Deborah Mello - Reunited By The Badge

As he waited for the airlines to engage the luggage carousel, he pulled his cell back into his hands and dialed one of the first numbers in his call list. His brother Oliver answered on the second ring.

“Where are you?” Oliver questioned, a hint of stress in his tone.

Paul took a deep breath. “The airport. I just landed.”

“Did you get my text message?”

“I got a few dozen. I haven’t had an opportunity to read any of them since I left Ghana.”

“I sent you the lab results for those tissue samples you gave me. I haven’t had a chance to start testing the drug samples yet.”

“And?”

“And, something is definitely not right. But you have a bigger problem.”

“What’s that?”

“The samples have disappeared. All of them. The tissue samples and the drug products.”

“What do you mean, disappeared ?”

“I mean someone took them and now they’re gone.”

“But you have the results?”

“No. You have the only results. I emailed them to you first thing, before I even looked at them. Once I did read them, I needed to do some additional testing, but before that could happen it all vanished. Including the original first round of test results!”

“So, they got both shipments?”

“Both? You sent more than one shipment of samples?”

“Yeah. I mailed one to your office and I mailed the other to the house in Windsor, since I knew you had plans to be there.”

“The Windsor shipment might be waiting for me, as long as no one knew you were sending it there.”

Paul blew a soft sigh, his mind racing as he tried to make sense of what his brother was telling him. Dr. Oliver Reilly worked for the federal government. He was a cancer research scientist reporting to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Like his brother, Paul had a medical degree, but specialized in emergency care and family practice. He’d chosen to be a public health practitioner over private practice.

Paul trusted Oliver, one of only a few people he knew who would have his back, whatever the situation. “Did you discuss this with anyone?”

“No. Not a soul. Which is also why I didn’t file a police report. Whoever knew the samples were here, also knew you sent them. Whoever took them has access to the government labs because there isn’t an ounce of evidence to point toward a break-in. Now, I’m not one for conspiracy theories, but something’s going on.”

Paul took another deep breath. The carousel had just begun to spin, the passengers from his international flight crowding around like a herd of cattle waiting for something to happen. As the first bags appeared out of a hole in the rear wall, the group drew closer, preparing to snatch their possessions as quickly as they could.

Oliver called his name. “Paul! You still there?”

“Sorry, yeah. Just trying to think.”

“Look, I’m here to help any way I can. But, this feels like it might be more than either one of us can handle. Have you talked to anyone? The police? An attorney, maybe?”

Paul shook his head, oblivious to the fact his brother couldn’t see him through the telephone line. His eyes were skating over the crowd, a sense of unease beginning to swell in his midsection. He was suddenly feeling slightly paranoid, like he needed to be looking over his shoulder. “I’ve got to run. I’ll call you as soon as I get to the house.”

“Be careful, please,” Oliver admonished as the line disconnected in his ear.

Minutes later, Paul sat in the back of an Uber. His preferred driver, a grandmother from the island of Haiti, was chatting him up about his trip. The older woman had been driving him back and forth for the last year, her wide smile always a welcome sight whether he was coming or going.

“You need a wife,” she said, the comment coming out of left field.

Paul laughed. “Why would I want to do something like that?”

“God didn’t make man to live his life alone. That’s why he gave Eve to Adam. Someone to be your helpmate. A partner to help carry some of the burden and provide comfort when you need it. It’s why you need a wife. God has ordained it!” she professed with an air of finality that suddenly had Paul considering the possibilities.

He thought about the women in his life—one woman in particular—then shook his head. “I don’t foresee that in my immediate future, Mrs. Pippin.”

“What about that beauty queen you were dating? Was she not wifey material?”

“No!” he exclaimed, his head waving from side to side. “She was definitely not wife material.” For a moment he thought about the Miss Illinois contestant he’d met in the hospital waiting room. She had captured his attention and then all focus had been lost two weeks later when she accused him of cheating because he hadn’t answered her call or returned it in a timely manner. She had keyed his car, stolen his phone and had poisoned his fish tank with bleach. He discovered later that he had fared better than her last boyfriend. That poor guy had suffered immeasurable damage when she’d superglued his junk to his leg after discovering he’d slept with her friend. Any man willing to make her his wife would have to sleep with both eyes open at night.

Mrs. Pippin interrupted his moment of reverie. “Your heart is still with that lawyer woman. The one you talk about, but don’t talk to,” she concluded, grunting slightly as she gave him a look through the rearview mirror.

The faintest hint of a smile lifted across Paul’s face. “She broke my heart, Mrs. Pippin. And she left it in a million pieces.”

The old woman grunted a second time. “She is still under your skin. She never leaves you. Like a bad juju. That is why all the other beauties you date don’t stand a chance. You should call her.”

Paul suddenly found himself pondering her suggestion, smiling at the thought of any woman being some kind of mystical charm that could sway him from other relationships. Maybe Mrs. Pippin was right, and he had himself a case of bad juju. He remembered how smitten he’d been, so possessed that he couldn’t begin to imagine his life without the beauty who’d felt like home in his small world.

That woman she referred to was Simone Black, daughter of Chicago’s illustrious police superintendent Jerome Black and his wife, federal court judge Judith Harmon Black. The last time he had spoken with Simone, their conversation had been tense, and he’d felt battered by the end of it. There had been an ultimatum, or two, and the predictable battle of wills when the two disagreed. Their communication had failed, and both had shut down.

He could barely remember who had started that fight or what they’d even fought about, just that it had been the end for their relationship and months of conflict between them. They had agreed to part ways, choosing to let go of each other, instead of battling for a happily-ever-after that could have lasted a lifetime.

A mission trip to Northern Thailand to treat the indigenous people of the Akha tribe, high in the Chiang Rai mountains, had kept him from falling into a fit of depression and crying into his cornflakes for months. Being able to provide medical treatment to patient populations that included local migrant workers, as well as refugee populations from bordering Myanmar, had kept him sane and balanced and unconcerned with whether the woman he had loved was moving on without him. He had regained focus and come back with a renewed sense of purpose. The spiritual journey that had been so much about expanding his horizon and answering a calling, had become a much needed balm, a bandage of sorts on an open wound. There had been five more mission trips since and no wailing over the loss of his woman.