An Open Heart (38 page)

She pulled down the neck of her gown. “Shouldn’t you take off these sticky things?”

“Uh—you can do it.”

He left her alone for a few minutes, hoping she would be entirely clothed when he returned. He wasn’t sure he was up to resisting what he thought was being offered. As he walked down the hall, he looked at his palm, still warm and alive after touching Anita’s bare skin. In the pharmacy cabinet, he found a few diazepam samples.

“Here,” he said, returning to the doorway of the exam room. “I have some Valium. It will help you rest.”

She immediately popped two of the tablets from the foil-backed packaging and threw them to the back of her throat.

“You shouldn’t take those and drive,” he said.

She smiled. “Too late.” She touched his arm. “Can you give me a lift?”

He looked at his watch. “I’ll drop you on the way.”

She giggled. “My hero.”

Jace’s memory of the event vanished at the sound of Evan’s voice. “Jace!” He turned from the window. “Jace, I’ve been asking you a question.”

“Hmm? Sorry.”

“Can we bring in the patient? Are you set?”

He looked at Gabby and Evan. They didn’t look happy. “Uh, sure. I’m ready. Let’s rock and roll.”

Monitors were fixed, intravenous and arterial lines placed. The patient was anesthetized, prepped, and draped. Jace and his intern, Paul Mwaka, scrubbed, gowned, and gloved.

Jace looked over the drape separating the operative field from the anesthesiologist. “I need you to reproduce everything exactly, Evan. If someone is trying to send me a message, I want to hear it. Loud and clear.”

Evan nodded. “Game on.”

41

Heather pulled back on Bo’s collar as she saw the old pickup truck slow. Two teenaged boys leaned from the window, tangled blond hair trailing. One just yelled. The other made a squeezing gesture with his hands.

A little early to start drinking.

Glad for the large dog at her side, she ignored her oglers and continued to her neighbor’s house. She didn’t release the leash until she was inside the enclosed backyard. Bo could be ultraprotective, and if a loyal friend was to be had, it was the mastiff.

It hadn’t been that long ago that Bo had sensed the tension in a moment she’d shared with Jace.

It had been a Friday, and Jace, taking a rare day off, had slept in. Heather was up, grooming Bo, readying him for a walk. Jace appeared in the doorway to her “dog room,” looking sleepy.

Heather tried to keep her voice calm. “You were out late.”

“My office charts took me longer than normal.”

She kept brushing through the mastiff’s hair. “I’ve already put in a load of wash, Jace.” She studied him for a response, feeling anger rise within her.

He rubbed the back of his neck.

When she spoke, she couldn’t keep the spite from her voice. “I could smell her on your shirt.”

He shook his head. “Smell her?”

“The governor’s wife. She uses that expensive French perfume, her signature aroma.”

“I hadn’t noticed.”

“You deny you were with her?”

“For Pete’s sake, Heather, back off!”

Bo growled. Heather closed her hand around his collar.

“Haven’t you ever heard of confidentiality? It’s not like I can tell you about patient encounters.”

“Oh, so now she’s your patient?”

“She came by the office with a tachycardia. I did an EKG, okay?”

“I thought you had nurses for that.”

He stepped forward, raising his voice. “This has got to stop! You’re acting crazy!”

Bo leapt at him, tearing free from Heather’s handhold on his collar. He knocked Jace against the wall. Jace’s head bounced with a thud against the doorframe, then his feet slid out from under him, and he sank to the floor. The dog growled, baring teeth, inches from Jace’s nose.

“Bo, no!” Heather commanded, bounding around the grooming table to grab the dog’s collar.

Bo backed off a step as Heather moved in, evidently satisfied that the threat had been neutralized.

“Jace,” she cried, picking up his head. She looked into unfocused, glassy eyes. “Jace!” She pulled her hand from the back of his scalp, already sticky with blood. “You’re bleeding.”

She grabbed for a towel and pressed it against the wound as Jace aroused and his temper flared. “Don’t use that drool towel!”

“Do you want to bleed to death? This is all I’ve got.”

He stared at Bo. “Get that monster off me!”

Jace struggled to his feet, exploring with one hand a gash on the back of his head. “I’m going to need suturing!” He frowned and stumbled out into the hall, pushing the drool-slinger towel against his scalp.

Once he was out of earshot, Heather handed Bo a doggy treat and scratched behind his ears, marveling at the speed and efficiency at which he’d come to her aid. “Good dog, Bo,” she whispered. “Good dog!”

Now, in her neighbor’s backyard, she unclipped the leash from the dog’s collar.

Her cell phone signaled an incoming text message. She fished the phone from her pocket. It was from Lisa Sprague.

Making progress on fact finding. Some things don’t add up. Can we meet for lunch to discuss?

Heather felt her stomach tighten.
Now that I’m closing in, I find myself fearful of the truth.

She reminded herself of the woman she wanted to be.
Trusting. Forgiving.

She typed a response.

Strawberry Street Café. Tomorrow. Noon. Okay?

She wound the dog leash into a small circle. “Bye-bye, Bo.”

She turned to leave.
God, give me grace to accept the truth.

Jace finished the surgery on Mohamed Omar, deftly going on and off bypass, removing the bullet fragment, and patching the small hole between the atria in a time that would rival the best of cardiac teams in the United States.

He took a deep breath as he tied the last knot in the skin suture. “There. What’s the time?”

Evan looked at the wall clock. “A quarter past,” he said. “No worries.”

“When can you pull his tube? I want to talk to him.”

Evan shrugged. “He’s young and strong. The pump run was brief. I’d say, give me an hour or two and I might have him off the ventilator.”

Jace pulled off his gloves, folding one inside the other and stretching the latex out to slingshot the gloves across the room into a trash receptacle. “Nice work, Gabby.”

She looked at him in all seriousness. “Now, Jace, I’ve done what you asked. I’m calling British Air.”

“You have to stay tonight. What if there is a complication and I need you?”

“Okay,” she said slowly. “But tomorrow, I’m on a plane.”

“Fair enough.”

She shook her head. “You two need to come with me. Something bad is going on in this place. I’m afraid for you.”

Evan spoke to the intern. “See if you can find an extra person to help lift him.” He turned to Gabby. “I’m with you.” He paused. “Jace, you need to come with us.”

“So you’re afraid for me now too?”

He nodded. “Frankly, yes. Things have gotten too weird for me. Someone or something isn’t happy about you being here.”

Jace finished applying a dressing over his patient’s sternum. “I can’t just operate and run.”

“You can if you’re in danger,” Gabby said.

Jace touched his patient’s shoulder. “Maybe this guy will give me an answer.”

“So now you’re expecting messages from beyond?”

Jace threw up his hands. “I don’t know what to expect anymore. But I’m listening.”

“I’m calling about flights. I’m going to reserve three seats.”

Jace sighed. “Maybe you’re right.” He paused, looking out the window toward the cemetery. “But I can’t help feeling I haven’t done what I was supposed to do here.”

“You’ve got one night,” Gabby said, forcing a laugh. “Whatever business you need to settle, you’d better do it fast.”

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll go with you. Buy the tickets.”

Governor Franks waited until Ryan Meadows sat before closing his office door. “So what is so urgent that you needed to see me face-to-face?”

“It’s about Jace Rawlings.”

“You found a way to get a DNA sample?”

“Not exactly. At least not in the way you’d expect.”

Stuart Franks hadn’t been happy thinking that he’d let Jace Rawlings slip through his fingers. And Ryan Meadows hadn’t been successful in figuring out a way to force Kenya to extradite him. “So what’s the situation?”

“Did you know that Rawlings had his own ID badge so he could get in and out of here through the service entrance?”

The governor shrugged. “I knew. Jacobs from security asked me to sign off on it. I wanted my physician to have easy access to me.”

Ryan smiled. “Or Anita.”

Stuart Franks sighed. “Maybe some of that was my fault.” He stared from the window. “But this office is so demanding.”

Ryan leaned forward and ran his fingers over the back of a large mahogany carving of a Cape buffalo, a gift from the Kenyans. It stood two feet high, and the governor had placed it next to his desk.

“So what did you need to tell me?” Franks asked.

“Rawlings is coming home. Airline security notified me this morning. He has a reservation for a flight to Heathrow tomorrow and on to Dulles the next morning.”

“Call the chief of police. Have him contact the magistrate with what we know. I want him arrested on arrival.”

Ryan raised his eyebrows. “What about if I tip off the paper?”

Franks sighed. “One person. Do you owe someone an exclusive?”

“There is a young lady I’d like to please.”

The governor huffed. “I don’t want a circus.”

“Oh no, sir,” he said. “We wouldn’t want that at all.”

Stuart Franks chuckled. “Welcome home, Dr. Rawlings.”

With that, Ryan Meadows slipped quietly from the governor’s office, leaving him alone.

That evening, Jace studied the bedside chart of his most recent open-heart patient, Mohamed Omar Abdullahi. Everything was “euboxic,” as they liked to say, meaning every value was inside the normal “box.”

He leaned close as his patient began to speak. Mohamed’s voice was weak, and Jace strained to hear among the beeping of the monitors and the clamor of clinical noise in the HDU.

“I had a dream while you were operating.”

Jace nodded.

“I saw Issa, the one you call Jesus.”

“Yes.”

“He was not dressed like a prophet, but came as a God.”

“Did He speak to you?”

Mohamed shook his head. “He only touched my heart. I believe He has brought healing to my body.”

“Okay,” Jace said.

“Muslims are taught that Issa was a prophet, not God, and certainly not above our Muhammad, peace be upon him.”

Jace nodded, and his patient continued. “I have friends, smart Muslim men, who cannot be converted to Christianity through intellectual arguments, but this—” He halted, breathing deep behind his oxygen mask. “This dream has made me think of Issa differently.” He looked about, as if nervous that his Muslim friends may be near. “I think Issa wants me to be a Christian.”

The surgeon shifted on his feet.

Mohamed touched Jace’s hand. “Can you pray for me?”

“I—uh, no.” Jace shook his head. “I’m afraid I’m not the one for that.”