by Irene Hannon
“That’s what the report says.”
“All right. Thanks. I’m on my way.” Adam replaced the receiver, grabbed his briefcase and headed out the door. Janice gave him an anxious look as he strode past the desk, but he hardly paused, speaking over his shoulder in a clipped, rapid-fire tone.
“Cancel all my appointments for the rest of the day. I’m heading to Memorial Hospital in Asheville. Nicole was in a car accident. She has head injuries. And see if you can track down Clare. I’ll call when I know something.”
Adam didn’t remember the drive to the hospital. All he knew was that he broke every speed law in the books. And that he prayed more fervently than he had in a long, long time.
When he reached the hospital, Adam parked his car illegally right outside the emergency room and almost ran inside. A woman who looked badly shaken, her arm in a sling, stopped him inside the door.
“Dr. Wright?”
He turned to her with an impatient frown. “Yes?”
“I’m Kathleen Foster. We met at the holiday concert at school. I’m so sorry about this.” She was close to tears, and her face had an unhealthy pallor. “The truck crossed the median and I…I did the best I could.”
Her voice broke, and despite his own panic, Adam shifted into doctor mode. “I’m sure you did. Look, Mrs. Foster, why don’t you sit here for a few minutes?” He guided her to a chair. “I’m going to check with the doctor in charge. Is someone coming to be with you?”
She sniffed and nodded. “My h-husband is on his way. M-my daughter’s still back there, but I w-wanted to catch you when you arrived.”
“You just take it easy for a few minutes.”
Adam left her, then made his way to the receptionist. “I’m Dr. Adam Wright. My daughter was in the car accident. I’d like to speak to the attending physician. Stat.”
At his authoritative tone, the woman nodded and pressed a button, releasing the door to the emergency room. “Come in, please. I’ll get her.”
Sixty eternal seconds later, a tall, slender woman with short-cropped dark hair joined him inside the door and held out her hand.
“Dr. Wright? Ellen Grady. First, relax. I think your daughter will be fine. She hit the side of her head against the window when the car turned over, and she was unconscious for a few minutes. She’s alert now, and there’s no sign of serious trauma. Just a mild concussion, and some pretty colorful bruises on her right arm and leg.”
Adam felt the coil of tension in his stomach ease slightly, and he wiped a shaky hand down his face. “Thank God!” he said hoarsely.
“Your daughter has been asking for you. But before I take you back, do you have any questions?”
He forced himself to take a deep breath, then slowly let it out before asking a series of concise, pointed questions to verify that the appropriate, comprehensive battery of tests had been performed. When he was satisfied, Dr. Grady led him down the hall to Nicole.
She was lying on an examining table in one of the small rooms, holding an ice pack against a rapidly discoloring bump on her right temple, her French braid in disarray. And she looked scared. Adam quickly moved beside her, reaching down to gently brush the hair back from her face.
“Hi, sweetie.”
She reached out and grasped his hand tightly. “The truck was c-coming right at us, Dad,” she said, her voice catching on a sob, her eyes still wide with terror. “I—I thought we were going t-to die.”
He leaned down and pulled her slight, angular body close, burying his face in her hair. “It’s okay, sweetie. Everything’s okay now.”
He held her for a long moment, and when she finally spoke again, her voice was muffled against his chest. “Can we go home now, Dad?”
“I think so. Sit tight and I’ll check with Dr. Grady.”
He found the woman in the hall outside, and she confirmed his assessment. “Normally I might want to keep her for observation, but you certainly know what to look for,” she said. “And frankly, people are generally better off at home, anyway. I’ll sign the release and you can be on your way. Someone will be in to help Nicole dress.”
“Thanks. What about the others? I saw Mrs. Foster in the waiting room, with her arm in a sling.”
Dr. Grady nodded. “Dislocated collarbone. Her daughter has a sprained ankle. According to the police, it’s a miracle all three of them weren’t killed.”
“Is there someone who can tell me exactly what happened?”
The doctor snagged the sleeve of a passing aide. “Are any of the officers who came in with the car accident still here?”
The young man nodded. “There’s one in the coffee room. I’ll get him.”
While Adam waited, the receptionist came over to him. “Mrs. Foster asked me tell you that she and her daughter went home, but she left her phone number if you want to call her.” She held out a slip of paper.
“Thanks.”
“Dr. Wright? Officer Parisi.”
Adam turned and took the man’s proffered hand. “My daughter was in the accident. Can you tell me what happened?”
“Near as we can tell, a truck in the oncoming lane lost control. The driver of your daughter’s vehicle was alert and had good reflexes, so she was able to swerve out of the way and avoid a collision. Unfortunately, she slid off the edge of the highway and her vehicle fell onto its right side. It’s pretty much totaled, but at least no one was badly injured.” He shook his head. “This could have had a whole different ending if there’d been a head-on. Those three people were very lucky.”
Adam didn’t think it was just luck. But he let that pass. “Thank you, officer.”
“My pleasure. I wish all of my calls ended this well.”
Before he returned to the examining room, Adam stepped outside to phone Janice. After he gave her a quick update on the situation, he asked about Clare.
“I’ve been trying steadily since you left to reach her, but there’s no answer at your house or in her apartment.”
Adam frowned. “Okay. Thanks. Any urgent calls that I need to return?”
“Nothing that can’t wait.”
“All right. See you Monday.”
As Adam rang off and made his way back to the examining room, his frown was still in place. Where was Clare? Kathleen Foster might know, but she was on her way home. That left only Nicole.
She looked up when he rejoined her and started to get off the table, but Adam moved swiftly beside her. “Hey, not so fast! You’ve got one big lump on that hard head of yours, and you might be a little dizzy.”
She clung to him and closed her eyes when she stood. “Yeah,” she said faintly.
Once he had her buckled into the car, he slid behind the wheel and backed out. As he edged into traffic he glanced over at her. She had her head back and her eyes were closed.
“Nicole?”
“Hmm?” she said sleepily.
“Do you know where Clare is?”
“Home, I guess,” she mumbled.
He frowned. Not according to Janice. “Sweetie, why didn’t she drive you to the party?”
Nicole didn’t answer, and he glanced over. She’d snuggled into the corner, her lashes dark against her pale cheeks, and her even breathing told him that she was asleep. So he didn’t disturb her with more questions. Because in less than forty-five minutes they’d be home. And he’d find his own answers.
Clare’s car was in the garage.
As Adam set the brake on his own car, he frowned. She was obviously home now. But where had she been earlier? What had been so important that she couldn’t take Nicole to the party?
As Adam carefully unbuckled his daughter and lifted her gently in his arms, his tension began to give way to anger. She’d suffered only minor injuries in the accident, but according to the officer, the outcome could have been far worse. Nicole could have been killed. His gut clenched painfully, and he had to blink rapidly to clear his suddenly blurred vision. When he thought how close he’d come to losing the daughter he was only just beginning to find�
��. His mouth settled into a grim line. Clare better have a rock-solid reason for putting his daughter’s welfare into someone else’s hands, he thought angrily.
As soon as Adam had Nicole settled in her room, he headed to the garage. He took the steps two at a time, then rapped sharply on the door. As he waited for Clare to answer, he tried to think of an excuse that he would consider acceptable. He couldn’t come up with one, short of a death in the family.
He prayed that wasn’t the reason.
But he knew that anything less would represent a betrayal of the trust he’d placed in her when he’d given her responsibility for the care of his daughter.
It was a no-win situation.
Someone was using a jackhammer in the next room.
Clare struggled to raise her heavy eyelids. No, it was the door, she realized. Someone was knocking on her door. Though pounding might be a better description, she thought with a groan, when the noise intensified. And it didn’t sound as if they had any intention of going away.
With a supreme effort, she swung her feet to the floor and stood dizzily. Holding on to furniture for support, she made her way unsteadily to the door, where it took several fumbling tries before she managed to slide the lock back and pull it open.
Clare stared at Adam on the other side. At least she thought it was Adam. But she’d never seen that look on his face before. His eyes were cold and angry, and his mouth looked hard and tense. She tried to think clearly.
“Is something wrong?” she asked.
His eyes blazed. “Yes, something is wrong. Where have you been?”
“Here.”
“You never left the apartment today?”
“No. I’ve been sleeping.”
His frown deepened and his eyes grew even colder. “So there was no emergency?”
She stared at him blankly. “What?”
She saw a muscle twitch in his jaw. “Okay, look. I don’t have time to discuss this now. But there’s been a car accident. Nicole has a concussion. I brought her home from the hospital and I need to sit with her. We’ll talk about this later.”
He turned to go, and Clare clutched his sleeve, her eyes wide with shock. “Is she okay?”
Adam looked back at her. “No thanks to you,” he said tersely. “She could have been killed. You said you were going to drive her, Clare. I counted on you. I didn’t expect you to abdicate your responsibility and palm her off on Jennifer’s mother.”
Clare felt as if she’d been slapped. She recoiled slightly, her shoulders slumping as her eyes filled with tears. “Adam, I…I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “Please…let me sit with her.”
“I can take care of my own daughter,” he said stiffly, his eyes like ice.
And with that he turned away and disappeared down the steps.
Slowly Clare closed the door, numb with shock. Tremors ran through her body, and she wasn’t sure her wobbly legs would support her as she haltingly retraced her steps. But she didn’t crawl back into bed. Instead, she opened her closet and reached for a small box on the shelf. She set it on the bed and, with shaky fingers, gently lifted the lid.
The photo she wanted was right on top, and for a moment she simply stared at it, tracing the edge of the frame with her finger. Dennis and David smiled back at her from the frozen moment in time, so achingly familiar, so much a part of her, so alive—and yet gone forever. She’d snapped the photo a couple of weeks before the accident that had cut their lives far too short.
The accident she’d caused.
Just like today.
As she lifted the photo, Clare’s legs suddenly gave way and she sank to the floor. She put the photo against her chest and huddled into it, wrapping her arms around her body. She’d been here before. Felt the same crushing guilt. Over the past few months she thought she’d begun to deal with that burden, to gradually let it go. But now it came back, as sharp and intense and painful as ever. Thank God this ending had been different! But she could claim no credit for that. Once again, she’d shirked her duty and disaster had followed. Would she never learn?
For two long years, Clare had held her tears in check. But now they refused to be contained. For several moments they ran down her cheeks silently, and then a sob rose in her throat. And another. And still another. Until finally her body was wracked by them. Deep sobs filled with pain and regret and sorrow.
Clare had often felt alone since the accident. There had been times when the loneliness tunneled to the very depths of her soul, leaving her feeling hollow and empty. She didn’t want to go there again, she thought in anguish. Couldn’t go there again. Not if she wanted to survive.
Clare closed her eyes and rested her forehead on her knees. She desperately needed compassion. And kindness. And understanding. Thanks to Reverend Nichols, she’d found her way back to the ultimate source of all of those things. The One who didn’t need words. Who could read what was in her heart and know what was needed.
And so Clare didn’t even try to articulate the complexity of her emotions, the intensity of her distress, the depth of her despair. She just sent a simple, heartfelt plea.
Lord, I need You! Please help me!
With an effort, Adam forced his face to relax before he stepped into Nicole’s room. But it wasn’t easy. He was more angry than he’d ever been in his life. Clare had offered no explanation, no excuse for shirking her duty. He had trusted her with his most precious gift—his daughter—and she’d betrayed that trust. He found that hard to forgive.
Nicole looked at him when he entered the room. She was still far too pale, and the bump was now a garish purple, but the terror had faded from her eyes. He sat down on the bed and took her hand.
“How are you, sweetie?”
“My head hurts.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small pen-light. “I’m not surprised. You might have a headache for a few days. Let’s have a look at those pupils.” He flashed the light in each eye, getting the response he hoped for. “Looking good. You just need to rest. I’ll be close by.”
She snuggled deeper into the bed and let her eyelids drift closed. But she opened them as he started to rise. “Dad? How’s Clare?”
He looked down at her with a frown, wondering if her thinking was still a little muddled. “She wasn’t in the accident, sweetie.”
Nicole gave him an exasperated look. “I know that. She stayed here because she was sick. That’s why Mrs. Foster took me. Is she okay?”
The twin furrows on Adam’s brow deepened. Clare had finished her stint as a temporary receptionist the prior week, and he’d hardly seen her the past few days as he struggled to deal with an unusual spring outbreak of the flu. He tried to replay the encounter he’d just had with her, but he’d been so upset and angry that his powers of observation hadn’t exactly been at their peak. Now that he thought about it, though, she had looked a little flushed. And her eyes…hadn’t they seemed a bit dull and slightly unfocused?
“Dad?”
Nicole’s voice brought him back to the present, and he reached down to give her hand a squeeze. “I’m going to run over there right now and check on her. I’ll be back in a few minutes, okay?”
“Okay.”
As Adam strode back toward the garage, a queasy feeling began to grow in the pit of his stomach—along with a growing certainty that he’d been way out of line, that he’d jumped to conclusions and wrongly berated Clare. After all these months, didn’t he know her well enough to know that she’d never do anything to endanger Nicole? How could he have been so stupid? Even though he’d been upset about the accident and his nerves had been stretched to the breaking point, that didn’t give him the right to take out his stress on the woman who had given him back his daughter in the first place.
Adam took the stairs two at a time, lifted his hand to knock—and froze. The muffled sound of raw, heartbreaking sobs came through the door, and he closed his eyes, feeling as if someone had kicked him in the gut. God forgive me, he prayed, his hands ballin
g into fists.
Adam didn’t even knock. He tried the door, found it open, and stepped into the dimness. The sound of Clare’s anguished sobs led him to the bedroom, his stomach clenching more tightly with every step. And the sight of her huddled miserably on the floor, her head bent, her slight shoulders heaving, made him feel physically sick.
He went down on one knee beside her and laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Clare?”
She raised dull, bleary eyes to him, but it seemed to take a moment for his presence to register. She was clutching a picture frame to her chest. “I—I’m so s-sorry, Adam,” she said hoarsely, repeating her earlier apology.
His drew a ragged breath. “I’m the one who’s sorry.” Then he reached for her and gathered her slender, shaking body into his arms.
Adam felt her misery at the deepest level of his soul, and the incoherent snatches of phrases that were interspersed with her sobs tore at his heart.
“My fault… Selfish… My responsibility…Accident…no…! Not gone…! Nicole, please… So alone…”
“Shh, it’s okay, Clare. It’s okay.” He stroked her back gently and pulled her closer, his chin dropping to graze her forehead. But when his skin made contact with hers he quickly backed off in alarm and stared down at her. She was burning up! Her face was flushed, and not just from crying. He placed a cool palm against her fiery forehead and tried not to panic as he reached for her wrist to check her pulse. She had been trembling before, from emotion, but suddenly her whole body began to shake with bone-jarring chills.
“Clare.” When she didn’t respond, he tried again, more insistently. “Clare!”
She lifted her head and tried to focus on him.
“Clare, how long have you been sick?” he asked, speaking slowly.
“Since l-last night,” she whispered hoarsely, her teeth chattering.
“Have you been throwing up?”
He wasn’t surprised when she nodded. He’d treated enough cases to recognize the symptoms and instantly diagnose the problem. But this was one of the worst cases of flu he’d seen. She needed immediate—and constant—attention. And so did Nicole. Which meant there was only one solution.