Janice Macdonald - Along Came Zoe

Caught off guard by the question, Phillip felt a moment of panic. Who was this woman and what did she want?

“I didn’t catch your name,” he finally said.

“I didn’t throw it to you,” she replied. “Anyway, my name isn’t important. I’m here about the young girl who died because there was no neurosurgeon available to attend to her. What I want to understand,” she continued, “is this. While Jenny was riding around in the ambulance, what exactly prevented someone—anyone—from coming in to save her? You, for example, Dr. Neurosurgeon.”

Phillip said nothing.

“As if it isn’t awful enough to lose a child,” the woman added. “To know that the child didn’t need to die…” She glared at him. “You want to know my name? You can call me Concerned. Frustrated. Mad as Hell.”

The arrival of a security guard, apparently summoned by his receptionist, saved Phillip from having to respond.

“Brilliant solution,” the woman said as a blue-uniformed guard who probably outweighed her by two hundred pounds or so took her arm. “But you haven’t heard the last from me.”

Dear Reader,

I’ve often thought—perhaps not an original idea—that writing a book is somewhat akin to giving birth. There is the first germ of an idea that grows and develops and ultimately takes on a life of its own. Along Came Zoe, my sixth offspring, was one of those particularly difficult births, the kind where you groan, “Oh, never again.”

Fortunately, the joy of creation—books and babies alike—quickly dissolves the pain, leaving only a sense of wonder at what you’ve produced. I’m tempted here to carry on the analogy and talk about how the wonder only continues until your miraculous offspring gets its first report card—or review—but I think I’ve followed this thought far enough.

I hope you enjoy Along Came Zoe. I’d love to hear from you. Please visit my Web site at janicemacdonald.com, or write to me at PMB101, 136 E. 8th Street, Port Angeles, WA 98362.

Best wishes,

Janice Macdonald

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To my editor, Zilla Soriano, for her patience and

understanding during the difficult times I had while writing

this book, and for her unfailing wisdom and guidance. I feel

very fortunate to have the privilege of working with her.

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

JENNY DIXON WAS SIXTEEN.

Jenny Dixon was a cheerleader.

Jenny Dixon was driving home from practice when her Toyota was broadsided by a drunk driver.

Jenny Dixon is dead.

Dr. Phillip Barry, pulling into the underground garage of his Seacliff apartment, was stricken suddenly with exhaustion. He parked the car in its allotted space, climbed the stairs to the front door, unlocked it and threw himself on the sofa, where he fell asleep almost instantly.

Jenny Dixon is dead.

He sat up with a start, shook his head. The phone was ringing.

“Phillip?” His ex-wife, Deanna. “Were you sleeping?”

“No…yes.” He dug his knuckles into his eyes. “I’m fine. What’s up?”

“I was calling to talk about Molly. You said you’d have her this weekend, remember?” A pause. “Phillip. Are you okay? I ran into your brother at the market and he said you’ve been looking like hell lately—”

“I’m fine.” He tried to recall exactly when he’d agreed that Molly, their sixteen-year-old daughter, would spend the weekend; not that he didn’t want her, but things seemed to be getting away from him lately. Nothing big, nothing outside of the O.R., thank God, just conversations, appointments, things like that. He leaned his head against the couch back and closed his eyes. “So what’s the deal? I pick up Molly, or will you bring—”

“Phillip, we’ve already talked about this…I’m concerned about you. Joe is, too. It’s that damn…that Dixon case, isn’t it? Phillip, you’re human, for God’s sake. You go on burning the candle at both ends long enough and something’s going to give. Anyway, why should you blame yourself? I don’t see Stu going aroung wringing his hands—everyone deserves some time off once in a while, when was the last time—”

“So do you want me to pick up Molly?”

“Okay, you’re not going to listen to me, I might as well save my breath. I just want you to think about something. Molly needed you. Needs you. This girl’s death wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t your fault a bus overturned. It wasn’t your fault the paramedics had to drive her around…”

With Deanna’s voice in his ear, Phillip got up from the couch and wandered over to the opened French doors. Straight ahead, the Pacific stretched endlessly. On either side he could see, in his peripheral vision, the balconies of his neighbors. Smoke from someone’s grill wafted briefly into the room.

“…I don’t mean to sound callous or anything,” Deanna was saying, “but instead of dwelling on the what-ifs, why don’t you just think about what it means to Molly that you’re available once in a while. Like her birthday, for example…”

Phillip came back inside, slid the doors shut and returned to the couch. The headline in that morning’s Tribune had asked, Did Jenny Have To Die? Maybe not, he was forced to admit. If he and Stu, his partner, hadn’t decided just weeks before Jenny Dixon’s accident to suspend emergency neurosurgical services to Seacliff’s trauma center…if a tourist bus hadn’t tumbled down a mountainous ravine just east of the city, swamping other local centers with injured passengers…if Jenny had been immediately airlifted instead of being driven around in an ambulance… If, if, if. An endless wheel of ifs circling unmercifully through his brain.

AS SOON AS SHE HEARD the morning weather report announcing a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico, Zoe McCann knew that the winds traveling up from Baja wouldn’t be the day’s only storm. The announcer’s voice on the clock radio—specifically his mention of the words historic surf—had woken her from sleep.

Adrenaline coursing through her body, Zoe pulled on jeans and grabbed a flannel shirt from the pile of clean laundry that she’d intended to put away the night before and ran, barefoot, downstairs to the kitchen to grab her keys.

“That bastard,” she muttered to herself as she climbed into her truck. “I swear to God, I’ll kill him.”

Ten minutes later—it would have been five but for the morning commuter traffic—she drove her pickup south on Pacific Coast Highway, the car radio blaring something unintelligible. Jeez. She punched buttons, searching for something other than the punk rock that always screamed from the speakers after her son Brett had used the truck.

“…and the continued fallout from the tragic death of a local teenager has prompted a Seacliff city councilman to propose financial incentives ranging from five hundred to one thousand dollars or more a day to lure neurosurgeons back into providing on-call services.”

Financial rewards to lure neurosurgeons.

Disgusted, Zoe snapped off the radio. Money always took care of everything. A thousand dollars in Dr. Phillip Barry’s hot little hand and Jenny Dixon might be alive today.