Sacred Trust Read online

  “She must mean the beekeepers,” Lukas explained. “They’re in the waiting room. They were the ones who found her and brought her in.”

  “Good.” Mercy tossed away a soiled towelette. “I want to talk to them and thank them personally.” She frowned and leaned closer to inspect Tedi’s shoulders. Both looked as though they’d been bruised. She straightened and caught Lukas’s attention, then jerked her head toward the bruises.

  “Yes,” he said softly. “I noticed those just a few moments ago.”

  “What do you think?” she asked.

  “I don’t dare make a guess.”

  “Mom?”

  Mercy bent back down. “Yes, honey?”

  “Grandma always said to pray when I got scared, and I did. Don’t you think Jesus answered my prayer?”

  Mercy hesitated.

  “He sure answered ours,” came a female voice from the doorway.

  They turned to find the senior citizen beekeepers standing in the entrance, smiling.

  “You don’t look the same as when we brought you in,” the man said, holding his work-stained bill cap in his hands.

  The woman’s iron-gray hair matched her friendly eyes. She stepped in ahead of her husband and approached the side of the exam table. “Looks like you’ve been cleaning out the barn, kiddo.”

  “Are you the ones who found me?” Tedi asked.

  “Sampson’s the one who found you,” the woman said. She reached out and touched Tedi’s arm, as if to assure herself the child was really okay. “He’s our dog,” she explained to Mercy. “He just wouldn’t leave us alone tonight, growled and whined all during dinner.”

  “He barely ate his own food.” The man stepped farther into the room. “That’s when Goldy got worried.” He gestured to his wife. “She insisted we follow Sampson and see what he wanted. I told her she’d been watching too many Lassie reruns, but she insisted.” He shook his head and sighed. “I’m sure glad I listened to her.”

  “Now, Carl, you know you were worried, too.” Goldy patted her husband’s arm.

  “I’m thankful to both of you,” Mercy said. Tears welled up in her eyes, and she forced them back. “You saved my daughter’s life.” She took Goldy’s hands and squeezed them gently. Her own hands trembled. “Thank you.”

  “And don’t forget Sampson, Mom,” Tedi said. “He didn’t eat me. He saved me.”

  “We were just the tools, child,” Goldy said. “The Lord was watching over you. He was taking care of you all along. We’ve been in the waiting room, praying, and we called some friends to pray, too. I want to go call them back and tell them our prayers have been answered.”

  “Yeah, just like Grandma says.” Tedi smiled at the couple. “Thank you for saving me and for praying. Thank your friends, too.”

  Goldy bent forward and kissed Tedi on the temple. “You’re so welcome, honey.”

  As the beekeepers left, Rita stepped into the exam room. “The bed is ready in ICU. We had to get parental consent to admit Tedi.” She glanced at Mercy. “I’m sorry, but I had to call the legal guardian. Tedi’s father is on his way down to sign the forms.”

  Mercy stared at Rita for a long moment. No, she wasn’t a traitor. She was doing what she had to do. It was the law. Stay in control. “Of course you had to call him, Rita,” she said at last. “We have to follow the rules.”

  “Dad’s coming here?” Tedi asked softly.

  “Yes, honey,” Mercy said.

  “But can’t you just stay with me?”

  “Don’t worry, I’m not leaving this hospital.” Mercy glanced down at her denim cut offs and stained T-shirt. Her hair hung around her shoulders in a tangled mess, and she hadn’t even brought a comb. Too bad. The staff would handle it. Tonight she was a mother, not a doctor.

  Lukas placed a hand on Mercy’s shoulder. “Your mother’s still in Colorado, isn’t she?”

  Mercy nodded.

  “Is there someone I can call for you?”

  Mercy looked down at her daughter. As Tedi’s condition improved, Mercy’s was deteriorating in direct proportion. She was letting down, but she couldn’t let down too much. She shook her head. There was no one to call.

  “Why don’t I get in touch with your secretary so she can cancel your appointments tomorrow,” Lukas suggested. “You’ll be tired.”

  Mercy looked at Lukas and forced a smile. “I’m a part-time E.R. doc, remember? I’m used to doing without sleep. Besides, I’m off tomorrow morning.”

  “Good.” Lukas leaned over Tedi to check her breathing once more.

  Mercy gently touched Tedi’s left shoulder. “Honey, what are these bruises?”

  Tedi stiffened, and her eyes grew fractionally wider.

  Lukas raised his stethoscope, then lowered it again. “Keep breathing for me, Tedi.”

  Tedi obeyed as she held her mother’s gaze. Mercy saw fear there, and the fear she saw shook her badly. She waited until Lukas was done. “Tedi, do you remember how you got them?”

  Tedi continued to hold her gaze and shook her head. “I…I guess tonight. I fell.”

  At the edge of her vision, Mercy saw Lukas shaking his head. She broke eye contact with her daughter and looked up at Lukas.

  He mouthed the word wait.

  As she stood there struggling for control, Theo’s voice reached them from the central desk. “I’m here to see Theadra Zimmerman. I’m her father.”

  Mercy watched Tedi’s expression grow even more fearful. “It’s okay, honey, I’m here.”

  They heard quick footsteps, and both of them looked toward the doorway.

  Theo came rushing in. “Tedi!” He stopped and glanced at Mercy, then Lukas.

  For some reason, Mercy couldn’t help noticing that every blond hair on Theo’s head was in place. He was impeccably dressed in a blue silk shirt and black Levis. It was as if he’d taken time to groom himself before coming down.

  “What happened?” His voice was surprisingly subdued for Theodore Zimmerman. “They wouldn’t tell me anything when they called,” he continued. “They just told me to come to the emergency room because my daughter was here.” His eyes sought and found Tedi. “What happened?” He stepped to the other side of the exam table and laid a hand on Tedi’s shoulder.

  Tedi recoiled. Theo withdrew his hand. He shot Mercy a quick look of annoyance. His eyes were bloodshot.

  Lukas stepped forward. “Mr. Zimmerman, I’m Dr. Bower. I’m the E.R. physician on duty. Your daughter was injured this evening. She’s better now, but her condition is still serious. We want to watch her in ICU overnight, and we need your signature on the admittance forms.”

  “What kind of injury?” Theo asked. In such close proximity, Mercy could smell the booze, and Tedi probably could, too. “Tedi, where did you go? I couldn’t find you.”

  “I got stung by a bee,” Tedi said. “I swelled up and couldn’t breathe. Some people found me and brought me here.”

  Once again Theo put a hand on Tedi’s shoulder, and once more she withdrew. “You look fine to me.” He looked at Lukas. “Why does she have to stay in the hospital overnight?”

  Mercy glared at him. “Tedi went into anaphylactic shock, Theodore. They called a code on her and almost had to do a cricothyroidotomy. I’d say that warrants an overnight observation in ICU. Don’t worry, my insurance covers it. You won’t have to pay.”

  Theo returned her glare. “You really think I value money more than my own daughter? I would just like to know what’s going on, why she left the house without telling me. Is that too much to ask?”

  “Under the circumstances,” Lukas said, stepping forward, “I think the answer will have to wait. Tedi needs some rest.”

  “How much rest?” Theo asked.

  “We’ll keep her overnight and watch her,” Lukas said. “Her family doc may release her in the morning if she’s doing okay.”

  “Look, I can’t stay here all night,” Theo protested. “I’m already late for a meeting.”

  “I’m staying,
” Mercy said. “You would only upset her.”

  Theo glared at her. “Why? Because you intend to poison her mind about me?”

  “Mr. Zimmerman.” Lukas stepped around the exam table and took Theo’s arm. “Please continue this conversation elsewhere.” He glanced at Mercy. “I’ll stay with Tedi.”

  Mercy squeezed her daughter’s arm and gestured to Theo to follow. She led him to an empty trauma room and turned to face him. “The first thing that will upset her, Theo, is the fact that you’re drunk. That always terrifies her, or didn’t you know that?”

  “Drunk! You think just because I’ve had a small glass of wine, I’m automatically drunk.”

  “I think you’re drunk because the fumes from your breath make it dangerous to light a match. I think you’re drunk because your eyes could pass for stop signals, and if you don’t think Tedi can see it, you vastly underestimate her. Do you realize she almost died tonight because of you?” Mercy could hear her own voice rising, and she struggled for some of the control Lukas had praised her for earlier. “She left home tonight because she knew you were drinking, and she was afraid of you.” She paused. “We found some bruises on her shoulders, Theo, and I want to know how they got there.”

  He grew still for a moment; then his face darkened. “For Pete’s sake, Mercy, your daughter almost died tonight, and you’re worried about a couple of bruises? She probably fell—”

  “They’re not fresh, and they’re not from a fall.” She couldn’t be sure of that, but she could bluff. Her voice took on the cutting edge of a scalpel. “She was afraid to tell me what happened, but I intend to find out.”

  Silence descended on the room.

  “There’s nothing to find out,” Theo said at last. “I’m a good father. You wouldn’t know about that. Just because your father was a drunk—oh, excuse me, I believe the polite term is alcohol dependent—you think you’re an expert. Just because your father beat you—”

  “What?”

  “Don’t you recall? Or maybe you’d had too much to drink that night.”

  “I don’t drink.”

  “I remember holding you while you cried and told me about your father beating you.”

  “I never told you anything like that!”

  Theo shrugged. “Selective amnesia? Your dad lost his temper and whipped you with the horse bridle. You had welts on your legs for days.”

  “How can you bring that up now?” What other things about their private moments together was he planning to spill to the whole world?

  “Your own father abused you. That makes you more likely to be an abuser, too,” Theo said. “Julie agrees with me.”

  “Or it makes it more likely to have married an abuser. And you leave Julie out of this. My life is none of that woman’s business!”

  “It will be. She’s going to be Tedi’s new mom.”

  The shock of the words struck Mercy speechless for two seconds. “I’m her mother.”

  Theo watched her face with a slow, taunting smile. “You’re such a good mother, the courts made me Tedi’s legal guardian.”

  “She won’t be much longer.”

  “But that’s why I’m here tonight, isn’t it?” His voice was low and smooth. “They can’t even trust you enough to let you sign the admittance forms. It’s a good thing Tedi has me. Her mother did a stint in the psych ward, her grandfather was a drunk and a child beater, and her grandmother’s out sleeping in the woods with her boyfriend—”

  Mercy’s fist connected with Theo’s face before she even realized the cork had popped on her control. Her knuckles stung as Theo staggered backward in surprise and stumbled against a metal suture tray. The table fell sideways with a crash that echoed through the emergency department.

  Theo scrambled to right himself as he glared at Mercy over the top of the table. Blood seeped from the left side of his mouth. He sprang forward, fists clenched.

  “What’s going on in here?” Lukas came running through the open doorway. “What are you doing to my trauma room?” He caught sight of Theo’s face and stopped.

  Theo kept his gaze trained on Mercy. He touched the blood on his mouth with his finger and held it out to look at it. A slow smile replaced the outrage on his face. “See, Mercy? Like father, like daughter. No court in the land would give you custody of an innocent ten-year-old child, and if you were to try to take her anyway, I’d have you thrown in jail so fast you’d never see your daughter again.”

  Every muscle in Mercy’s body tensed. She lunged toward him.

  “Stop it, Mercy!” Lukas grabbed her around the waist and lifted her bodily from the floor.

  “He can’t do this!” she cried, struggling. “Let me go!”

  “Mercy!” Lukas held on more tightly. “Stop it. Tedi’s crying in the other room. She heard you in here.”

  That worked. Mercy grew still. The tears came then, angry, frustrated, painful tears. She could barely see Theo through them, but that hateful smirk was imprinted on her mind. Lukas continued to hold her.

  “I’ll sign those papers now, Dr. Bower,” Theo said.

  “They’re ready at the desk,” Lukas replied coldly.

  “You know where to find me if you need me.”

  “I doubt that will be necessary.”

  “Fine. I’ll be back in the morning between nine and ten to get my daughter. She’d better be ready.”

  “That isn’t up to you, Mr. Zimmerman,” Lukas said. “Good night.” Somehow the icy tone of his voice comforted Mercy.

  Theo didn’t even stop again to see his daughter before he left.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Theodore drove into the darkened parking lot of the Golden Lion.

  He wasn’t surprised to find it empty at eleven o’clock at night. Even the kitchen help had gone home. Okay, so Gordon and the clients weren’t here, but Gordon might have driven them back to the office for a talk. Surely he’d tried to keep them occupied as long as possible.

  “Should’ve called,” Theo muttered as he turned out of the parking lot. He drove the short five blocks to the office and saw a light coming from Gordon’s cubicle. His car sat out in the drive, but there were no other vehicles nearby.

  As Theo pulled up, the front door opened and Gordon strode out, hands in his pockets, jingling his keys and loose change, an irritating habit of his when he was angry.

  This did not look good.

  Theo parked and got out quickly. “Gordon, I’m sorry. I’ve been in the emergency room ever since I talked to you last. Tedi got stung by a bee and had a bad reaction. She almost died.” He said it fast, before Gordon could interrupt.

  Gordon stopped in front of him, still jingling his keys, anger and frustration plain in his eyes even in the dimly lit darkness. “You realize what this means, don’t you? Century 21 has several places for them to see, and they won’t give up.”

  “Did you show the place?”

  “Oh, they saw the place, all right.” The jingling continued. “You’re the one who’s been handling this, and they wanted you to be the one to show it to them. They couldn’t understand what could be holding you up.” He shrugged, then said sarcastically, “They liked all that telephone charm of yours, and mine just wouldn’t do. Maybe they thought that since they’d flown all the way back here from California, you could take time out of your busy schedule to meet them. You’re the only one with a smooth enough line to get that dump unloaded before it gets dangerous.”

  Theo curbed his own anger. “They’ll understand an emergency, surely.”

  Gordon shrugged again. “You didn’t even bother to call and let us know. You stood us up at the Lion after you’d promised to be there.” He lowered his voice and glanced around. “Look, Theo, you’d better call them and get this straightened out, because you and I both stand to lose thousands on this deal if we don’t sell.” He leaned forward and tapped Theo on the chest. “Money we can’t afford to lose in an investment we can’t afford anyone to find out about.”

  “Don’
t worry, we’ll make it back in time. We’ll cover all the loans. No one will know.”

  “You may get to tell it to the judge if you can’t get us out of this. If the boss hears about it, you’re out of a job.”

  “We’re in this together, Gordon.”

  “I’m not taking the fall for you.”

  “You keep the company books. You wrote the check.”

  “It was your idea to do this! You set it up, and you convinced me it would be okay. You’ve got to explain things to these guys and get rid of this property before the whole thing explodes in our faces.”

  Theo held his hands up. “Okay, okay. Relax. I’ll call and give them the sad story about my little girl. We’ll make another appointment for tomorrow and everything will be okay.”

  All was quiet, and Lukas knew he should be trying to catch some sleep, but he couldn’t get certain people off his mind. Just to make sure about Tedi, he climbed the stairs and entered ICU. He nodded at the nurse who sat at the central desk, then spied Mercy sitting with her head bent by the side of her daughter’s bed. She still wore her stained T-shirt and cut-off denim shorts.

  Lukas stepped over to the nurse. “Don’t you have a cot we can set up beside the bed for Dr. Richmond?”

  “Yes, but I’ve been so busy here I haven’t been able to leave, and we’re short an aide tonight.”

  “Tell me where to find the cot.”

  She gave him directions, and he returned in a few moments with a narrow fold-out sleeping chair and a set of scrubs. He carried them to the end of Tedi’s bed.

  “Mercy?” he called softly.

  She raised her head and looked up at him. Her eyes focused on what he held.

  “You need some sleep,” he said. “And since Tedi’s out of danger, you can relax. These scrubs will be more comfortable than those clothes.” He placed the scrubs on the arm of the chair in which she sat, then tossed down a comb that he had purchased from a vending machine in the cafeteria. “Go change while I set up this cot.”

  She didn’t move. She stared at him. For a moment tears filled her dark eyes, but they did not fall. Without saying a word she finally picked up the stack of items and walked out. Lukas folded out the sleeping chair closely enough to Tedi’s bed that Mercy could reach out and touch her. He spread a sheet and a blanket over it, then grabbed a pillow from a nearby empty bed.