Will yawned and looked around his parents' kitchen table. His mother and father sat across from Elena, two bulwarks of safety and comfort. Cathy was in the chair beside Elena, struggling to find a comfortable position for her gravid bulk, yet obviously unwilling to leave the side of her frightened associate. Will decided he was expected to take charge of the session.
"Exactly what did you see tonight?" Will held his coffee cup in both hands and looked through the steam at Elena.
"I was about to step into the tub when I glanced toward the window and saw a face. I screamed and ran out of the room."
"Did you recognize him?" Will asked.
Elena shook her head. "I only got the impression of a face, almost like it was floating there at the level of the window. No details."
Cathy patted Elena's arm. "Weren't the blinds closed?"
Elena ducked her head. "This morning while I was putting on my makeup I raised the blinds in the guest room for more light. Tonight, I was so tired I didn't bother to lower them. I mean, there are gauze curtains across the window, and there are thick bushes outside screening it. I guess this is my fault."
"It's no one's fault," Will said. "Did you call the police?"
Elena huddled deep into her robe. "Your parents insisted."
"And?"
"A patrolman showed up about half an hour later."
Will decided he'd had uncooperative witnesses who were more forthcoming than this. Then again, the witnesses hadn't recently been scared half out of their wits. Gently. "What did the patrolman find?"
Elena remained silent. Will looked at his father. "Dad?"
"Norm Thompson came by. Nice young lad. You probably know him."
"I do." Patience, patience. "What did he say?"
"Norm found some footprints in the flower bed outside the guest bathroom window. He called them 'partials.' Said there wasn't enough there to identify the prowler even if they caught him. He asked the dispatcher to have a car swing by here every hour or so for the rest of the night. Said they'd keep an eye out for strangers in the neighborhood."
Will was pretty sure the matter would die right there unless there was a repeat performance.
Cathy apparently had the same thoughts. The look she gave him carried a simple message: do something.
"Elena, do you have any idea who might have done this?" No sooner were the words out of his mouth than Will realized how foolish the question was. "Never mind. You're stressed. Why don't you get some rest? We can talk about this tomorrow."
"No!" Elena snapped. "There's no chance that I'll sleep tonight. Can we talk about who it might be? And, more important, what we can do to put an end to it?"
Will wished he had a legal pad. He always thought better when he could make notes. "Okay. We have to start with the possibility this was a random thing. Peeping Toms aren't unheard of, although frankly I haven't heard reports of any in the city lately. That doesn't mean one couldn't have wandered here tonight, though."
"Calling it random doesn't make me feel any more comfortable," Elena said. "He might have… might have liked what he saw. He could come back again."
"In that case, let's see if we have any suspects. Are there men you've met since you've been in town who might have done this?" Cathy asked.
"I've been in town for, what, less than a week? And no one I've met has acted creepy. Except maybe that EMT. He seemed antagonistic toward me from the moment we met. And when we ran into each other later, he was pretty surly."
"That would be Eric Burson," Cathy said. "I know what you mean about acting surly. But I don't think you should take that personally. Eric's wife died several years ago of ovarian cancer. They lived in another town then, and the doctor who first saw her missed the diagnosis. After she died, Eric moved here, mainly to get away from his memories, I think. He told people he decided to train as an EMT 'so he could help others.' Really, I think it was so he would come in contact with doctors frequently enough to criticize them."
"Would he do something like this?" Elena asked.
Will shook his head. "Hard to say. But we can keep him in mind. Who else?"
"Nobody jumps out at me," Elena said. "Other than Eric, the men I've met have been very nice."
"Seeming nice doesn't mean they don't have human frailties." The group turned toward Matthew Kennedy, who spread his hands. "I've known some people who were to all appearances 'nice,' but their sins would make your hair curl. None of us is exempt from the human condition, you know."
Will cringed. Oh, Dad. Don't start a sermon. But the elder Kennedy leaned back in his chair, his point made.
"What about Frank?" Will asked.
Elena screwed up her face. "I know everybody tells me to watch out for Frank Perrin. It's been sort of like parents who warn their daughter about who she should and shouldn't date. But so far he's probably been nicer to me than a lot of people. I refuse to consider him a suspect."
"So we've struck out in the suspect department," Will said. "The bottom line is we have no idea who could have spied on you."
Elena seemed to shrink a bit. If the expression in her eyes had been a mystery to Will when they first met, there was no mystery about it now. It was fear.
Will hurried on, trying to reassure her. "For now, be cautious. Keep an eye out for people following you, especially at night."
"I thought someone might have followed me when I left the meeting at your office," Elena said. "But I dismissed that as being paranoid."
"There's something we haven't considered," Cathy said.
"What?"
"We've talked about the stalker being a man, but that's not necessarily true. We haven't mentioned your midnight caller. Could the face at the window have been a woman? Maybe it wasn't the work of a Peeping Tom. Maybe it was one more thing meant to frighten you."
True to her prediction, there was no sleep for Elena that night. She lay in bed, tossing and turning, the light on to dispel the shadows that mocked her as they turned into her stalker. The few times she drifted into a fitful slumber her dreams were of the tribunal, this time sitting in judgment of her for not lowering her blinds.
Cathy had told her not to come to work on Friday morning, but some mixture of pride and stubbornness brought Elena awake at the usual hour. She dressed (with the blinds carefully and tightly closed), armed herself with one of Dora's biscuits and a cup of coffee, and drove to the office.
Elena worked hard to keep her mind on her patients, skipped lunch in favor of reading journals at her desk, and managed to put one foot in front of the other until the work day was over. At last, she heaved a sigh and dropped into the chair behind her desk. Her desk. Her office. Nice sound to the words. It was just now soaking in. If things ever settled down, she felt as though she could enjoy it here.
She folded her white coat and laid it on top of her backpack. She'd need to take the coat home and wash it this weekend. Elena hadn't asked her landlady about using their washer, but as nice as the Kennedys had been, there shouldn't be any problem.
"Hey, don't bother taking that coat home." Cathy's voice made Elena jump.
"Sorry. You startled me. What was that?"
"Toss your coat in the hamper in the work room. We have a laundry service. Get a clean one Monday morning. And in a week or so we'll have some with your name embroidered on the pocket. Maybe that will help you feel more at home."
"Sorry," Elena said. "I guess all those years of laundering my own coat sort of ingrained the practice." She gestured to Cathy to come in and sit down. "Remember all the symbolism of these coats?"
Cathy eased into the visitor's chair across the desk from Elena. "Yeah. Short white coats for the medical students, mid-length ones for the residents, long coats for faculty and attendings."
"My… Mark gave me this one. He didn't know it was too long to wear while I was in residency. I kept it in the back of the closet. I could hardly wait for the day when I finished my training, and he could see me wear it. Then…" Elena swallowed hard and stared down at the desk.
"Well, he'd be proud of you now," Cathy said. When there was no response, she added, "Want to talk about it? About Mark?"
Mention of Mark made Elena think of the note. The time she'd shared with Mark, no matter how short, seemed so perfect. Now she wondered when he'd begun to drift away from her. Or had he been unfaithful from the start? She'd determined to put it out of her mind, and she strengthened that resolve. "No, I think I'd better move on. But thanks."
Cathy struggled to lift her bulk, making use of the chair arms to lever herself to her feet. "I'm going to the hospital to make rounds. Would you like to go?"
Elena hesitated.
"C'mon," Cathy said. "I'll sweeten the deal. Come with me, I'll introduce you to some more of the staff, and then Will and I'll take you out for dinner. This is Dr. Brown's weekend on call. Turn it loose for a few hours. You deserve an evening out."
An hour later, Elena stood at Charlie Lambert's bedside in the ICU, looking through his chart while Cathy answered Mrs. Lambert's questions. Now, three days after his craniotomy, he showed a few encouraging signs. There were some spontaneous efforts to breathe, although they were too shallow and slow to allow removal from the ventilator. Currently, the small bag of IV fluid with added Dopamine piggybacked into Lambert's main line was shut off, which told Elena he was maintaining his blood pressure on his own.
Elena eased her hand down to the foot of the bed, where Lambert's right foot protruded from the covers. She squeezed his Achilles tendon and was sure she felt him withdraw his leg a fraction of an inch. Reacting to pain now. Another good sign.
Cathy wound up her conversation with Mrs. Lambert. "Do you have any questions for me?" she asked.
"Nothing medical, I guess. You and Dr. Shelmire have made it pretty clear. There's progress, but we won't know the final outcome for a while."
"There may be progress. It's too early to be sure. And if he does improve, we don't know if he'll recover fully," Cathy warned. "He might have weakness, difficulty speaking, all sorts of problems. And he'll probably need physical therapy."
"I don't care," Mrs. Lambert said. "Just as long as he's alive, I'll devote my life to caring for him." She dabbed at her eyes with the end of a balled-up tissue. "But we have another problem."
"What's that?"
"You see, Charlie lost his job a while back, and our insurance has lapsed. He's not quite old enough for Medicare. I work and bring in a little money-barely enough to keep us going, but too much for us to qualify for Medicaid. And this morning the administrator was arguing with Dr. Shelmire outside the door. Mr. Godwin, I think his name is. He wanted Charlie transferred to another hospital. He said something about 'we're not a charity hospital, and we can't afford this.' "
"I hope Dr. Shelmire-"
"Oh, the doctor stopped that really quick. He said Charlie wasn't going to be moved just to help a… I can't say the words he called Mr. Godwin… just to help him meet his budget. But it worries me that there's this problem. I don't know how we're going to pay the hospital bill."
Cathy patted the woman's arm. "You let Dr. Shelmire and me take care of this. Your concern is with your husband." She nodded toward Elena. "Either Dr. Gardner or I will be by tomorrow morning. If you need anything before then, ask the nurses to call."
As they waited for the elevator, Elena said, "Sounds like Nathan Godwin is a piece of work. Did I tell you how he and Marcus Bell clashed over my hospital privileges?"
"Nathan wants everyone to kowtow to him. When I first came here, Marcus and I had our differences, but I'll say this for him. He puts the best interests of the patients ahead of anything else. It's too bad they cut back his authority as chief of staff."
"Why was Godwin brought in?"
"This is a municipal hospital with an elected board. Some of the board members thought it was time to take the control out of the hands of the doctors. They called it 'being fiscally responsible.' I call it posturing. But we make do. Most of us have learned to work around Nathan."
"Where to next?" Elena asked.
"I thought we'd go by-" Cathy stopped, bent over, and clutched her abdomen with both hands.
Elena saw beads of sweat form on Cathy's face. "What's wrong?"
"I've been having contractions all day. At first I thought they were just Braxton-Hicks contractions, and they'd stop. But this one was pretty severe. Would you go back to the ICU and get a wheelchair for me? I think I'd better go down to OB and have them call my doctor."
Dr. Milton Gaines leaned against the window ledge in Cathy's room in the OB ward and rolled his head from side to side in an obvious effort to ease tight muscles. "Tough day. I'll be happy when my new associate arrives."
"I know what you mean," Cathy said. She lay in bed, clothed in a hospital gown. There was an IV running at a slow drip into a vein on the back of her hand. A vital signs monitor beeped softly in the background. "It's a good thing Dr. Gardner is here a bit early, since you tell me I'm going to be on enforced bed rest for a while."
"Let's take it a day at a time," Gaines said. "You know the drill for pre-term labor. We'll watch you here overnight. If you don't have more contractions and your exam doesn't change, I'll probably let you go home. But I'd like to let the baby get a little more mature before you go into actual labor, and the best way to do that is to keep you on bed rest for a week or so. After that, we'll see."
Cathy felt as though she was being tugged in opposite directions by a team of horses. Since starting medical school, she'd taken pride in working despite all kinds of hindrances: snowstorms, flooded roads, unbelievable fatigue, and headaches that would fell a bull elephant. But now the health of her baby was at stake. Milton Gaines said she needed to be at bed rest, so bed rest it would be.
Will was by her side, where he'd been since responding to the OB nurse's phone call. He held Cathy's hand and gave it an occasional squeeze. He'd been uncharacteristically silent during Gaines's exam and the discussion afterward. Now he broke that silence. "Cathy, if you don't do just exactly what Milton says, I swear I'll hog-tie you and nail the door to your bedroom shut."
Cathy laughed in spite of herself. This was about as blunt as she'd ever seen Will. "Don't worry, honey. I'll be a good girl. Elena can fill in, and I'll bet Dr. Brown will help out as well."
She kept the smile plastered on her face, but Cathy was already wondering how her patients would react to the choices presented to them in her absence: a Latina female or an African American male. Well, it was time that the population of Dainger was introduced to a little ethnic diversity.
Elena took one last look at the number on the slip of paper. She raised the phone but paused when she heard the cry of an infant rising above the noise of the OB ward. Life was still going on all around her, and a new one had just been added.
She took a deep breath and punched in the number. "Dr. Brown? This is Elena Gardner. I'm Cathy Sewell's new associate." The word still sounded strange to Elena. Associate. She was part of a practice. And, for who knew how long, she would be the only doctor in that practice. "I'm sorry we haven't had a chance to meet personally. I've been here less than a week, and it's been a whirlwind."
Brown's voice was as soft and smooth as the mocha fudge ice cream that Elena favored, with not a hint of an accent, either regional or ethnic. "Think nothing of it. I've been worried that Cathy didn't have any help lined up. I'm glad you're here, and I can only imagine how busy you've been since you arrived."
Elena gripped the receiver tighter. "I'm afraid I'm going to be busier, and so are you. Cathy was admitted to the OB ward at Summers County General tonight in pre-labor. The contractions have stopped, and the baby's fine, but her OB wants her on bed rest for at least a week. Of course, I'll do as much as I can, but until I get a bit more familiar with practice patterns here in Dainger, you may find yourself seeing more patients as well."
There was no real mirth in Brown's low chuckle. "I'm happy to see as many as necessary, but I think you'll find that there are a number of the fine citizens of our community who balk at treatment by a doctor of color."
Elena's cheeks burned. "If they have reservations in that regard, they may find themselves driving a ways to get medical care. I neglected to tell you. My maiden name is Perez."
If Brown was surprised, his voice didn't show it. "Interesting. Well, I'm glad you're here. Don't hesitate to call me if I can help you. And after you've had a bit of time to catch your breath, you must have dinner with me and my wife. She's Jamaican, and her jerk chicken is wonderful."
Elena hung up, looking forward to meeting Emmett Brown in person and reassured that he'd be a good man to have in her corner if she needed medical backup.
She saw Will come out of Cathy's room. "How's she doing?"
"She's fine. No more contractions after those she had earlier. She's going to take a nap while I get her some magazines."
"Anything I can do?"
"You're doing enough." He took a few more steps away from Cathy's door. "We both think you're going to do fine here. I think the practice is in good hands."
She was in the parking lot, halfway to her car, when her cell phone rang. When she checked the caller ID, she could feel the smile spread across her face. "David. So good to hear from you."
"I've been intending to call all week, but it's been crazy. One of the other residents was sick, and I ended up pulling a couple of thirty-six-hour shifts."
"I thought the new regulations-"
"They do, but babies don't know about Resident Review Commission rules against working long hours. When they're ready to get here, they're ready, and I figured someone should be here to welcome them."
Elena climbed into her car and leaned back in the seat. "I've lost all track of time. How many more days until you arrive?"
"That's another reason I called. The guy I've been covering for is back at work now, and he's going to take my shifts next week. Dr. Cobb said I could leave after today. Tomorrow morning I'm going to head for Dainger. How about dinner tomorrow night?"
"You bet. My treat. Call me after you get into town."
"Sounds great. But what about you? What's new with you?"
"Oh, David. Where do I begin?"