Truth And Consequences

“All of my nurses know to take breaks,” the doctor spouted. “Wait till I see her tomorrow. She also knows not to leave when we still have a patient. And you shouldn’t be giving orders around here.”

“I wasn’t giving orders. I told her I’d help you,” David repeated. “I’m here and I know what to do.”

“Go home, Evans,” the older doctor said, shaking his head as he glanced at David. “I still don’t get why you’re here in the first place.” Grunting, he added, “I have my eye on you.”

“I told you when I called,” David said, preparing a care kit for Mr. Ramsey to take home with him. “I need something to do while I’m visiting, and since this is what I did as a medic, here I am.” He eyed his surroundings, taking in the dents in the walls, the worn linoleum floors and the lack of needed supplies. “And it looks like you can use the help.”

“Never enough time or help around here,” Pennington retorted on a snarl. “And I sure can’t pay you, so I hope you don’t think your time here will count toward a permanent work situation.”

“I’m volunteering,” David reminded him, anger simmering behind his politeness. “I don’t expect pay.”

But he did expect this man and the entire staff to show some respect to the patients. For the most part, the nurses were kind to anyone who came in. But they were so afraid of the doctor who ordered them around with angry comments and nasty expletives that they all had a serious morale problem.

“You must have some sort of motive, or a death wish,” the doctor said to David. He stitched Mr. Ramsey’s numbed finger without regard for the man’s fearful expression. “Who’d purposely come here? Especially after serving for almost a year in Afghanistan.”

David wondered about the doctor’s question later when he was about to lock up the clinic for the day. But before he could bolt the front door of the old ranch-style building that must have once been a family home, the door burst open, and he stood face-to-face with Whitney Godwin. And she was carrying a crying baby girl.

FIVE (#ulink_c6b7b827-5392-5418-bf52-db7317c7e1ba)

“David?”

She’d forgotten he’d offered to volunteer here. But it was too late to turn around and leave. Besides, she needed help, and in spite of not knowing David well, she did trust him for some strange reason.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, his gaze moving over Shelby.

Getting over her shock, Whitney explained why she was here. She had nothing to hide after all. “My baby has a fever. It started last night. I think she’s coming down with something, and I don’t know what to do.”

David replaced the look of complete surprise on his face with one of professional concern. “Okay, okay. Calm down. Let’s get her into an exam room.”

He guided Whitney down a short hallway and took her and Shelby into an empty, cold room. After he checked the examining table to make sure it had been cleared and cleaned, he turned back to Whitney. “Let’s see if we can get her to lie still while I check her vitals.”

She cooed at Shelby and tried to lay her on the table, but her daughter started sobbing all over again.

Whitney took a deep breath. She wouldn’t fall apart in front of David Evans. If her day had gone according to plan, she would have called him to come back to the station for one more round of looking at mug shots. She was already in hot water with the chief for not calling for backup with the whole train fiasco, but he’d forgiven her when she’d produced the suspect’s weapon and that shred of clothing. She’d barely had a chance to look at the mug books herself.

She’d gone back to work today, but the chief had put her on light duty since her ankle was still tender, a fact she tried to hide from everyone. But Carrie Dunleavy, the department secretary, had noticed her limping.

“I made cinnamon rolls,” Carrie had said. “Thought everyone could use something sweet with all of this going on. Go sit in the break room and put your foot up. I’ll bring you one with some coffee.”

Whitney had accepted the delicious roll, but she’d stayed at her desk to make calls to sort real tips from false ones. They needed witnesses to help piece together the lead K9 trainer’s murder and to find Marco, the missing German shepherd puppy that had disappeared from the training yard the night of her death.

Whitney might be sore and bruised, but she wasn’t one to give up.

Today, she’d been teamed again with officer Eddie Harmon to run down some leads, most of which were either crazy people wanting attention or curious people hoping to make the news, since a reporter from the Canyon County Gazette had been snooping around. Tracking those two low-level criminals from the train had taken a backseat.

But Whitney sure would have liked to collar them and find another shipment of heroin to prove her case. If what David Evans had seen was correct, that much heroin would be worth a lot of money on the street. As in thousands of dollars.

When Shelby started crying again, she forgot about her workload and returned her attention to David. “She woke up around three this morning, fussy and crying. I gave her some drops for the fever and rocked her back to sleep. She seemed better this morning when I left her with the babysitter.”

David nodded and spoke softly to Shelby. He managed to check her ears while Whitney held her, but Shelby wasn’t happy with that, either.

“Is she okay?” she asked, praying Shelby just had a bit of a cold. Was she old enough to be teething? Whitney wished she’d reread all the help books well-meaning people had given her.

“I think she’ll be fine,” David said. “Let me check a few other things.” He gave Whitney a reassuring smile. Then he started with the standard questions. “How old is she?”

“Five months. Closer to six, really.”

“Is she eating properly?”

“Yes. Formula and some baby food.”

“Any other illnesses or problems recently?”

“No. Nothing.” Whitney patted Shelby’s little back. “She’s usually a happy, healthy baby.”

She wanted him to understand, so Whitney started with nervous chatter, trying to explain, trying to show that she was a good mother. “I work such crazy hours, but I have a great babysitter right next door. Marilyn. She has four boys. She thinks it might be an ear infection.”

“She might be right,” David said, his tone professional and sure. “An experienced mother usually knows her stuff.”

And she wasn’t that experienced, Whitney thought. She should have stayed at home today. How could she leave her sick child with someone else? How could she do this? Love someone so much it hurt to breathe whenever her baby was hurting?

How could she take care of Shelby and do the kind of work her job demanded?

Tired and bleary-eyed, Whitney had gone on to work after Marilyn had promised she’d call if Shelby got cranky again. When Marilyn called later in the day and told her Shelby had a fever and it was climbing, Whitney had rushed home in time to get Shelby to the clinic.

“She’d never been this sick before,” she said, trying to hold tight to her emotions. “Marilyn suggested I bring her here since I’d never make it to the pediatrician’s office before it closes. It’s about twenty miles west of here in the Canyon County Medical Center.”

“You did the right thing,” David said, his voice soothing, his eyes on Shelby. He placed a thermometer inside Shelby’s little ear. Which the baby didn’t like at all.

“She has a high fever,” he said after reading the thermometer. “One-oh-three.”

Whitney inhaled and wished she could be a better mother. “It was close to a hundred and two the last time Marilyn checked. She didn’t want to give her any more medicine until I got home.”

“We’ll give her something to bring it down,” David said. “What’s her name?”

“Shelby,” Whitney said, her heart breaking with each little whimper.

David took over, checking Shelby and cooing to her in a way that helped Whitney relax. Shelby actually started smiling at his antics. Whitney smiled, too, but it didn’t relieve her apprehension.

She felt guilty for spending the day checking leads and trying to figure out angles on Veronica Earnshaw’s murder at the K9 Training Center. Whitney wished she could get the case out of her mind. But they all wondered why one of the puppies Veronica had been working with when she’d been killed had gone missing. Chief Jones wanted this case solved. And so did a lot of prominent people who’d helped sponsor the whole puppy program. Today they’d at least tracked down leads on witnesses who’d said they’d seen a puppy running along Desert Valley Road the night Veronica had been murdered. Whitney had reported her prowler to the chief, too. She didn’t need a drug lord gunning for her. She had to protect Shelby, no matter what.

Torn between doing her job and taking care of her baby, Whitney tried to focus on the here and now.

“Okay, Shelby,” David said, his expression hard to read. “We’re going to make you feel better.”

Shelby laughed and then reached up for her mother. After Whitney took her, she buried her little head against Whitney’s blue uniform collar and started bawling all over again.

Whitney heard footsteps stalking up the hallway. Dr. Pennington charged into the room, his face red with rage. “What’s going on here? I was on my way out the door.”