Solemn Oath (38 page)

“Our peace comes from God,” came Alma's voice again. “It's the only place for any of us. I love the Bible verse ‘Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee: because he trusteth in Thee.' I memorized those words in the King James version years ago, and I love the sound of it. I repeated it a lot while I was in Mexico on the mission field, and especially when I was in the hospital losin' this leg. God never let me down. Trust Him, honey. He's the only one big enough to put our faith in.”

Mercy took a deep breath and let it out. The two men she watched for, the two they had been praying for, could be lost to her and Tedi for all time. They could be dead. She had come face-to-face with death many times in her life, and the finality of it had always been a shock. This time, though…This time she could remember Lukas telling her that physical death was never final. He believed it and revealed it in his life.

Maybe that was why he and Theo had both been able to go back into that building to help others.

She looked down at Tedi, who continued to watch her with frightened eyes. “Yes. Tedi, we can both put our faith in Him.”

 

Lord, if You're going to take me now, I'm willing to go, but please don't take Buck. He doesn't know You yet
. Lukas's prayer continued as the fire licked closer, devouring linens and cotton supplies as it turned the dwindling space into an oven. Buck dropped the cylinder, breathless from the exertion, face dripping with perspiration, arm dripping with blood. It was a toss-up to see if the fire would get them first or if Buck would bleed out.

Lukas scrambled on his knees to a rack that held Ace wraps. He grabbed one, crawled back to Buck and quickly wound the bandage around the gaping cut. Buck caught his breath and tried once more to lift the oxygen canister. Lukas took it from him. He had just lifted it to swing again at the section of badly chipped brick they had been working on, when a powerful thud shook the whole wall. Cement chinks fell from between several of the bricks. The impact knocked the remaining ceiling tile to the floor.

“They're breaking in from the other side,” Buck said weakly. “We've got to get out of the way.” He turned to look at the flames all around. “Grab those tiles, Doc, and shove them at the flames on this side. They're fireproof, and maybe they can smother enough of the flames.”

As Lukas rushed to comply, another thud shook the wall, louder than the last, and the wall buckled. A central brick loosened with a scattering of cement, and Lukas reached up to pull it free. They heard a motor then, and it sounded like a forklift.

He shoved the brick into the fire to their right while Buck threw the tile.

There was another thud, and more brick fell. Lukas grabbed up the oxygen tank and hurled it once again against the wall with all the strength he had left. Mortar broke. Bricks scattered, and someone shouted from the other side.

“You've got it! There's room! Come on through!”

 

Lukas, Buck and Theodore stumbled out into fresh daylight, gasping, choking, exclaiming with relief. A crowd from the parking lot cheered, accompanied by the roar of a chopper taking off with Bailey Little aboard. The squall of another ambulance breezed through the milieu toward them.

A young woman came running toward them. Kendra Oppenheimer stumbled on the cracked concrete sidewalk, righted herself and kept running, even as others shouted at her to get back.

She didn't stop. “Buck!” she cried with a choked sob as she neared him. “You're alive! Oh, thank God you're alive!”

Lukas could hear his big friend's sudden gasp, could see the surprised joy flood his face as he held out his good arm to catch her in an iron grip.

“I'm so sorry, Buck. I was wrong, so wrong.” Her soft voice broke as she buried her face against the bulk of his chest. “I don't care if you're a fireman or a tech or an astronaut. I can't stop loving you. I'll worry about you whether we're living together or not. I'm so sorry.”

As the chopper rose, Buck stumbled, righted himself with heroic effort, then stumbled again and fell to his knees.

Lukas grabbed him. “Would somebody get us a gurney or a wheelchair? I need to give this man some medical attention.”

The crowd of rescue workers and hospital staff converged on Lukas and Buck and Theodore. Leading the group was the stout, muscular bulk of the fire chief, Todd Adams.

While Buck assured everyone, especially his wife, that he would be fine, they placed him in a wheelchair and pushed him toward the Richmond Clinic.

“Everyone's accounted for now,” Adams shouted over the sound of the helicopter. He reached out to shake Buck's hand. “You done good, Buck. You kept your cool again. If you hadn't gotten Dr. Bower up there to Bailey in time, they don't think he'd have made it.”

“What about Mrs. Pinkley?” Lukas asked. “Where did you take her?”

“They're taking her by ground to Cox South, same place the chopper's taking Mr. Little,” Adams said. “Dr. Wong checked her out himself. Looks like she might have some cracked or broken ribs, maybe a concussion, a broken leg, but Estelle's tough as shoe leather. What do you want to bet she tries to take over the hospital by the first of next week?”

“Dad! Lukas!” Tedi came running out the front door of the clinic, and she didn't stop until she reached them. Theodore picked her up in a bear hug, and tears of relief flowed down both their faces.

And when he released her, she grabbed Lukas, smearing her face and bloodstained clothing with streaks of soot and dirt. Lukas held her for a long moment in a tight embrace. That was when he saw Mercy.

She stood out in front of the clinic. Her long black hair was disheveled, and her hands were raised to her face as if she were in shock or crying. Her gaze did not leave him.

He took a step in her direction, but the crowd cut him off.

“Buck,” the chief said as he walked beside the wheelchair, “you're back on the team.”

Buck stared at his boss, his face black and red and dripping with soot and sweat and heat, his ears looking like singed doorknobs. “But I thought you'd be mad, Chief. I was suspended, and I played fireman anyway.”

“You're not suspended anymore. We got our man, the same one we suspected all along.” Todd grunted and shook his head with regret. “Sorry I couldn't let you in on it, but Kyle Alder was setting you up—or trying to.”

“Kyle!” Buck turned and gazed at the destruction in amazement. “He did all this?”

“We have a confession. He even used a set of football pads when he torched the school cafeteria so it'd look more like you, and he used your jar of solvent. His Explorer buddy started to steer clear of him a couple of days ago, and we got suspicious, but you know how hard it is to catch an arsonist. So we let him think he had us fooled.”

“How'd you catch him, Chief?”

“You know that picture on the front page in yesterday's paper? We did that on a hunch. We thought somebody might see it and place Kyle at the scene before the fire. It worked. One of the servers at Little Mary's recognized him and called us.”

“He sure had me fooled,” Buck said. “I didn't think he could pull off something like this.” He gestured toward the wing of the hospital that lay in burning, steaming ruins.

The chief shook his head again. “Too bad we didn't catch him in time. He's confessed now, and he's been hauled off. He admitted he got mad at you for giving him a bad review and refusing to recommend him for further training, but he swears the torching just got out of hand. He used calcium carbide for this one.” Todd jerked his head at the hospital. “Put it in the maintenance room. That's what caused the first explosion. He didn't realize the water from the sprinklers would make it so combustible. The generators exploded. That's what spread the fire.”

Lukas couldn't keep his attention from wandering once more toward Mercy. She was walking to meet him, arms crossed over her chest now as if she were cold, but she stopped when she came to the edge of the crowd that surrounded Buck and Lukas. Her nose was red, and her eyes had makeup smudged in the wrong places. Even as he watched, more tears dripped down her cheeks, and she sniffed.

As Buck and his wife talked excitedly with the others, Lukas stepped back from the crowd, strolled around the perimeter, accepting an occasional pat on the back and inquiries about his well-being. He kept his attention on Mercy. He wanted to run to her, to take her in his arms and never let her go again. When he drew close enough to touch her, she spoke first.

“You're okay,” she breathed. “When the building exploded I thought…I was so…” Fresh tears filled her eyes, and she clamped her arms more tightly around her. “I prayed so hard, and those prayers were all answered. And I realized that God has answered so many of my prayers, and I've just ignored Him, blamed Him. I'm so sorry. Oh, Lukas, you're alive!”

He watched her for a couple of seconds in awe, then he grabbed her and pulled her to him, wrapping his arms tightly around her. She buried her face in the smoky front of his scrubs, and her shoulders shook with sobs.

“You're alive,” she murmured. “Thank God.” Another sob shook her. “Thank God.”

S
unday morning came early in the patient rooms at Cox South Medical Center, earlier than Estelle Pinkley was used to awakening. It wasn't even daylight outside when she heard a nurse taking the vitals of the patient on the other side of the thin curtain. There had been no private rooms available, and Estelle longed for Knolls, where every room was private and nurses didn't have to disturb patients in the middle of the night in order to complete their duties.

The chair next to Estelle's bed was empty, and she gave a relieved sigh. Clyde, her husband of fifty-five years, had been beside her throughout this whole ordeal, red-eyed and droopy, dozing beside her day and night since they'd brought her in. She had ordered him out last night. It was the only way she was going to get any work done, and the only way he was going to get any sleep.

She waited for the nurse to walk out of the room, then pressed the button to move her bed into the sitting-up position, grimacing as her cracked ribs protested. It was a good thing her left wrist was just sprained and not broken. She pulled a notepad out from under the blanket beside her and reread what she'd written last night after Clyde and Ivy and Lukas and half the town of Knolls were forced to leave
at the end of visiting hours. She changed a few words, wrote two more sentences and nodded with satisfaction. It would work.

Slowly, gently, she reached for her cell phone and punched the private home number for the editor of the
Knolls Review
. She noted with a nod of satisfaction that the call would wake him up.

Unfortunately, a female voice answered—that of Harvey's long-suffering wife, Barbara.

“Hello, Barb? Estelle here. Sorry to bother you so early in the morning, but I need to talk to Harvey, and the staff here is a little strict about patients working from their beds. Yes, yes, I'll be fine, just some cracked ribs and a broken leg and a concussion. The hospital will be okay, too, don't worry. Thanks, Barb.” She checked her notes again, prepared to get tough if she had to.

The editor picked up an extension within ten seconds.

“Hi, Harvey. Listen, you got the information I sent you on RealCare, didn't you? Good. Those are publishable facts, and I want to see them in tomorrow's paper, and don't give me any argument, or I'll slap a libel charge on you and Bailey.” Might as well let him know up front that he wasn't going to push her around in her weakened condition.

“Yes, Bailey's still alive to sue, bless his rotten soul.” She didn't mention the fact that he was in bad shape right now and probably wouldn't walk for a long time. She wasn't going to walk for a while, either, but that wouldn't stop her. “I think I can convince him to retract his letter, but your paper did some major damage to the reputation of one of the best E.R. docs in the region, and you're going to do some scrambling to make up for it.”

She listened with satisfaction for a moment while Harvey apologized and backpedaled. She wouldn't be getting any bad press from him for a long time.

“First of all,” she said, “you will print in the headline
article that Knolls Community was cleared of all allegations by COBRA. Second, we were well insured. We'll have a bigger and better hospital than ever before, and I will be overseeing every aspect of the operations myself.”

She didn't, after all, have to depend on her notes. It was all there in her head. When she got finished with Harvey, she would call some contractors in the area. Her hospital wouldn't be down for long. Neither would she.

 

Lukas sat nearer to the pulpit than he usually did on Sunday mornings, but that was because he'd arrived late, and the church was nearly full. Many of the people here today probably attended services only at Christmas and Easter. Parking lots in churches all around town this morning overflowed out into the streets. It seemed as if everyone in the county was here. Except for Mercy.

Lukas couldn't deny his disappointment. After the fire…after the look he'd seen in her eyes, the joy that seemed to suddenly flow out of her—and not just because she was relieved that he was safe—he'd expected something more.

It was all that had been on his mind aside from the shock of the explosions and fire and community outpouring of pain over the partial destruction of the hospital. He, too, was emotional. The destruction of the E.R. had devastated a part of him.

This morning's sermon was about new beginnings. Appropriate, since cleanup had already begun on the hospital, and the citizens of Knolls, always community minded, had taken part in the operation as much as they were allowed.

And Bailey Little had done his part. After giving Lukas an abject apology this morning for all he had done, he'd promised to call the
Knolls Review
and make a public apology, as well. There would be no more attempts to destroy what was left of Knolls Community Hospital.

Of course, since Bailey was feeling the effects of morphine at the time, Lukas knew he could only wait and see how sincere the man's words had been.

Shaking himself from the attack of cynicism, Lukas glanced across the auditorium and caught sight of slender, serene Darlene Knight sitting beside Ivy and Tedi. If Ivy had her way—and she usually did, except with her own daughter—Clarence would be sitting beside them as soon as he could get around better. Lukas had enjoyed several lively discussions with Clarence about God's unconditional love, God's power, God's grace. The big man's heart was changing, Lukas could tell. He was gradually releasing some of the pain he'd gone through in the past. Of course, Lukas had thought Mercy's heart was changing, too.

Theodore Zimmerman sat in the pew behind his daughter, his gaze straying to the back of Tedi's head every few moments with an expression of wonder, and Lukas felt a rush of joy for the new relationship being forged between father and daughter. And between Father and son.

In the pew in front of Lukas, Lauren McCaffrey sniffed and pressed a tissue to her eyes. Another woman sitting in the pew behind him sniffed and blew her nose, and he realized he had missed the past few minutes of the sermon, and that an emotional point had just been made. That wasn't like him. He usually listened. He often took notes on the backs of tithe envelopes if he forgot to tuck some loose notebook paper into his Bible.

The pastor concluded the message, and the organ slipped softly into a hymn of invitation. The congregation stood, and Lukas sighed. He had to get his mind off the could-have-been. He was here to worship God, not scan the crowd for roll call or pine for a lost love.

He opened the
Baptist Hymnal
to “Just As I Am” and had opened his mouth to join in the second verse when he detected movement in the aisle to his left. It was not polite
to stare at someone walking down to the altar during invitation time, but everybody always did, sometimes out of curiosity, sometimes relief, oftentimes joy. An altar invitation was supposed to be a time of personal introspection and heartfelt prayer, but brotherly love was also allowed.

Lukas caught the amazing, beautiful sight of Mercy Richmond's dark hair streaming over her slender, erect shoulders—where had
she
come from? He'd done a thorough search for her at the beginning of the worship service.

As she reached the front, he wanted to shout a prayer of praise—he only did so in his heart. After all, this was a circumspect Baptist church. Mercy walked purposefully toward the pastor, who waited with hands outstretched in front of the pulpit.

She took those hands, spoke with the pastor, nodded eagerly, then bowed her head in prayer while the congregation sang the third and fourth verses.

Lukas couldn't sing. He stared unabashedly toward Mercy, unable to see her clearly past the tears in his eyes. All his prayers over the summer were being answered right here in a church full of witnesses. All the words he thought had fallen on deaf ears, all the pleading and explaining and arguing that had ended in frustration, all the pain…everything was being answered. He felt a weightlessness so profound it made him dizzy.

Someone touched his arm, and he looked over to find Lauren holding a tissue for him. She, too, had tears in her eyes. He took the tissue and smiled at her and continued to smile as the pastor raised his hand for the music to stop.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I want to present to you a brand-new sister in Christ, Mercy Richmond.”