Richard Mabry - Code Blue

Right now that seventy thousand dollars loomed like the national debt. And she didn't even want to think of the student loans she'd accumulated during four years of medical school. Thank goodness she wasn't due to start repaying those for a couple of years. Even so, they were part of the load she felt pressing down on her. She guessed that whoever said "Money isn't everything" probably had some.

Before she could do more than glance over the figures Jane had put together, Cathy's cell phone rang. The hospital? She wasn't on call. Ella Mae? She had seemed fine just an hour ago. Cathy glanced at the caller ID. Will.

"Hello?"

"Cathy, this is Will. Are you in your office right now?"

"Yes, I'm looking over my finances to see if there's any way I can come up with five thousand dollars by Wednesday." She sipped her soft drink. "I hated to leave. It was nice spending a quiet Sunday afternoon with you all."

"I enjoyed it too. Don't you think you could use the services of your attorney? I mean, two heads are better than one."

Trusting anyone, even Will, came hard for her. "I don't want to bother you."

"No bother."

She shrugged. Why not? "Okay, come on over."

"Would you open the door then? It's lonely out here."

Cathy hurried to the office door. When she lifted a slat of the Venetian blind, she saw an eye peeping back at her and heard Will's voice in her phone. "I'm sorry, but I don't know the password."

"Funny man."

Will reached into his jacket pocket. "I brought you something. Mom thought you might like one of her special chocolate chip cookies."

"I notice there are two, so I guess you expect me to share. Let me get you something to drink. Diet Coke okay?"

With Will settled beside her at the desk, Cathy ran her finger down the column of figures Jane had prepared. On paper, her practice had started to turn a profit. But it would take at least another month before she received sufficient insurance payments for those paper profits to show up in her bank account.

"It will be a stretch just to come up with the money for the interest on the loan. There's no way I can meet the bank's new terms."

Will popped the last bite of cookie into his mouth and licked his fingers. "See what tomorrow brings. Don't forget what Dad said in his sermon today."

Cathy nodded uneasily. She could agree in principal with leaning on God to supply her needs, but in practice? Not so easy.

"What's that?" Will pointed to two sheets of paper peeking out from under the list of accounts receivable.

"Those are the names of everyone in the county who owns a black Ford Expedition. The sheriffthought I might recognize the name of a person who would want to run me out of town. Or kill me."

"Let me see one sheet; you take the other. Then we'll switch."

Cathy had the top of the alphabet. She put down the remains of her cookie and started down the list. Abernathy. Archer. Bascomb. Bell. Clawson. Conroy.

"Whoa," she said. "Look at this." She handed the list to Will and pointed out a name.

"Marcus Bell," he said. "You think he might be behind this?"

Cathy shook her head. "I don't know. At first, Marcus seemed supportive of me professionally. Then he asked me out a couple of times and I said no. After that, he's been a bit less friendly. But, surely, he wouldn't try to hurt me just because I turned him down for a date." She gnawed at a fingernail. "Besides, the incident with the SUV happened before he ever asked me out."

"Maybe we're looking at it backward," Will said. "Maybe Marcus was out to get you even before he asked you out. Remember how something always stopped you from getting privileges? Marcus was in a perfect position to pull that off."

"I can't believe he'd do that."

"When he saw you in the emergency room after the accident, how long had he been there?"

"I'm not sure," Cathy said. "The nurse said he'd come in to look at a patient with possible appendicitis, but that wouldn't take long. The work-up had been done already. And it was a while between the time of the accident and my arrival at the ER."

Will tapped his fingers against his front teeth. "Could he have been in that SUV on his way to the hospital when he saw you and decided to run you offthe road? Or might it have been an accident, and afterward he was afraid to admit it?"

"I don't know." Cathy wanted to scream. "I just want my life back."

Will took Cathy's hand and squeezed it. "Okay. I didn't mean to upset you. Let's finish checking this list so you can talk to SheriffDunaway in the morning. In the meantime, be careful around Marcus Bell."

Cathy chewed the last bite of her cookie, but it seemed to turn to dust in her mouth.

"Sheriff, I want to make it clear that I'm not accusing anyone whose name I've marked. These are just people who seem to be the most likely suspects."

Dunaway inclined his head. "I understand, Dr. Sewell. We'll be very discreet in our questions. I'll have one of my deputies make a few calls to see if these folks can verify where they were at the times you encountered that black SUV. Your name won't be mentioned."

Cathy came out from behind her desk and offered her hand. "Thank you. I appreciate everything you're doing."

"Not at all. Not only is it my job, I… I don't guess you'd remember. You were only about eight or nine at the time. My son, Jerry, fell out of a tree and hit his head. By the time we got him to the hospital, he had what they called an acute subdural hematoma-bleeding over the outside of the brain. The nearest neurosurgeon was an hour away, and your daddy said that by then Jerry would be dead. He told us he hadn't seen one of these kind of injuries since he was a resident, but he asked our permission to do an emergency operation to relieve the pressure. He called it 'burr holes.' After he did it, he rode in the ambulance to Dallas with Jerry. The neurosurgeon said Dr. Sewell saved our son's life."

Cathy had a faint memory of her father mentioning the episode, but he never made much of it. "Just another day at the office" was his usual comment.

"Your father was a fine man and a good doctor," Dunaway said. "And he took wonderful care of your mother when she got sick. I think you'll find there are lots of folks around here who still feel grateful to him."

"How is Jerry?" Cathy asked.

"Killed in Afghanistan. Threw himself on a grenade to save his buddies." Dunaway blinked rapidly. "But we were blessed to have him as long as we did, thanks to your daddy's work. God was really good to us."

Cathy found herself touched by the attitude of this man and confused by the picture everyone had painted of her father. Maybe she'd been wrong-about lots of things.

Cathy blew a stray wisp of hair out of her eyes and shrugged her shoulders to ease the tension. It had been a busy morning, and the balance of the day promised to be more of the same. She didn't really have time to make this call, but Jane had said it was important.

"Marcus, Jane said that you called."

"Yes. Thanks for calling back." He hesitated so long Cathy thought she'd lost the connection.

"Marcus, are you there?"

"Cathy, this is hard for me. I know you've been angry with me, perhaps with good reason. I don't know. But I'd still like to invite you out-if not for dinner, then just for coffee. What do you say?"

"I'm sorry I got angry with you for not taking my side," Cathy said. "I realize that perhaps you really do think you should stay neutral in staffmatters. And I hope you will believe me when I say that the reason I keep turning your invitations down isn't because I don't like you. I do… but as a friend and colleague."

"Just what every man wants to hear. So, things are serious between you and Will Kennedy?"

Were they? Maybe they were. She didn't need to ask how Marcus knew about their relationship. People always knew one another's business in a small town. "I guess they are."