Practice Makes Perfect (Single Father) (18 page)

“Curt. There is no one right, absolute approach. Alli had reached a point where more had to be done.”

“You don’t know that. You act as though you’re certain, as though you have all the answers, but you don’t.” He moved closer. “I want her out of that hospital,” he said in a low voice. “So does Debbi.”

“I can’t do that,” Sarah said. “I don’t have the authority—”

“You had the authority to get her in there, didn’t you? Use it to get her out.” And then he walked away, without a backward glance, and disappeared into the darkness.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

S
HAKEN
, S
ARAH
STOOD
beside the car, uncertain what to do next. Matthew wouldn’t have left yet… She walked briskly toward the lights of the main entrance and took the stairs up to Matthew’s office. The door was locked, the lights out. From a phone in the lobby, she paged him. Dr. Cameron was in emergency surgery, the operator said. She ran back down the stairs, stood for a moment in the lobby, considered requesting an escort, then told herself this was Port Hamilton and ran, keys at the ready, across the parking lot to her car.

Driving back to her apartment, she passed Matthew’s condo building and saw the lights were on. On an impulse, she parked at the curb, rang his number on the security system.

“Yes?” a female voice answered. A young female voice.

“Lucy? It’s Sarah. I saw lights in your dad’s place and—”

“Yeah, I’m moving in.”

Shivering and fatigued, Sarah only hesitated for a moment. “Would you mind if I came up for a while?”

“Um, I guess.”

After a few seconds, the buzzer rang and the glass front doors swung open. Lucy stood in the entrance of Matthew’s apartment, one hand on the doorjamb as though to slam the door shut if Sarah had any ideas about forcing her way in. She wore skintight jeans and a top that exposed several inches of midriff.

“Dad’s not home yet,” she said. “He had an emergency surgery.”

“I know.” Sarah nodded at the door. “Can we go inside and sit down? It’s been a long day.”

Lucy shrugged and went inside, Sarah following. Packing boxes were stacked at one end of the coffee table. She wondered when the move had been decided and when Matthew planned to tell her about it.

“So how does your mom feel about you moving?”

“She’s okay with it,” Lucy said. “Mostly she wants to be with her boyfriend anyway.”

And your dad? Sarah wondered. Lucy was in the small kitchen, fishing around under the sink. Sarah watched her, the tumble of dark glossy hair, the exposed skin above her jeans. “Lucy, how about you come and sit down here with me for a few minutes? It’s difficult to talk to your rear end.”

With a sigh suggesting great imposition, Lucy came over to sit on a chair opposite Sarah. Her eyes were heavily outlined with kohl and her lips were pink and glossy.

“I’ve never been very good at subtleties,” Sarah said. “So I’ll just plunge right in. I love your dad. A lot. I’ve always loved him, but it’s different now.” Lucy’s expression was impassive, unreadable, her lips in a glossy pink pout. “I know you love your dad, too. I think we both want to make him happy, to do what’s best for him and I know things are strained between the two of us. You—” she nodded her head at Lucy “—and me, and that doesn’t make him happy. I wondered if you had any idea how we could make things better.”

Lucy, twirling the ends of her hair around one finger, said nothing.

“Lucy?” Sarah said after the silence grew uncomfortable. “Any thoughts?”

“Not really.”

“Oh, come on,” Sarah coaxed. “I don’t believe that.”

The silence stretched agonizingly long. Sarah pictured herself grabbing the girl by the shoulders, marching her into the bathroom, scrubbing off the lip gloss and the eyeliner to see if possibly there was something underneath all the artifice.

“My mom said you’re jealous of me,” Lucy finally said.

Sarah felt her expression freeze. If Lucy had physically delivered a body blow, the effect couldn’t have been more profound. It wasn’t just Lucy’s words, but the sense of betrayal that Elizabeth, who she’d come to see as her best friend, would have said this. Or had she? Maybe Lucy was lying.
Or could it be that you are jealous?
a small voice wondered.

“What do
you
think?” Sarah said.

“I don’t know.”

“Lucy.” Sarah wanted to scream. “We can’t get anywhere if you—”

“I think you want Dad for yourself,” Lucy said. “It’s like you’ve got all these jokes and things you used to do together and I’m just a kid and I get in the way.”

“First of all,” Sarah said, trying to gather her thoughts, “that’s not true about me wanting your father for myself—”

“Yes, it is.” Lucy jumped up from the table. “Yes, it is true.” Her face contorted with rage and, perhaps with the effort of holding back until now, she glared at Sarah. “Like that stupid fossil trip. You didn’t want me there, you just wanted to talk to Dad so you can have your stupid jokes.” She burst into tears. “Why don’t you just leave and go back to wherever it was you came from. I hate you.” And then she was across the room, into one of the bedrooms, the door slamming behind her.

W
HAT
HAD
SEEMED
LIKE
a routine appendectomy had turned complicated and it was nearly ten by the time Matthew scrubbed up. He called Sarah from the hospital lobby to say he was on his way and reached her machine. And then, because he hadn’t reached Lucy when he’d tried earlier, he called her at home.

Elizabeth answered. “She’s at her friend Brittany’s house. I dropped her off; she had all these boxes to give to Brittany’s mother for a church sale. Did you try her on her cell?”

“Yeah, I got her voice mail.” After he hung up, he walked out to the car and tried Sarah’s number as he turned the key in the ignition. “I’m ready for whatever you’re cooking up,” he said to her answering machine. Outside his building, he hit the garage opener on the visor, parked the car and made his way upstairs.

Even before he turned on the lights, he sensed something was wrong. A flick of the lamp switch confirmed it. Blood on the white kitchen tiles, over the pewter-colored carpet, an exclamation point of blood outside the bedroom door.

S
ARAH
SAT
in a chair at the kitchen table, still shaken up by the scene with Lucy who, ultimately, had refused to be coaxed from the bedroom. Back at her own place, she’d listened to a couple of messages from Matthew, the last saying that he was on his way. Now, it was after midnight and he was almost certainly a no-show.

She made herself a mug of peppermint tea and carried it into the bedroom where Deanna had made himself at home on the bed. He still hissed and spit occasionally, but he seemed quite happy with his new digs and, although Sarah told herself she loathed him, in fact, she was quite pleased to see his malevolent green eyes peering at her from behind the curtains when she got home.

Just an old lady and her cat, she thought gloomily. She looked at the phone, willing it to ring but then hoping it wouldn’t. Matthew would defend Lucy, explain away her behavior, deliver his assurances that everything would be fine. Tell her it would just take time. Which, for the most part, was why she wouldn’t pick up the phone to call him. That and picturing the phone ringing in Matthew’s apartment. Lucy would sneer.

My mom said you’re jealous of me.

She swung her legs onto the bed and lay back against the pillows. The thing was, she understood Lucy’s behavior, even empathized with it. A year or so after her father died, she’d suspected Rose was seeing someone. Even though she’d been older than Lucy and not nearly as close to Rose as Lucy was to Matthew, she’d felt displaced somehow. Once, she’d come home to find him sitting at the kitchen table in the same spot her father had always sat, eating dinner with Rose. Candles were lit, something Rose had never done for her father, and there were wineglasses. She’d stood in the doorway for a moment, watching them. He’d said something and Rose had laughed and then he’d looked up to see her there.

She’d barely been civil to him. Weird, she couldn’t even remember his name and he’d been a semipermanent fixture for one entire summer.

Maybe years from now, Lucy would try to recall the name of that woman she’d gone fossil hunting with. “Some old friend of my father,” she could imagine Lucy explaining. “They were going hot and heavy for a while, then she just took off again like she did when he married my mom.”

And Matthew? Would he have moved on? Remarried perhaps to a woman who had immediately hit it off with Lucy?

The idea hurt. A lot. But maybe it would be for the best. Maybe she didn’t have the patience. Or the inclination. Maybe she didn’t want a relationship with Matthew enough to spend the rest of her life walking on eggshells for fear of upsetting his daughter.

A car passed by, seemed to slow. She got up, thinking it might be Matthew, and peered through the window. It moved on.

She got back into bed. Maybe she
should
move on. It had seemed brave and independent striking out on her own, but maybe it was also foolish. Eventually the money her father had left her would run out. Even a bank loan would eventually run out. Rose wouldn’t care if she left. Not really. Elizabeth seemed to want her to stay, but could she trust Elizabeth? Lucy, of course, would be elated. And Matthew?

“You’re not alone,” Matthew had said. “Unless you choose to be.”

But who would Matthew choose if push came to shove? Her or Lucy? Lucy, of course. That was the way it should be.

She scratched Deanna’s neck. “Is anyone ever going to choose me first?”

The cat purred.

“What was that? No way? And quit feeling sorry for yourself?”

She got undressed, pulled on sweatpants and an old T-shirt and crawled under the covers. Not that she had any hope of getting to sleep.

The phone rang. Her heart went into overdrive. She reached for it on the second ring, then glanced at the caller ID. Matthew’s number. She withdrew her hand. Not tonight. If he came over as he’d said, fine, but she wasn’t up for a heart to heart over the phone. Whatever he had to say could wait till tomorrow.

Somehow she managed to drift off. And then the phone woke her. Groggy, she lifted the receiver. “It’s late, Matthew.” She opened her eyes to glance at the clock. The numerals flipped over to 3:36 a.m.

“Dr. Benedict,” a woman said, “this is Debbi.”

Sarah sat up in bed so abruptly she felt dizzy. “Debbi. Where are you?”

“I’m…I’m in the hospital parking lot, by the emergency room entrance.” She started crying. “Can you pick me up, please?”

Sarah threw on some clothes and grabbed her keys. The streets were deserted, rain shimmered in the headlights. There was one other car in the emergency lot, a black van close to the E.R. doors. Her mind racing, she pulled up beside it, got out and glanced around for Debbi. And then things happened so fast she had the sensation of watching a movie in fast forward.

The gun in her back, the quick glimpse of a black stocking cap and then a cloth around her eyes and a surge of pain in her left knee as someone hoisted her up into what she guessed was the black van.

CHAPTER TWENTY

“I
PROBABLY
SAID
some things I shouldn’t have,” Lucy told Matthew the next morning as she sat at the breakfast nook, spreading peanut butter on a slice of toast. “But she acts likes she’s the smartest person in the world and she had this look on her face like everything I said was really stupid and then I just blew it.”

Matthew, on automatic pilot, went to the freezer for coffee beans then decided he couldn’t be bothered with the whole process and microwaved a cup of instant. The blood had clearly been meant to impress, and it had.

He’d seen the knife flung on the kitchen floor, followed the trail to the guest bedroom and found Lucy sound asleep. He’d shaken her awake and she’d told him about the fight with Sarah who, his daughter said, had been mad because she was moving in. Matthew decided to deal with that issue—which he’d known nothing about—at a later date. By that time, the self-administered nicks to her wrist had dried.

When he finally remembered that he’d been on his way over to Sarah’s, it was nearly one, too late to go over and he didn’t want to leave Lucy alone. He’d called but hung up without leaving a message.

He called again just after seven and, once again, got her answering machine. It seemed unlikely she wasn’t home at this hour. More likely she didn’t want to talk to him. He glanced at his watch, considered stopping by her apartment before he went to the hospital, then decided he needed more than a few rushed minutes to straighten out the mess they—he—had made of things.

“Dad?” Lucy came up behind him as he stirred sugar into his coffee. “Don’t be mad.”

“I’m not mad, Lucy.” He turned to look at her. “I’m concerned that two people I love very much are finding it so difficult to get along.”

“It wasn’t
my
fault.”

“Sweetheart, I’ve seen you around Sarah. I saw you at dinner the other night. Before she arrived, you were fine. Terrific. Helpful. Cheerful. Then it’s like you turn into your evil twin.”

She laughed. “Oh, right.”

“I’m serious. I’ve been tiptoeing around, scared to hurt your feelings, but this has gotten out of hand. It
is
your fault if you choose to behave like a spoiled brat around Sarah, and it’s my fault if I go on letting you do it.”

The phone rang.

“Matthew. Carolyn Calhoun. Alli Peterson, the child in Two West wasn’t in her bed when the nurse made the 6:00 a.m. rounds. No one has seen the parents. Security has searched the grounds, but there’s no sign of either of them. The police have been called.”

“I’ll be right there,” Matthew said. He looked at Lucy. “There’s an emergency at the hospital. If Sarah calls… No, never mind. Well, just tell her to call me.”

By the time he reached the hospital, a news helicopter was circling the roof.

E
LIZABETH
,
AT
THE
RECEPTION
DESK
,
was trying to reach Sarah. Some sort of bug was going around and already four people had called for appointments and home visits. She’d called Sarah’s house phone, her cell phone, left messages, and now she was getting this awful feeling something was wrong.

The office phone rang.

“Mom,” Lucy said, “I’m watching TV. Debbi Kennedy’s baby has been kidnapped from the hospital. And there’s an Amber Alert.”

T
HE
POWERS
THAT
BE
were huddled behind closed doors in the administrative conference room. Matthew arrived in time to hear Cone describe his last exchange with Sarah.

“…and there is no doubt in my mind this Benedict woman…”

“Dr. Benedict,” Matthew said as he sat at one end of the long polished conference table. Security had just identified Sarah’s car in the parking lot, a development that bolstered Cone’s conviction and steered his own thoughts in a troubling direction.

“I had an encounter with her yesterday.” Cone ignored Matthew’s interruption. “She struck me as somewhat unstable.”

“Unstable? You mean, she’s more concerned with her patient’s welfare than navigating through bureaucratic channels?” Matthew snapped.

“Has anyone spoken to Dr. Benedict this morning?” Carolyn Calhoun asked.

All around the table they shook their heads.

Matthew spent another five minutes listening to the details of Alli Kennedy’s case, then decided he could be more useful elsewhere.

Out in the corridor again, he ran into Rose Benedict. She looked more frazzled than usual, her gray hair escaping from the bun, her white coat open over a blue plaid dress.

“Matthew, what on earth is happening? I just heard the news.”

“Have you seen Sarah?” he asked.

“No. I was coming to ask you the same thing.” She stepped closer, inclined her head. “This Kennedy child? Her father runs a stall at the farmer’s market. Fanatical type. I tried to tell Sarah…”

“That’s the one,” Matthew said. “Sarah thought she needed tests and I got her admitted. They weren’t too happy with the nephrologist assigned to the case.” He stopped, aware from the look on Rose’s face, that their thoughts were running along parallel tracks. “I called Sarah’s apartment,” he said.

“So did I. Before I knew about this. She’s been keeping Deanna. I think she gets lonely. Sarah, not Deanna. Deanna’s a male—”

“I know.” Already it seemed ages since he and Sarah had stood in his office joking about her mother’s cat. “Listen, Rose, I need to go.”

She put a hand on his arm. “Sarah’s headstrong, but she’d never do anything to endanger a patient.”

“That’s what’s bothering me,” Matthew said.

Down in the O.R., a check of the day’s surgery schedule confirmed what he already knew: he had back-to-back surgeries until late that afternoon. For a moment, he struggled with his conscience and then decided if he were suddenly stricken with a heart attack, everything would have to be rescheduled. This was a crisis of similar proportions, he reasoned as he called to leave instructions with his secretary.

From the hospital, he drove directly to Sarah’s apartment. He banged on the door—no answer; not that he’d expected one. He ran down the stairs at the side of the building to the manager’s office. The manager hadn’t seen her, but thought he’d heard a car start up outside, early that morning.

“How early?” Matthew asked.

“Oh, around three-thirty or so.”

Back in the car, he called Sarah from his cell phone. The call went immediately to her voice mail.

He sat with his hands on the steering wheel, trying to think.

His phone rang.

“Matt, what’s going on?” Elizabeth’s voice was shrill. “I heard about the kidnapping and I can’t get hold of Sarah. I’m worried—when we went out to see Debbi, Curt said she’d left him. He has…well, you know. He’s always been kind of weird and—”

“Do me a favor,” he said, already constructing a scenario, “get me Debbi’s address from the file.”

“She lives more than an hour from here.”

“I know. Just get it for me, okay?”

While he waited for her to come back with the address, he switched on the radio and turned the dial to the all-news station. Top story: the kidnapping of a two-year-old girl from Port Hamilton Hospital. An Amber Alert issued. Police were also seeking the whereabouts of the child’s physician, Sarah Benedict. “And this just in. The Rite Aid pharmacy on Lincoln Street in Port Hamilton was broken into sometime during the night.”

“T
HIS
WASN
’
T
my idea, I assure you.” Curt momentarily took his eyes off the road to glance at Sarah in the passenger’s seat. “My goal was merely to rescue Alli from the clutches of Big Medicine and Doctor God. This—” he gestured at the gun that Debbi, in the backseat, was holding to Sarah’s head “—was a safety measure. You’ve managed to worm your way into her confidence and now she seems to think you can perform miracles.”

“I didn’t say that, Curt,” Debbi protested. “Why can’t you admit that maybe someone knows more about medicine than you do? Just admit that you don’t know everything. I wanted Dr. Benedict here in case Alli got really sick again.”

“But she is really sick.” Sarah tried to twist around in the seat to see Debbi’s face. She couldn’t see Alli, bundled up on the seat beside Debbi, but she could hear her uneven breathing. “Right now, she should be in the hospital. There’s nothing I can do, especially not under these conditions, to help her.”

“But you’re her doctor,” Debbi said. “There must be something else you can try.”

“Had you listened to me…” Curt began. “But why waste my breath.” He glanced at Sarah again. “A veritable cornucopia of pills and potions in that bag by your seat, should you wish to avail yourself. Common and not so common.”

“I told Curt to get everything he could find,” Debbi said. “Maybe you should take a look in the bag.”

“I don’t know how many ways I can say this,” Sarah said. “Alli needs more than what we’ve been doing. We have to take her back to the hospital.”

“I think not,” Curt said. “A plan will ultimately present itself, but a hospital is not part of it.”

“They’ll take Alli away from us,” Debbi said. “The social worker already said that could happen. And that doctor was horrible. He didn’t care about Alli, he frightened her. I’d rather…” She shook her head, unable to finish. “I’m so scared.”

Sarah watched the dark trees fly past the window. The hospital would have discovered Alli missing hours ago, and by now the police would be searching for them. But the van’s heater wasn’t working, and she was seriously concerned about how long Alli could make it without medical intervention.

“Look, she’s not going to get better without treatment.” She waved her hand at the bag of drugs. “And none of this is going to help. Every hour we delay puts her in more jeopardy. Here’s my suggestion—” she looked directly at Debbi “—let me call Dr. Cameron. I’ll tell him everything you’ve told me… You can talk to him yourself, if you want. But let’s at least give him a call and get his thoughts.” She looked at Curt. “You have to do something, you guys. Or else Alli’s going to die.”

“If she dies, so do you,” Curt said.

“That’s ridiculous,” Sarah said, then felt the gun against her head.
Keep your mouth shut.
But then she felt the light pressure of Debbi’s finger on her shoulder. She turned involuntarily and in the next instant the gun was in her hand and Debbi had propelled herself into the front seat, startling Curt, who fell against the driver’s door, which burst open. With the gun in one hand, her other against Curt’s shoulder, Sarah pushed him out of the truck and moved behind the wheel.

“Okay, here’s the plan,” Sarah said, as she and Debbi sped off into the night.