Her Dr. Wright

by Meredith Webber

  ‘It’s a matter of watching everyone,’ David told them when all patients had been transferred to beds and the senior staff were grabbing a quick meal in the kitchen. ‘We’ve only a limited number of monitoring devices so it’s back to basics. We need to check blood oxygen levels, fluid levels, any change in respiratory patterns, and with the younger ones treat any rise in temperature immediately. Post-burn seizures are common in children.’

  ‘Where’s your locum? Sarah?’

  It was Jackie who asked the question which had flitted through Rowena’s mind from time to time as she’d moved among the patients.

  Now, hearing it asked aloud, fear gripped her and she felt her muscles tense.

  David frowned and looked around as if expecting Sarah to appear, but it was Barry who entered the kitchen. The policeman had made an attempt to clean up, but sooty marks marred his uniform and a black streak showed where he’d run grimy hands through his fair hair.

  He also looked exhausted and was frowning ferociously—as if daring another catastrophe to occur.

  ‘How are things here?’ he asked Jane. ‘You got everything under control?’

  Jane assured him they were handling it and Barry turned his attention to David.

  ‘Where’s your lady doctor—Sarah?’ he demanded, as if David might be secreting her somewhere about his person.

  ‘We were just wondering that. Why?’

  ‘Because I’ve had her husband on the phone, wanting to know why he can’t contact her—or anyone else for that matter.’

  ‘Sarah went on a call,’ Rowena said uncertainly. ‘Nick might know. He was the last to see her.’

  ‘How did she go?’ Barry asked, then he turned to David again. ‘Did you get that hire car?’

  David shook his head.

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Then she didn’t take that, and your car’s where it was and Rowena’s car is behind the surgery. How did she go?’

  Rowena’s fearful tension turned to nausea and she saw David’s face pale as he repeated Barry’s words.

  ‘How did she go?’

  CHAPTER TEN

  ‘WHERE’S Mary-Ellen?’ David asked the policeman when no one answered the question which had echoed hollowly around the kitchen.

  ‘I haven’t checked but I assume she’s at the guest-house,’ Barry said. ‘Why?’

  David realised how many people were waiting for an answer, and knew he couldn’t voice his totally unfounded suspicions.

  ‘She’s probably the only other stranger on the island at the moment so would be the least likely to have heard of the fire. I thought she and Sarah might have been together…’

  Fear and tiredness weighed down his shoulders as he paced the room, trying to work out what could have happened.

  ‘Nick saw Sarah go—where’s he?’ Rowena asked, the huskiness of her voice revealing her hidden terrors.

  David moved closer to her, aching to take her in his arms and assure her everything would be all right. But who was he to be making such assurances, and how could he hold her when his gut instinct told him he’d be putting her in danger if he revealed how he felt?

  ‘I’ll ask him, and put out a radio call,’ Barry said. ‘It’s dark outside so we can’t do much till daybreak, but if you hear anything at all, let me know. That chap’s going to be phoning all night long.’

  ‘Well, at least I won’t have to worry about being tried for murder,’ David muttered to Rowena. ‘That chap, as Barry calls Sarah’s Tony, will kill me if anything’s happened to her.’ 163

  Rowena’s fingers clasped his arm, tightening on his muscle as if to hold him back from danger, and a warmth he shouldn’t have been considering right now swept through him.

  ‘Rowena!’ He murmured her name with a helplessness he’d never felt before, as fear and frustration were overcome by a need to explain.

  A tiny glimmer of light lit the clear beauty of her eyes, and a tremulous smile wavered uncertainly on her lips. And suddenly, in the hospital kitchen, amid staff and chaos, with his wife dead, his best friend missing and a murder charge hanging over his head, David knew for certain he’d fallen in love again. That what he felt for Rowena went deeper than desire, deeper than anything he’d ever felt before—or ever imagined he could feel again.

  ‘Let’s go back to work,’ she said quietly. ‘Do what we can, and forget about the other things for a while.’

  ‘I’m going to roster people through the night so we’ve staff capable of functioning tomorrow if we can’t fly out the worst cases.’

  Jackie’s voice broke through the fragile web of magic, which the suggestion of a smile had woven, and David dug deep, summoning up reserves of professionalism, blotting out both love and fear.

  ‘Jane’s already gone off duty, and the junior and one aide will go off at ten.’

  She looked enquiringly at David.

  ‘Are you and Rowena prepared to stay? I think you’ll be playing nurse rather than doctoring, but we need the extra hands.’

  ‘Of course we’ll stay.’ David answered for Rowena as well and once again, through all the concerns eating away at him, came the warmth he now associated with all his thoughts of her.

  But when Barry returned at midnight to report that no one had seen or heard from Sarah, nothing could take away the cold certainty that something evil had befallen her.

  ‘All Nick saw was a figure in an oilskin waiting by the door of the surgery.’

  ‘And where was Mary-Ellen at the time? Have you asked her that?’

  Barry lifted his heavy shoulders in a weary shrug.

  ‘She drove out to the farm for a picnic lunch, she says. Wanted to see the old place once again before she leaves.’

  ‘She’s leaving? You’re letting her go? And how? How can she leave?’

  ‘Special charter flight tomorrow morning. It will come in after the air ambulance. Sarah’s husband’s coming over on it. A couple of homicide detectives as well, so they’ll interview the lady at the airport and it will be up to them to decide whether or not she can leave.’

  Barry paused.

  ‘I’ve no reason to suggest they keep her here,’ he added. ‘None at all! And they’ll warn her about letting them know where to find her on the mainland.’

  There was another, longer pause then Barry asked, ‘Why don’t you trust her?’

  Rowena had joined them by the door of the main ward, and David sensed support in her presence.

  ‘I don’t know.’ He spoke slowly, trying to put formless impressions into words. ‘It’s as if I hadn’t known her at all—or perhaps she turned into another person when Sue-Ellen disappeared…As if she’d taken on her sister’s persona in some kind of ghostly—ghastly—transformation.

  ‘Because she is her sister,’ Rowena whispered, her eyes dark with a horror David couldn’t understand. She turned to Barry and clasped his arm. ‘The photos—where are the photos Nick took? Nick and I were looking at them in the café, on the table, then David came in and I went back to the surgery. Get the photos from Nick.’

  She made an order of the words then spun away, crossing the ward to where Jackie leant over Shaun Riley, taking a quarter-hourly observation of the man’s vital signs.

  Barry muttered something about crazy women and departed while David watched the whispered conversation between the two women. Then Rowena walked away, heading for the office, the agitation so evident in her steps that David followed.

  ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’

  Rowena turned towards him, dark-lashed eyes huge in her ash-white face. She shook her head as if words were now beyond her, but as he stepped towards her she held up her hand.

  ‘Go back to work, David. There are patients who need you in there.’

  He hesitated but in the end he obeyed, and Rowena, seeing the weariness and defeat in the slump of his shoulders, knew she’d killed the fragile bud of whatever it was that had sparked between them earlier.

  But it had to die, she told herself. If h
er worst fears proved true, then David, being the man he was, would stand by his—

  Wife!

  The word crashed through her head, shattering her dreams. And here she was, seeking the proof which would destroy her own happiness.

  The keys to the storeroom were in the drawer Jackie had indicated, but though the door unlocked easily the smell of musty paper suggested it wasn’t opened often.

  Filed by year, Jackie had said. Well, that was easy to work out as Rowena had been seven the year she’d broken her leg. Midsummer and she’d been jumping off the high rocks at the beach to show her brothers she could do it.

  Back then, the old Trusty had serviced the island weekly, so minor accidents had been treated at the hospital. Old Sister Caine had set her leg, joking about the practice she’d had that summer because one of the Merlyn twins, over at their grandfather’s for the holidays, had broken her leg two days earlier.

  ‘You’ll be company for each other in hospital,’ Sister had said, but Sue-Ellen—and Rowena was certain it had been Sue-Ellen but she had to see the file for confirmation—had preferred the company of the nurses and aides, preferred being petted and spoilt and told how beautiful she was.

  ‘So the body should have had an old break in her right leg?’ Barry muttered when he returned to find the old file open on the desk and Rowena waiting for him beside it. ‘Could you see that in a photo?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Rowena said crossly, ‘but I’m pretty sure you can see if a bone hasn’t been broken. I know I didn’t get a good look at the photo, but my impression was that it was undamaged.’

  She shifted impatiently.

  ‘Have you got them—the photos?’

  Barry shook his head.

  ‘Sorry! Nick’s out searching for Sarah. I contacted him on the two-way but the reception’s so bad I couldn’t make him understand what we wanted. He probably has the photos on him.’

  ‘The woman we thought was Mary-Ellen smashed the camera Nick was using in that room. Did she remember the broken leg and want to destroy the evidence of the unbroken one?’ Rowena thought for a moment, then contradicted herself. ‘No, that can’t be right—the real autopsy will reveal it if the bone’s unbroken.’

  ‘Yes, but once the body’s off the island, who’ll ask? I mean, someone’ll send me an autopsy report but under the circumstances I wouldn’t have shown it to David. Even supposing he knew she’d had a broken leg in her childhood.’

  ‘Who’d had a broken leg?’ David asked, appearing suddenly in the doorway. He didn’t wait for a reply but looked at Rowena. ‘Can you come? I’m going to operate on Toby’s wrist, open up the skin because the swelling’s blocking circulation to his hand.’

  ‘Did Sue-Ellen ever mention breaking her leg?’ Barry asked him, and David looked puzzled, then glanced at Rowena.

  ‘You think—No!’

  He shook his head, pain settling like a huge weight on his shoulders. ‘She had a scar, a small one, on her right leg, midway between ankle and knee, but I don’t remember her telling me how she got it. And it was so small, you’d barely notice it.’

  He looked from one to the other.

  ‘It won’t matter, you know. All the skin would be so desiccated you wouldn’t be able to tell.’

  ‘But you could see a mend in a bone,’ Rowena reminded him.

  ‘Or the scar on the skin of a woman still alive,’ Barry murmured.

  Rowena walked towards the door, her own disappointment and fear enough of a burden to bear.

  ‘Get the photos, Barry,’ she said. ‘And keep hold of them. Just in case.’

  He didn’t ask in case of what—didn’t need to.

  And David didn’t ask either but, what with Sarah missing and the possibility his wife might still be alive, he was probably beyond rational thought.

  At seven next morning, when staff sent home to sleep the previous evening were returning to relieve those on duty, a call came through from Bob Forster, a farmer at the far western end of the island. He needed an ambulance for a woman he’d found collapsed in his dairy.

  ‘A woman with red-gold hair?’ David demanded when Jane relayed the message.

  ‘I didn’t ask, but how many women are missing? It has to be Sarah,’ she said. ‘Barry’s on his way out there. Bob called him first.’

  She studied him then added, ‘I know it’s no use telling you to go and get some sleep. You’ll want to be here when she’s brought in—but at least go into the kitchen and have a solid meal. Rowena, you take him, and see he eats something. It sounds like Sarah will be out of action for a while, and we’ll need one functioning doctor.’

  David turned towards Rowena. She was pale with tiredness, and seemed diminished in some way. As if the night had stolen her last reserves of strength. The need to hold her—to comfort her—was almost overwhelming, but he knew his desire to tell her how he felt—to make plans and promises—would be impossible if Sue-Ellen was alive.

  Then he stepped towards her anyway. Damn it all! The relationship he’d dreamed of might be impossible but they were still friends. He put his arm around her and walked with her towards the kitchen, feeling the long lines of her body, the swell of her hip, as they moved together.

  The closeness made him think of all the might-have-beens and suddenly he realised too much had been left unsaid. Walking past the kitchen door, he steered her out onto the veranda where he turned her so he could look into her face.

  ‘I love you, you know,’ he told her, keeping his tone conversationally light. ‘That’s why I asked Sarah to come over, so I could clear up all the mess of Sue-Ellen’s disappearance—divorce her or have her declared dead, whichever the legal people thought appropriate—and start a new life with you. Courting you!’

  Rowena didn’t reply immediately, studying him instead, perhaps reading the truth of his words in his eyes.

  ‘I know that now,’ she murmured, before adding despairingly, ‘For all the good it will do us!’

  He lifted his shoulders in a helpless shrug, then nodded because she was right. Rowena knew him well. He wouldn’t, couldn’t, abandon Sue-Ellen right now, no matter what she’d done.

  As for leaving Rowena? Would such a thing be possible?

  He groaned and reached out for her, drawing her into his arms and holding her close, and then, with all the love and desperation in his heart, he kissed her.

  The approaching wail of the ambulance siren broke them apart. Rowena stepped away from him, reaching out for the veranda railing for support.

  ‘You go and see to her. I’ll come in shortly,’ she said, in her cool nurse-receptionist voice.

  It was tantamount to goodbye and David had to accept it, merely touching her lightly on the shoulder in the hope physical contact might convey the myriad emotions he couldn’t voice.

  Sarah was conscious—and vocal.

  ‘Barry told me Tony’s on his way. I’ve got to get out of here, David. I need to have a bath and clean up and look normal or he’ll go berserk.’

  In spite of his pain, David found himself smiling at this reaction from the woman who was weakly struggling to detach a fluid line from her wrist.

  ‘Normal’s going to be hard when you’ve a bruise the size of a fist on your cheek. Do you want to talk about it?’

  Sarah shuddered.

  ‘I’ve told Barry what happened. Talk about stupid. As soon as I saw who it was at the surgery door—saw it was Mary-Ellen—I should have walked away.’

  ‘You’re a doctor, you couldn’t walk away from a possible patient. But you must have gone with her in her vehicle—why?’

  Sarah’s smile started off brave but wavered slightly as the fearful memories shook her.

  ‘She had a gun, stupid! Of course I went with her. In fact, I drove.’

  ‘Another gun?’

  His disbelief was obvious.

  ‘Ask Barry,’ Sarah said, her voice weak with exhaustion.

  ‘Later,’ he assured her. ‘Right now, I want to get you settled. Yo
u need to rest. There’ll be no question of you going out to the airport if you don’t rest now.’

  David finished his examination. He couldn’t bear to think what his wife had done to this woman he counted as his best friend. For the moment, it was enough that Sarah was safe.

  ‘The air ambulance is coming in first, then the charter flight. I’ll check the times with Barry. I’ll have to go out to the airport with the patients, but someone will bring you out in time for the second plane.’

  ‘The fire—I didn’t even ask!’ Sarah said. ‘How terrible. The ambulancemen said it started with a chemistry experiment. Were there chemical burns as well?’

  Knowing his patient wouldn’t obey his orders to rest until she had details, he explained what had happened.

  ‘The school will bring in experts, of course, but apparently it was caused by a blocked chimney and a leaky gas fitting. A combination that was as unlikely as it was volatile.’

  Rowena came in as he finished and, sensing her quiet presence, he turned to her.

  ‘I want to check on the patients we’re sending to the mainland. Will you stay with Sarah?’

  ‘Of course,’ she said.

  But seeing the two of them together made David uneasy. He’d been carefully protecting Rowena, but it seems Sarah had been the one in danger. If Mary-Ellen was indeed Sue-Ellen, could her jealousy of a woman she’d never met have lasted all this time?

  The fact that Sue-Ellen hadn’t loved him—well, not solely him—made her possible jealousy of Sarah seem even more unreasonable.

  Unreasonable, or something more sinister? Psychotic?

  And if the woman—whether Sue-Ellen or Mary-Ellen—was mentally unstable, was Sarah safe even now?

  David felt as if his head were being squeezed in a vice. He had to check on the patients they were airlifting out, but he needed to talk to Barry as well. A quick phone call…

  Duty won. There were too many checks to be made before transporting seriously injured patients for him to deny them the time. He’d have to leave whichever twin it was to Barry and Nick.