by BJ Hoff
Andrew moved, meaning to catch her if she fell, but she groped her way to her feet and stood staring at him, wringing her hands, her eyes darting everywhere but at him. “I’d like you to leave now, doctor. Obviously, you’re not going to do anything for me, so please go.”
Andrew sensed the woman was on the verge of hysteria, that arguing with her or trying to placate her might merely serve to increase her distress. Besides, he had nothing to offer her at the moment but a solicitude that to Natalie Guthrie must seem empty and worthless.
But in that moment as they stood facing each other, the thought struck him anew that this woman, once so stately and self-controlled, was being destroyed from within. And not from any mortal physical ailment, for he had exhausted every test at his disposal for some insidious illness. No, whatever blight had descended on Natalie Guthrie might be every bit as malignant as a cancer and as brutal as a punishing disease, but he was convinced it had taken deep root in her soul and was now spreading over her entire being, eating away at her body, mind, and spirit.
To his silent despair, he had to admit that she was right—that he couldn’t help her, except perhaps through his prayers. All he could do, it seemed, was assure the woman that he had no intention of giving up, that he was committed to her healing. She responded with an agitated twist of her hands, and after another moment Andrew left the room and went downstairs to take his leave of a badly disappointed—and exceedingly frustrated—Edward Fitch.
11
THE JOURNALS
Our deeds pursue us from afar,
And what we have been makes us what we are.
JOHN FLETCHER
By the time Andrew returned to the office, he was beyond tired. His joints had been aching since morning, his hands and wrists badly swollen. He’d even begun to wonder if the salicylates were losing their effectiveness. Had he used them so long and so frequently that their benefits were diminishing?
And if that were the case, then what was he to do?
He was too weary to think about that tonight. Yet he couldn’t help but recall the plaintive expression on Natalie Guthrie’s face when she asked him to give her “something to help me sleep.”
Something to make the misery go away…
How well he knew that longing. And because he did know it so well, he also knew why he dared not give in to the disturbed woman’s plea.
Andrew sighed as he turned the key in the lock. He would just collect the newspapers and go on upstairs to his living quarters to rest awhile. Please, God, let there be no late-hour emergencies tonight. He badly needed a full night’s sleep.
He stood in the open doorway to the office waiting room, looking around. Everything looked perfectly normal, just as he’d left it. Yet as he closed the door behind him, he was seized by the peculiar sensation that something was different, something was wrong.
An irrational sense of invasion stirred in him.
So strong was the sensation that he delayed entering. When he finally crossed the room, he glanced at the counter that divided the waiting area from the offices and examining rooms. Because both he and Bethany had decided they could do without a receptionist, at least for the time being, only the two of them had access to the files and other papers neatly stacked in place on the desk. Their appointment pads were still open to today’s list of patients. Clearly, nothing had been disturbed.
But even though he saw nothing out of place, Andrew still couldn’t shake the unsettling feeling that something was amiss.
He went to the larger of the two examining rooms and found the door open. He was certain he’d closed it. Out of habit, he always closed the doors to both examining rooms and his office when he left the premises.
The last of the day’s light was gone, so the room was dark. Andrew lit one of the two gas lamps on the wall, then turned to face the room.
The first thing he saw was the window on the back wall. Someone had broken it from the outside. Shattered glass was strewn on the counter below and across the floor.
An evening breeze filtered through the shards of glass left intact, cooling the room. Andrew’s first thought as he looked around was that one of the countless stray dogs that continually roamed the city streets was responsible for the chaos. But dogs didn’t break windows, and no dog could have left behind such destruction and debris. Only human hands could have plundered the room with such violence.
The examining table had been thrown onto its side, and trash from the waste barrel had been pitched every which way about the room. Cabinet drawers had been overturned, their contents strewn onto the floor, along with towels and surgery pads and instruments.
His gaze went to the storage cabinets above the counter. Their doors hung open, the locks broken and thrown aside.
Andrew stumbled the rest of the way into the room and found the medicines that he kept locked inside the cabinets—including narcotics and anesthetics—now in total disarray. Some bottles had been overturned, others broken.
For a moment Andrew could only stand in shock, staring at the ruin before him. A vessel at his temple began to throb with pain. He whipped around, his heart hammering at the idea of what might be lurking at his back.
Nothing was there, and the ominous silence told him he was alone. Whoever was responsible for this wreckage had come and gone.
Fear traced the length of his spine as he stood staring into the hallway and beyond, into the waiting room.
He was shaking like a palsied old man as he turned back to the cabinets and began to rummage through the medicines, trying to recall the contents. Even though his hasty, nervous inspection was far from precise, he was almost positive nothing had been taken.
Why, then, had the room been ransacked?
He went to the second examining room and found much the same scene he’d left behind him. Here, too, the cabinet doors had been forced open, the shelves cluttered with broken bottles and spilled powders.
Slowly, fighting for his breath, Andrew began to back away, trying to think what to do. His first thought was an almost overwhelming sense of relief that Bethany was out of the office. Who knew what some larcenous thug or half-wild addict might have done to her had she been here?
But this couldn’t have been the work of an addict looking for drugs…nothing had been taken!
Completely bewildered, Andrew stood leaning against the frame of the examining room door rubbing his right shoulder, which was on fire with pain. Then his gaze went to the open door of the private study he and Bethany shared—the door he always closed behind him.
His heart hammered against his rib cage as he walked toward the darkened room. After lighting the lamp on the wall, he saw his fears realized. His desk was a shambles—papers tossed everywhere, the drawers emptied and their contents strewn about. Books ripped apart and tossed from the wall shelving.
Mindless destruction.
Somehow he managed to still the shaking of his hands. He dropped down onto his knees and riffled through the debris. Patient notes, unpaid bills, correspondence—everything seemed to be here, though much of it had been crumpled and torn.
His journals.
Panic squeezed his heart and churned his blood as he looked around, then slowly got to his feet.
He had kept the journals most of his life—year after year of daily entries that tracked his time at medical college and then his experience in private practice, first in Scotland, next in the States. Accounts of his successes and his failures. The cases over which he had puzzled and agonized. The patients who had both frustrated and challenged him. His struggles and his sorrows. His health problems. His growing love for Bethany. Intensely personal and private, more spiritual in nature than merely a day-by-day accounting of his life, those journals revealed the very essence of his life.
And its secrets. Including his earlier drug addiction, known by no one here in his adopted country except Bethany. Not even Frank Donovan, his closest friend, knew the terrible secret of that other, dark period of his life.
/> It was all there, in the journals.
And the journals were gone.
Only God knew who had taken them.
Or why.
The fabric of his deepest fears fell away, revealing in all its horror the long-confined but never quite suppressed dread that some day, somehow, his past would be found out and he would be known for what he had been: an addict. A weak, pathetic addict who had risked everything—and nearly lost everything—for the sake of the narcotics that imprisoned him and held him captive.
Cold rushed in on him like a howling wind. Over the thundering of his heart and the roaring in his head Andrew thought he could hear the door to his hard-won peace—and any hope for future happiness—close with a resounding thud.
Half an hour later, Andrew was still trying to dismiss his urgent desire to go to Bethany. He wanted to be with her—he needed to be with her. But he didn’t want to alarm her. Besides, her landlady would certainly frown on the impropriety of his presence in Bethany’s flat without a chaperone, especially after dark.
He knew it would be best to wait until morning to talk with her here, at the office. But oh, how he craved the soothing effect of her presence, her warmth, her good judgment, at this moment.
Instead, he decided to summon Frank Donovan. He needed a policeman, but not just any policeman. Frank was not only his friend, but was acknowledged even by his contemporaries to be one of the shrewdest and most dependable officers on the force.
There was no denying that things were not quite as comfortable between them as they once had once been. In truth, Andrew still smarted a bit from Frank’s thoughtless opinion about Bethany’s “unsuitability” as a wife, his assumption that she wasn’t likely to be as devoted a wife as she was a physician.
That argument had been months ago. Frank had said too much; Andrew had taken offense; and for several weeks the two had avoided each other. Lately, however, they had taken to having a chat whenever they happened to meet, and Frank was again stopping by the office for an occasional cup of coffee. Most of the time things seemed almost back to normal.
Even if that had not been the case, Andrew knew this was no time to let pride get in the way of common sense. He would send one of the newsboys who lived on the streets to find Frank and fetch him here.
Frank would know what to do.
It occurred to him that he would have to tell Frank about the journals—and that in turn would necessitate telling him at least something about what was in the journals.
Andrew recoiled at the very thought.
A man knows when he has another man’s respect, even his admiration. Andrew had long been aware that, in spite of his friend’s barbed sense of humor and his bluff demeanor, Frank held him in high regard.
What would he think once he learned the truth?
As he went to find a messenger, Andrew was surprised how much it hurt to think of losing Frank Donovan’s respect—or possibly even his friendship.
12
SECRETS OF A GOOD MAN
For the thing I greatly feared has come upon me,
And what I dreaded has happened to me.
JOB 3:25 (NKJV)
Andrew felt sheepish admitting, even to himself, how Frank Donovan’s presence in the building eased his mind.
The big Irish policeman could be annoying, no doubt about it, with his ruthless sense of humor and his brash, jaded opinion of human nature. But at a time like this he was all business—deadly serious, with a keen, incisive way of assessing a situation for what it was. It didn’t hurt that he emanated a kind of coiled strength, a powerful physicality that could explode any second with dire consequences. While this quality could be downright intimidating to those on his “bad side,” Andrew found it reassuring to his own situation.
“You all right, Doc?” Frank said, taking off his hat and tossing it onto the counter in the waiting room.
Frank had spent only a few minutes inspecting the wanton damage of the office. Now he leaned against the counter in the waiting room watching Andrew, who had finally given in to the pain in his legs and sunk down onto a nearby wooden chair.
Andrew was anything but all right, but he merely nodded.
“Well, I’d say you got yourself an enemy. Any idea who it might be?”
Andrew looked up. “Are you saying this is not just a case of breaking and entering?” Even as he said the words, he already knew the answer.
Obviously, Frank did, too. He traced his mustache with an index finger, his dark eyes boring into Andrew. “No, I’m not thinkin’ it is. Who’s got it in for you, Doc? Any ideas?”
“You must see this sort of thing all the time—vandalism and the like. Why do you think this might be—anything different?”
“What do you think it was?” Frank said, his gaze never wavering.
“A patient who thinks his bill is too high, perhaps?”
Andrew’s attempt at lightness failed badly. Frank’s arched eyebrow made it clear he was not amused.
“So what’s gone missin’?” Frank asked. “You said there was no sign of any medicines taken. No other valuables?”
“Not that I could tell,” Andrew said, massaging his swollen knuckles. “Everything seems to be here except…some journals from my office.”
Frank frowned. “Medical journals?”
“No,” said Andrew with a slow shake of his head. “Personal. Quite a few, actually. They go back a number of years.”
“A kind of diary, then?”
Andrew nodded. “Yes. I expect you’d consider it foolishness, but I’ve always kept an accounting of—things that happen in my life.”
Frank was studying him—measuring him—with a speculative expression. “I don’t find any foolishness about you, Doc, and that’s the truth. So, why would somebody be interested in these journals, then? And do you have a thought as to who that somebody might be?”
Andrew looked at him. “No.” At Frank’s skeptical look, Andrew said again, “I’ve no idea, Frank. Really. And as for—”
He stopped, humiliation washing over him.
“Doc?”
Andrew put his head in his hands and pressed his fingers against his aching temples. “There are some intensely personal things in those journals, Frank,” he said without looking up. “Things I’d not want…anyone to know.”
There was a long silence. Then, “Tell me something, Doc. Whatever is in these journals, could it hurt you at all?”
Andrew looked up, then dropped his hands to his knees. “Oh, yes, Frank. It could hurt me a great deal.”
Frank pushed away from the counter but remained standing where he was, arms folded across his chest. “Well, see here, Doc. I don’t need to know what’s in those journals to help you get them back. But it might make my job a sight easier if you could at least give me an idea as to who might want to hurt you.”
“Who—”
“Don’t you see, Doc? Somebody’s gone to a lot of trouble here.” Frank made a sweeping gesture to take in the waiting room and the entire expanse of the office.
“But if you’re right and nothing was taken save for your journals, then I’m thinking they made the mess simply to put a scare into you or at least rattle you a bit. And as for the journals themselves, from what you’re tellin’ me, they’d not be worth much to anyone but you.”
He stopped. “Unless someone is looking to hurt you. Maybe embarrass you somehow, if there’s anything of a nature in those journals that would lend itself to that.”
The ache in Andrew’s skull now escalated to a nearly unbearable pain. Between the headache and the fire in his joints, he found it almost impossible to think clearly.
But he could reason well enough to take in the awful truth of Frank’s words.
“It wouldn’t just embarrass me,” he said, his voice strangled. “It could ruin me.”
He heard Frank Donovan draw a long breath, knew the man was waiting for him to say more. When Andrew remained silent, Frank finally offered what he undoubtedly intended
as an encouragement, but it only served to make Andrew more miserable as he realized that he couldn’t afford not to confide in his friend.
“Well, we can’t have that, I’m thinkin’,” Frank said with a forced cheerfulness. “You’re a good man, Doc—one of the few in this wretched city, I’ll wager. You don’t deserve to be treated so. I’ll take care of this—never you worry.”
Frank sounded awkward—and uncertain.
“Frank—”
“Just don’t fret yourself, Doc. I said I’d handle it.”
“Frank, listen to me.”
Again Andrew lowered his head to his hands. He didn’t look at his friend, couldn’t bring himself to face the disappointment and disillusionment—and the disgust—that would surely register in those dark, merciless eyes when Frank learned the truth.
13
OLD KNIFE, NEW PAIN
Who made the heart, ’tis He alone
Decidedly can try us.
ROBERT BURNS
Andrew told Frank everything. He told him about his former drug addiction, making no attempt to soften his words when he described what he had once been, how low he had fallen, what a shameful wretch he was at that time. It occurred to Andrew that it was as difficult to relate his ugly story to Frank as it had been to tell Bethany.
But he went on, faltering only once or twice as he recounted how the addiction had been precipitated by a well-intentioned physician and instructor at the medical college who meant only to ease the agony of Andrew’s rheumatoid arthritis. The hardest part came when he forced himself to describe, in some detail, what it had been like to give up the opium.
“You can’t imagine,” he said, his voice low. “No one who hasn’t watched it or gone through it can begin to understand what it’s like.”
Frank broke in. “Doc, I’ve known my share of addicts. Don’t put yourself through this. You owe me no explanations.”
Andrew regarded his friend, tempted to take his suggestion, to stop right now and say nothing more. But that seemed too easy. For some inexplicable reason, he felt he needed to hold nothing back.