Stress Test
ADVANCE ACCLAIM FOR
STRESS TEST
“Packed with thrills,
Stress Test
is a lightning-paced read that you’ll read in one breath.”
— T
ESS
G
ERRITSEN
New York Times
best-selling
author of
Last to Die
“Original and profound. I found the Christian message engaging and fascinating, and the story a thrill-a-minute.”
— M
ICHAEL
P
ALMER
New York Times
best-selling
author of
Oath of Office
“Sirens, scalpels, and the business end of a revolver—
Stress Test
offers Code 3 action and a prescription for hope.”
— C
ANDACE
C
ALVERT
best-selling author of
Code
Triage
and
Trauma Plan
“
Stress Test
comes with a warning: Prepare to stop life until you finish the last page.”
—
D
IANN
M
ILLS
author of
The Chase
and
The Survivor
“Recurring legal, medical and romantic thrills. Diagnosis: Pure entertainment.”
— J
AMES
S
COTT
B
ELL
award-winning suspense author
STRESS TEST
© 2013 by Richard Mabry
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.
Thomas Nelson, Inc., titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected].
Scripture quotations are taken from NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE
®
, © The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995. Used by permission.
Published in association with the literary agency of WordServe Literary Group, Ltd., 10152 S. Knoll Circle, Highlands Ranch, CO 80130.
www.wordserveliterary.com
.
Publisher’s Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.
Page design: Walter Petrie
Library of Congress Control Number: 2013931020
ISBN 978-1-4016-8708-3
Printed in the United States of America
13 14 15 16 17 18 RRD 6 5 4 3 2 1
For all the writers who light up a dark world.
CONTENTS
Dr. Matt Newman knew all about the high. He’d experienced it many times. The high was intoxicating, even when the low inevitably followed. Of course, sometimes there was no high at all, no pleasure, only the sadness, the melancholy. How many times had Matt asked himself if it was worth it?
It began tonight, as it frequently did, with a phone call that rolled Matt out of bed after less than an hour’s sleep and sent him speeding to the hospital. A teenager lay bleeding to death from internal injuries, the victim of a car crash that killed the girl riding with him.
Tonight Matt’s efforts were rewarded with a high unmatched by anything from a glass, a bottle, a syringe. Tonight there would be no heartbreak of telling a grieving family your best hadn’t been enough to save their loved one. Tonight Matt could savor the high—at least for a little while. This case was a good way to go out, to leave private practice behind.
But already Matt’s exhilaration was giving way to fatigue. His
eyes burned. His shoulders ached. His mouth was foul with the acid taste of coffee left too long on the hot plate. He was running on fumes.
The pneumatic doors closed behind him with a hiss like an auditory exclamation point. As Matt moved from the brilliance of Metropolitan Hospital’s emergency room into the mottled semi-darkness of the parking garage, he imagined the weight of responsibility slipping from his shoulders. Tomorrow Tom Wilson would take over his patients and his practice. Tomorrow Matt would assume his new position as assistant professor of surgery at Southwestern Medical Center here in Dallas. He’d teach medical students at Southwestern and instruct residents at Parkland Hospital, always emphasizing not only the science but the art of medicine. Matt knew he had a lot to give. He could hardly wait.
One of the benefits of the new job was supposed to be a more structured life: less on-call time, responsibilities shared with other faculty members, assistance from residents in patient care. Matt was looking forward to the change, not just for himself, but for the way it might benefit his relationship with Jennifer.
Matt couldn’t give up medicine entirely—he’d invested too much of his life in it, and it remained a passion with him—but he also felt a passion for Jennifer, perhaps even loved her. She was beautiful, witty, and fun to be around. She might be “the one.”
It wasn’t hard for Matt to spot his silver Chevy Impala in the darkest corner of the deserted garage. There weren’t many cars still there at two a.m., and soon there would be one fewer. He fished his keys from the pocket of his white lab coat and thumbed the unlock button on his remote. His hand was on the door handle when something yanked him backward and cut off his air in mid-breath. Matt dropped the keys and reached up with both hands to pry at the arm that encircled his neck.
In an instant Matt was slammed facedown to the cement floor. He heard a crack and felt the knife-like agony of breaking ribs. The searing pain in his chest made each labored breath more difficult. A weight pinned him to the ground like a butterfly on a specimen board.
Matt struggled, but his assailant held him fast. Fire shot through his shoulders as his arms were yanked together. There was a quick rip of tape, and in seconds his wrists were bound tightly behind him. Rough hands encircled his ankles with more tape, leaving him helpless and immobile. At the same time, someone else grabbed his hair and lifted his head. Matt gave a shrill cry before three quick turns of tape muffled his voice and turned the world black.
He tried to lift his head, but stopped abruptly when something hard and cold pressed against the back of his neck. Matt lowered his face onto the garage floor and went limp. He felt hope escape like air from a punctured tire.
There were murmurs above him, questions in a high-pitched singsong, answers from a harsh rasp like grinding gears. At first the words were indistinguishable. Then they became louder as the exchange heated.
“Why not here?” Was there a faint Hispanic accent to the whining tenor?
“The boss said not at the hospital.” The growling bass flung out the words, and spittle dotted the back of Matt’s neck. “I know just the place to get rid of him. Let’s get him into the trunk of his car.”
In the darkness that now enveloped him, Matt struggled in vain to move, to speak. He strained to hear what was said. He could only make out a few words, but they were enough to drive his heart into his shoes. “Get rid of him.”
He angled his head to catch the sounds around him: a jingle of keys, the sharp click of the trunk lock. Hinges squeaked. Matt had
a momentary sensation of floating as he was lifted, carried, dropped. His head struck something hard. Splashes of red flashed behind his closed eyelids, then vanished into nothingness.
Matt floated back to consciousness like a swimmer emerging from the depths. How long had he been out? Hours? Minutes? A few seconds? At first he had no idea where he was or what was happening. Little by little, his senses cleared. He tried to open his eyes but there was no light. He tried to speak, but his lips were sealed. He cried out, but the result was only a strained grunt. Finally he heard the faint sound of voices from inside the car, a menacing rumble and a high-pitched whine. The voices brought it all back to him.
He was on the way to his death. And the trunk of his car would be his coffin.
Sandra Murray watched the red numerals on her bedside clock roll from 2:32 to 2:33. Usually when she crawled into bed, sleep was never far behind, but not tonight. Her analytical legal mind scrolled through the possible reasons why she lay wide-eyed rather than sleeping peacefully.
Was it her profession? No, she’d long since come to grips with the dichotomy between being a criminal defense attorney and a practicing Christian. Despite the fact that her days were spent defending criminals, some of whom undoubtedly belonged in prison, she believed that everyone—even someone charged with rape or murder—deserved the best possible defense. Jesus ate with sinners; why couldn’t Sandra give them the protection and defense the law promised?
Was it because she had no family to speak of? The distance between her and her divorced parents was more than physical. True, her mother was in Costa Rica trying to “find herself,” and her father was in Alaska with his new wife. But even if they lived across the street from her Dallas home, Sandra’s contact with them would be
limited. That’s the way it had always been, and she’d come to accept it. She had no siblings, few close friends, and no—
There it was again—the same problem that kept cropping up in her mind to keep her from sleeping. She had no mate, no significant other with whom to share. She knew somewhere God had a husband for her, and when she met him and moved forward, she trusted that her life would finally be full.
Unfortunately, that longed-for fiancé apparently wasn’t Dr. Ken Gordon. She’d gone out with the handsome neurosurgeon for almost a year, and although The Question hadn’t been popped and her ring finger remained bare, they seemed to have reached a tacit understanding that marriage was around the corner. But that changed last night when the problem about Ken, the one that kept bouncing around in the back of her mind, resurfaced. So, during a beautiful dinner that neither of them tasted, with a view of the skyline of Dallas that neither of them saw, they finally admitted they weren’t meant for each other.
As Sandra stared into the dark, she wondered if she’d done the right thing, breaking it off with Ken. Well, it was done, and all she could do was wait for God to fill the void in her life. She squeezed her eyes shut and felt the tears forming.
God, if there’s a husband out there
for me, please show me
.
Satisfied with this final effort at a bedtime prayer, she dabbed at the corners of her eyes with the covers, then pulled them to her chin and once more tried to sleep.
“Let’s get out of here.”
Lou slammed the trunk closed, clambered behind the wheel, and started the engine. He had the car in motion by the time his
companion scrambled in. Lou reversed out of the parking slot, stopping with a screech of brakes. Then he slammed the gearshift into drive, stomped on the gas, and the car screamed down the ramp. His rearview mirror gave a glimpse of parallel stripes of black rubber on the cement.