that pain and misery to pay for ruining his life.