Текст книги "Brain Dead"
Автор книги: Eileen Dreyer
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Brain Dead
A Suspense Novel
by
Eileen Dreyer
New York Times bestselling Author
BRAIN DEAD
Reviews & Accolades
4 ½ Stars – Romantic Times
REVIEWS
"Dreyer writes with great wit and sensitivity, especially about the problems of loving and coping with older relatives."
~The Times-Picayune
"Riveting plot, terrifying premise..."
~Tami Hoag, NYT Bestselling Author of DOWN THE DARKEST ROAD
"Eileen Dreyer knocks readers off their feet with wit and dark humor. You won't forget the power, pain and moral ambiguity of this incredible novel."
~Romantic Times
"There is an old forensic saying: "Never say never and never say always." But when Eileen Dreyer writes about forensics and mysteries, the result is always highly entertaining and always forensically correct!"
~Mary Case, Medical Examiner St. Louis County
"This book climbs and spins and wheels and drop-rockets along... Readers are likely to feel dizzy for a spell."
~St. Louis Post Dispatch
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www.epublishingworks.com
ISBN: 978-1-61417-351-9
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Please Note
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Copyright © 1997, 2012 by Eileen Dreyer. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.
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Thank You.
I have had the rare privilege to know some singular, rare Irish characters in my life: Grandpa Dunne; Uncle Bill; both Uncle Eddies; Uncle Tom; Uncle Joe; Pa Quinn; Uncle Fal; Uncle Jimmy; Chris King, who taught me the forbidden verses of Irish songs; Sean O'Driscoll in his enchanted castle; and my mother, Dode Dunne Helm, whom I will always remember laughing. When each of you left, the world lost a little magic we'll never see again. I hope you don't mind that I've woven bits of you into the warp and weave of Joe Leary.
The lions of the hills are gone.
It is always with the best intentions that
the worst work is done.
~ Oscar Wilde, "Intentions," 1891
Acknowledgments
Once again, I would like to thank the people who gave so graciously of their time and talent to help me with this book:
Dr. Mary Case and Mary Fran Ernst of the St. Louis County Medical Examiner's Office; John Maguire of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Virginia Lynch and the International Association of Forensic Nurses; everyone at the Alzheimer Association of St. Louis, especially Joan McKinnick; Harvey Kerr of USC-Los Angeles County Medical Center; Betty Jordan of the Chicago Police Department; Steffie Walker, dear friend and spokesperson for her people; John Podolak of the St. Louis Police Department and his wife, Michelle, for proofreading; and, of course, to the best editor in the business, Carolyn Marino, who makes me work so hard.
The mistakes, as usual, are mine—or, if you'd like, dramatic license.
My thanks also to the Divas for support above and beyond the call, especially Tami Hoag for dealing with all this first and Karyn Witmer-Gow for judicious butt-kicking. And, of course, Rick and the kids for putting up with endless Chinese and much-too-enthusiastic discussions about the effects of arson.
A final note about geography. Neither Puckett nor Puckett County exist. With apologies to Washington, Missouri, which I blithely moved down the river a ways, I squeezed in Puckett to provide me with a county without an adequate coroner's system that close to St. Louis. Hope you guys don't mind.
Prologue
The angel of death came at dawn. It wasn't the usual time for the angel to make its appearance; the old man knew that. He was familiar with the breed. He'd seen them hover in the fetid midnight of a jungle, heard their sly rustle at 3 a.m. in the alleys that crooked away from taxi stands like spider legs in the cold night air. He'd fought off a few and given one or two a knowing nod. He'd danced one step ahead of them for some seventy-eight years, and he wasn't in the mood to let this one catch up with him now.
Especially not here.
It was too clean here, too impersonal. The old man wanted to meet this angel on his feet, head up, eyes wide open, in the kind of place he'd always fought his fights. He wanted the chance to beat it back just one more time before giving in to the inevitable.
Go gentle, my ass, he thought, curling his bent, broken fingers into fists beyond the wrist straps that made him impotent and old.
"My name is Butch Cleveland," he rasped with a voice ruined by beer, cigarettes, and parade grounds. "United States Marine Corps. Serial number 3124456. And that's all you're getting from me, you son of a bitch."
"I'm sorry," the angel said, bending over him.
It shouldn't be at dawn, Butch thought, squirming to get away when there was, ultimately, no place to go.
Not when the sun finally showed up. Death belongs in the night, deep in the dark hours of dreams and terrors, when sappers break the fences and two-dollar fares carry automatics. The dawn brings redemption. The sun means promise. Hope. Another night overcome.
"Not now," was all he could say, trembling.
"Shift's over," the angel told him.
He was crying now, ashamed of the tears and the trembling and his own terror. "I'm not going."
"Nothing you can do."
But there was. He fought the angel. He fought the pain. And, when it came to it, he fought the drug that had been injected into his IV for ten hours, more than anyone but a bull sergeant who had survived Tarawa and North Market could have withstood.
* * *
The angel of death walked back out of Butch Cleveland's room as the sun topped the low hills outside. Butch Cleveland, the angel knew, would now be obliging and die. Nobody could withstand that much Digoxin. Not even Butch. And when Butch did die, nobody would notice, because Butch was old and senile and sick.
The angel carefully recapped the used syringe and pushed the evidence into a bright-red contaminated supply box. Then, ever on the alert for the whisper of nursing shoes along the quiet hallway, the angel slipped back into the doorway of Butch's room to make certain of the results.
The angel believed in work well done, and Butch's death would be that. Just like the others. Just like the ones to come. After all this time, the angel knew how to do the job.
Ah, there it was. A gurgle. A gasp. A heartbeat of silence in the sterile, white-walled room. Smiling with quiet anticipation, the angel stepped from the shadows in order to see Butch Cleveland's eyes flutter to emptiness.
Butch Cleveland's eyes were wide open. His face was brick-red, his arms shaking against the restraints. The acrid stench of loosened bowels already permeated the air. Butch caught sight of the angel, haloed by the rising sun, and spat all the way across the room in a final act of defiance.
"Semper fi, you cocksucker!"
But no one in this place noticed an old man's scream. Butch Cleveland thrashed and choked in a dying seizure that lasted ten full minutes, and no one came. Only the angel, who watched with avid attention until the old man twitched into final, wide-eyed silence. Then, sighing with perfect satisfaction, the angel walked out to deal with the rest of the day.
Chapter 1
If a person's ex-husband had to come into the ER where she worked, she'd probably want him to come in looking just like Billy Mayfield: pea green, sweating like a pig, and puking up sock lint.
Billy was even considerate enough to show up about eleven on a Sunday morning in October. That way, not only could his ex-wife enjoy his near-operatic distress, so could her coworkers.
The ER at Memorial Medical Center wasn't usually busy, because Puckett, Missouri, wasn't usually a busy place. Tucked along the southern bank of the Missouri River about ninety miles west of the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, the town consisted mostly of a bedroom community that balanced its economy on farming, river traffic, and the encroaching St. Louis suburbs.
Memorial Medical Center especially wasn't a busy place on Sunday morning, when the greater percentage of the town was still in church. Therefore the only problems occupying the staff of the emergency department were a brace of abdominal pains and a mother who needed her ten-year-old cured of his flu by the big hockey game the next day.
There was one dead body in room five, but he didn't demand much attention. He certainly didn't press the Call button or complain about the wait. A perfect guest with all the time in the world, which was a good thing, because his nurse had been waiting at least two hours for the coroner to call back so she could stamp Mr. Cleveland's morgue pass.
That was the bad news. The good news was that Butch Cleveland was Timmie Leary-Parker's only patient, which meant she could waste a little time on a phone call to her daughter.
"You ready for Mass, Meghan?" she asked, cleaning her stethoscope with an alcohol wipe as she talked. She was perched on a charting desk with her feet on a chair, the crumbs from her breakfast bagel still caught in her lab coat pockets.
"I already went, Mom," the six-year-old informed her in arch tones. "Grandda and I have been singing."
Timmie stopped rubbing. She heard the whoop of a siren in the ambulance entrance, but chose to ignore it. "Singing what?"
"'Spar-Strangled Banner.'"
"'Star-Spangled Banner,'" Timmie corrected in relief, knowing just what other tunes her father could have been sharing. "You watching baseball?"
"The Astros. Renfield doesn't like the Astros. He wants the Dodgers. We haven't seen the Dodgers since we left home."
Timmie smiled. "Renfield's a lizard, hon. Lizards don't get to vote."
"He is not a lizard. He's a Jackson's chameleon. And he lives here, too, now."
"Well, find a show on flies and grasshoppers, and we'll tape it for him, okay? California grasshoppers."
Timmie was rewarded by a bright giggle and another "Mo-o-om," which, for a six-year-old girl, said everything.
"Hee-e-e-elp me-e-e-e-e!"
Timmie looked up. The ambulance had evidently arrived, carrying what sounded for all the world like that little girl in The Exorcist. Definitely new business. Somebody else's, Timmie fervently hoped. Whoever it was was making retching noises, which Timmie hated more than anything but drunks and lawyers.
"Whoa, what's that'" Dr. Barbara Adkins demanded as she sauntered over with her lunch, Mountain Dew in hand.
Timmie considered the hoarse wails that echoed off the tiled walls like reverb at a rock concert. "Hangover," she said.
"What hangover?" Meghan demanded in Timmie's ear.
"Nah," Barb said, dropping into one of the other chairs and draining half the can in one gulp. "Childbirth."
"Hog caller with a kidney stone," Timmie countered.
"Mo-o-om," Meghan intoned with marginal patience. "You were talking to me?"
Timmie focused on her daughter. "Yes, I was, baby. In fact, I was just about to ask you if you had your room cleaned, so you can go to the horse show with me this afternoon."
"After I write Daddy, for when he finds us."
"We're not lost, honey," Timmie reminded her. She didn't add that it was Meghan's dad who was lost, or that given enough time he'd remember to look for them. Probably any minute now, considering how badly Timmie's week was already going.
"He-e-e-e-e-el-p..."
"If I'm any judge of tonal qualities," Barb observed laconically as she lobbed her empty can toward the trash, "he's in room three. Wonder who's gonna get him?"
"New patient, room three," the intercom promptly announced. "Timmie Leary-Parker, room three."
The can hit the bucket with a clang for a three-pointer and Timmie sighed. "Of course."
Two years ago, Timmie had been married to an up-and-coming Los Angeles lawyer, mother of a beautiful preschooler, and employed as forensic and trauma nurse at the busiest gun-and-knife club in the country. Now she was divorced from a cocaine addict, her daughter was best friends with a reptile, and her career was reduced to puke patrol in a stop-and-go ER outside St. Louis. Was life wonderful or what?
"Okay," she capitulated. "Will somebody put out yet another call to the coroner about Mr. Cleveland? I know he's dead, but that doesn't mean he should have to put up with all that noise. In the meantime, as soon as I get off the phone with Meghan, I guess I'll be in doing the spew samba."
* * *
"The flu?" Timmie demanded of the EMTs ten minutes later as she hugged the far wall of room three in an effort to escape the pungent aromas emanating from the unwashed, unshaven, middle-aged man who moaned and twisted on her cart. "That's all this is?"
"No..." her patient managed between belly-rumbling groans. "I'm dyin' here... can't even... feel my fingers and toes..."
As much air as he was sucking in to replace his lost stomach contents, Timmie wasn't in the least surprised. "How long have you been sick?" she yelled loudly enough to be heard.
Behind her, the door opened and a tech leaned in. "Didn't you hear your page?" he demanded of her. "Phone."
Timmie was busy tossing the EMTs a fresh barf bucket and trying to climb into some kind of protective gown. "I'll call back," she said without turning around.
"It's your baby-sitter," he insisted. "Says it's urgent."
Timmie yanked on gloves. "Geez, I just talked to Meghan. She couldn't have had her problem then? Ask if it involves blood, smoke, or a badge. If not, it'll wait."
The door shushed closed just as her patient swung back into his favorite refrain of "Help me..."
"You're new," the EMT said to her. "Aren't you?"
Timmie smiled and forbore telling him that she wasn't new at all. Just back. Like the proverbial bad penny. Or Freddy Krueger. "Just moved from California. Want to tell me about my patient?"
"California?"
The EMT actually looked a little disappointed. Probably expected something more exotic from a California transplant with a guy's name. Timmie had short-cropped dark-brown hair, Irish skin, and blue eyes. Short, unpolished nails, standard-issue maroon scrubs and lab coat, and unimaginative white running shoes. Timmie thought of flashing the guy her tattoo to make him feel better, but decided this wasn't the time or the place. Nor was he the man she wanted to drop her pants for.
"And you came here?" he asked, incredulous.
Timmie grinned. "And I came here. To hear all about my patient."
The EMT snapped to attention. "Claims he's been sick about a week," he offered, clamping the patient's sweaty hands around the basin and beating a hasty retreat to the sink. "Definite double bucket, from the looks of his trailer."
"Timmie Leary-Parker, coroner, line two," the secretary droned over the paging system. "Timmie Leary-Parker."
Yanking her stethoscope from around her neck, Timmie headed for ground zero. "Of course he calls me now," she said to no one in particular. "Well, he can just wait a minute."
"Leary?" her patient demanded on a moan, his watery red eyes rolling Timmie's way. "You? Any relation to Joe?"
Timmie should have been more surprised. "Yep."
He flashed a sudden smile. "How is he?"
"Fine. Just fine."
Her patient nodded, lowered his head back into the bucket. "Good. He's somethin', Joe is..." He paused for another spectacular eruption, which didn't do Timmie's stomach any good. She wrapped the blood pressure cuff around his arm anyway.
"What's your name?" she asked.
"Is Ellen here?" the patient whined instead, his voice echoing inside the bucket. "She workin'?"
"Ellen?" Timmie asked.
"His name's Mayfield," the EMT said. "Billy Mayfield."
"Ellen Mayfield," Billy whined some more. "She works here. She's my wife."
"Was his wife," came the delighted announcement from the once-again-open doorway. "Hey there, Billy. Thought that was you in here singin' the porcelain psalm. How's it hangin'?"
Timmie turned again to find not Billy's ex, Ellen, but Barb Adkins, dessert soda in hand, grin on her wide, homely face.
Not standing, actually. Slouching, eyes half closed, head to the side. Barb was deceptively lazy-looking, slumping down so that her massive size seemed less a threat, her equally impressive brain less intimidating. Barb was an inch over six feet and a couple of pounds shy of two-fifty, all solid. She'd worked her way through med school as a bouncer up at the clubs on Laclede's Landing in St. Louis, and kept the ER's noisier patients in line just by standing over them.
"It's not hangin'," another voice offered behind her. "More like flyin'."
"Launching."
"Hurling."
Timmie had been mistaken. It wasn't just Barb leaning in the doorway, but damn near the entire membership of the SSS. The Suckered Sister Sorority, as they called themselves at moments of diminished self-respect. Divorce detritus. Left-behinds who shared stories and beer on Friday and intricate revenge plots any other time. Eight members, all told, including one male who demanded equal time and a lab tech who was still trying to make that all-important choice between divorce and murder.
And the gang was almost all here to share Ellen Mayfield's finest moment since the judge had awarded her full custody of the kids and the house. All, that is, except Ellen.
"Nice to see you guys," Timmie greeted them, her attention caught by Billy's blood pressure, which was low for all the energy he was expending. "You want to come in here and do this?"
Several heads shook emphatically. "Uh-uh."
"We're just the Greek chorus," Barb assured her.
"State's witnesses," somebody else agreed. "For the appropriate documentation of punishment."
"Get the fuck outta here!" Billy growled, his sagging cheeks gray and twitching beneath small, close-set eyes.
"Barb can't get out of here," Timmie said with a cherubic smile. "She's the doctor who's going to treat you."
"Oh, shit." Billy moaned.
Barb stepped on in, still beaming brightly. "Something you seem to be uncomfortably familiar with today, huh, Billy?"
"Timmie, Mr. Van Adder on line two," the paging system droned overhead. "Mr. Van Adder, the coroner, who says he's not going to wait a minute longer?"
All heads raised. Timmie gave in and peeled off a glove. "Somebody at least get lab for Billy so I can clear Mr. Cleveland, okay? And make sure you get liver enzymes. Maybe it's the ambience in here, but he looks a weensy bit yellow to me."
"Yellow's the perfect color for him, ya ask me," Barb offered equably.
Billy shut his eyes like a man before a firing squad. Timmie tossed her gloves and squeezed past the crowd in the doorway.
The work lane was a lot quieter and smelled better. A couple of supply techs were restocking carts along one arc of the circle that made up the ER's work area, and the pediatrician stood chatting on the phone by the X-ray view box. No disasters, no showdowns, no scrambling police or screaming families. Timmie wasn't sure how long she was going to be able to stand all this peace-and-quiet shit before she lost her mind.
"What's so funny?" the secretary asked on his way by.
"Life," she said. "Don't you think life is funny?"
"Not really. But then, give me a ticket to the Mayfield-Mayfield rematch in room three, and I may change my mind."
Timmie grinned as she plopped herself down at the desk and scanned the chart of Butch Cleveland, whom she'd helped pronounce dead no more than three hours ago. The family had already been notified, the funeral home attendants were drinking nurse's lounge coffee, and Timmie had had the old man wrapped and tagged for at least two hours. The only thing missing was the okay from the coroner to release the body to the Price Health Systems research lab, to which it had been donated. Timmie pulled a pen from behind her ear and punched the blinking button to line one.
"Hey, there, Mr. Van Adder," she greeted the coroner. "This is Timmie Leary-Parker, coming to you live from Memorial."
Which is more than we can say for that little old man, would have been the answer from the guys back in L.A. Mr. Van Adder had much more style.
"Timmie?" he barked. "What the hell kind of name is that?"
Oh good, Timmie thought. And here she'd been worried that she might not have any confrontation left in her life now that she was divorced and home from the street wars.
"It's a silly-ass kind of name, Mr. Van Adder," she assured him, absently clicking away at her pen. "But I'm stuck with it. So why don't we just talk about Mr. Cleveland, who's been lying in my room for the better part of the morning? It's not that I don't enjoy his company, but I think he wants to get on with things."
"I have other priorities," Van Adder snapped.
Like rotating tires and draining oil pans. The Puckett County coroner was also the owner of Mike's Mobil, not to mention the Van Adder Private Ambulance and Towing Service.
"Wait," he said suddenly. "Leary, you said your name was."
"Leary-Parker," she amended, as if it would do any good.
He ignored her, just as she knew he would. "You wouldn't be Joe Leary's girl, would you?"
"Yes, sir."
"No kiddin'. Well, why didn't you say so in the first place? How the hell is he?"
"He's fine. Just fine."
"Good." Van Adder chuckled with real pleasure. "He's somethin', your daddy, ya know that? Made me like poetry, for God's sake. Named you for some sports guy, didn't he?"
"Yes, sir."
Another laugh, hearty and knowing. "That's right. Who else but Joe? Now, he from Restcrest?"
It took a second for Timmie to jump gears back to little Mr. Cleveland, who waited so quietly in room five.
"Restcrest. Yes, sir."
Restcrest being the unimaginatively named Alzheimer's care unit that shared a parking lot and administrative staff with Memorial Medical Center.
"Let him go, then."
Timmie found herself momentarily speechless. "Don't you want to know anything about him?" she asked.
Van Adder huffed impatiently. "What exactly should I know? He's old, he's batty as a brick, and he's dead. Lucky for his family, don't you think?"
Timmie did think, but that had nothing to do with it. "Are all the coroner's calls this easy?"
"Why not? I don't get paid more for the complicated ones."
Timmie's astonished laugh sounded more like a bark. "You've got to be kidding."
Van Adder graced her with a moment of cold silence. "You got a problem, Miss Leary?"
Oh yeah, she had a problem. No more than one county away in almost any direction, calls like this were being handled by excellent death investigation systems that ranked right up there with and far above the one she'd grown used to in Los Angeles. And here she was stuck with Goober from Mayberry.
Taking a calming second to rub the bridge of her nose, Timmie briefly considered letting Mr. Van Adder know that as a forensic nurse she knew better than to accept a half-assed response from any coroner. She ditched the idea just about as fast. She knew all about Mr. Van Adder. She'd been apprised about just what kinds of odds she'd be facing when she was hired on at Memorial to help modernize its ER. She just hadn't thought she'd have such a hard time keeping her mouth shut about it.
"It's your ballpark," she finally acquiesced ungracefully.
"Something you might want to remember," Van Adder snapped. "You could have let them take the body an hour ago. Old Man Cleveland's been sick a hundred years, he's been dead a couple hours, and he's going right to that big lab in St. Louis to have his brain chopped. It's part of the Restcrest admission requirements, or didn't they tell you that?"
"They told me."
"Then is that all?"
Timmie looked at all the information she'd garnered as a matter of long-respected practice and bit her tongue. "Guess so."
"Good. You give my best to your daddy, now."
Timmie hung up the phone, wondering just what was going to happen when she had to call the coroner with a death he should investigate. Then, because she had no choice, she signed off on Mr. Cleveland's file and let him go.
"Okay," she said, closing the chart. "He's ready."
"Dr. Raymond been here yet?" the secretary asked.
Timmie sighed. "Oh yeah, I forgot. Call him, will you?"
She'd forgotten on purpose. She wasn't ready to see Alex Raymond yet. Alex Raymond had risen from town gentry to COO of the Neurological Research Group, which administered Restcrest. Alex was also the hero of some fifteen-year-old adolescent fantasies not quite ready to be put to rest and the answer to a need not yet ready to be acknowledged.
"The Holy Man has been beeped," the secretary announced.
Timmie's head came up. "You don't like him?"
The secretary snorted. "Just a little too perfect for me, you know? What other nursing home administrator makes you wait to ship bodies until he can say good-bye? Say good-bye to what, protoplasm? Please. He'd have a more meaningful discussion with his name tag."
Timmie found that she was grinning again. Yep, sounded like the Alex Raymond she remembered. "Well, let me know. Other than him, Mr. Cleveland's ready to roll."
"Don't listen to him," Timmie heard from behind her. "Dr. Raymond really does care about his little old people."
Timmie turned to find Ellen Mayfield perching herself on the desk, alongside Mr. Cleveland's chart. Alone, Timmie noted with a little surprise. Lately, she'd been traveling mostly in a pair with another SSS devotee, Cindy Dunn. Timmie made herself a bet on how long it would take for Cindy to show up.
"So I've heard," Timmie allowed. "Why aren't you in room three enjoying the wages of sin?"
Ellen's smile was too nice, especially on a face still muddy with the leftover bruises from Billy's latest attempt to win back his place in the bosom of his family. "I figured I'd let Barb soften him up a little first. He's really sick?"
"Like a dog. He either got bad beer or good gin."
Ellen nodded with a fleeting smile. "I guess it would be ugly to say I hope his liver's finally giving out."
Heck, her voice was even too nice. Sucked out all that perfectly good self-righteous indignation that made a statement like that so worthwhile. But then, Ellen never seemed to have the energy for indignation. A wide-faced, gently plump forty-year-old with tired eyes, olive skin, and flat black hair, she smiled as if it were an effort and meant every kind word she said.
"I don't think it's ugly at all," Timmie assured her. "In fact, I was just having the same fantasies about the coroner."
Ellen just smiled. "Tucker Van Adder? Oh, don't mind him. You just keep forgetting this isn't Los Angeles."
Which meant that if Ellen wasn't going to dis her husband, she certainly wasn't going to dis the coroner. And that if Ellen had been less thoughtful, she would have suggested Timmie respect the status quo more than she obviously had since arriving.
"Ellen, there you are," Barb called from across the hall.
Timmie leaned around to see the physician shambling their way, weighted down with clipboards and trailing EKG tracings like a comet's tail. Dancing attendance, finally, was Cindy Dunn, whose smile was even more avid than Barb's.
"This, Ellen Mayfield," she crowed, "is the day you've dreamed of."
The self-proclaimed SSS Auxiliary by dint of her widowhood, which she likened to divorce without the alimony, Cindy was as pale as Ellen was dark, a bone-thin, sallow, dishwater blond with a taste for sequins and studs and hair that was moussed into a cockatoo's crest. Cindy wasn't a particularly good nurse, but she was slavishly devoted to her friends in the SSS, especially Ellen, who pardoned her small sins and enjoyed her bad jokes.
"Okay," Barb announced, pulling away the pen Timmie was still clicking. "For Billy I prescribe IVs, high colonics, and a fire hose. I'll leave it up to you to decide where to put what."
"Barb, stop," Ellen demurred. "He could really be sick."
"After that," Barb continued with a mad gleam in her eye, "we'll admit him so we can really start to torture him."
"Now, honey," Ellen objected. "You really mean all he needs is Compazine and fluids so he can stop vomiting, don't you?"
Timmie winced.
Barb went on four-point alert. "You're in serious jeopardy of losing your SSS secret decoder ring," she warned.
"Let me do it," Cindy offered, bouncing like Tigger. "As long as I can put on gloves before inserting the hose."
"No thanks, hon," Ellen said, a hand up. "I have trouble enough with him without you-all helpin' me out."
"Wuss," Barb accused easily.
"Traitor," Cindy echoed.
"Just make sure you wait to give him the Compazine until after he's signed his child support payment," Timmie advised, and finally got Ellen to really smile.
Watching Ellen head down the hall, the three women shook their heads. Timmie grabbed her pen back and updated her notes.
"She really is too nice for her own good," Barb despaired.
"No kidding," Cindy retorted with a sad shake of her head. "I ask you. Compassion and empathy. What kind of reaction is that to the best news of the month?"
Barb patted Cindy's Wal-Mart-ringed hand. "I promise to be much more appreciative when you tell me my ex is down there hawking up his liver, okay?"
Cindy's smile was conspiratorial. "I'll see what I can do."
They all laughed.
"Now that's what I like to hear," a soft baritone announced from the doorway.
Timmie wasn't sure whether to hide or run. Her wait was over. Alex Raymond was here. And looking like every one of her very old daydreams, too. He strode down the hall in hunting jacket, jodhpurs, and boots, tailored to perfection, disheveled enough to be real. Golden hair, golden eyes, golden boy. Six feet of perfectly honed male who hadn't changed all that much from his twelfth birthday, when his parents had given him his first thoroughbred jumper.
