The Common Thread (39 page)

“Jet, back off! I’ll go with him.” Katie looked at her with pleading eyes and began to ease from the bed. It was a slow process.

“C’mon, Katie. Don’t fuck with me. Let’s go.”

“I’m trying,” she cried, and gave herself another push. It took another minute, but as soon as she was upright, Simon pulled her close to him, using her as a shield, and began pulling her backward toward the door.”

“Katie, he’s going to kill you,” Jet said.

“I don’t care! Just take care of Chloe and Andre.”

Simon pulled Katie with him as he took a tentative step back, his eyes trained on Jet as he held his gun fast at Katie’s temple. Jet’s chance was slipping away. Another few steps, and he’d be out the door, and Katie would be dead. She had to act quickly!

Before she had the chance for further debate, the curtain behind Simon moved. Jet couldn’t keep her eyes from darting in that direction, and Simon must have felt something, too, because he jerked his head in perfect time to meet the butt of Rae’s gun.

Jet’s breath caught for a moment as she saw him collapse, pulling Katie down, too, and only when they hit the floor with a thud and groan and no hint of gunfire did she allow herself to breathe again. And then another sound filled the air, a siren heralding the arrival of the lake police, and as she cradled Katie in her arms, she could finally, honestly tell her it was over.

At precisely six a.m., the radio on Rae’s nightstand came on, awakening her. Instead of turning it off, though, she stretched and listened to the news. She liked to know what was happening in the world before she went out to face it.

A moment later, the warmth of Nic’s hand on her abdomen turned her attention from the announcer’s voice, and she rolled over to face her lover. “Good morning,” she said.

Nic slid closer, into Rae’s arms, and sleepily kissed the flesh at her collarbone, causing Rae to quiver. It had been a year since they met, and Nic’s hands and lips still held the power to elicit an instantaneous response from Rae. More amazing, they managed to have a good relationship, despite their different views on many things and their potentially fatal propensity to express them.

“TGIF,” Nic said.

“Yes, TGIF. TGIFBV.”

Nic pulled Rae closer and thought about the letters. This was one of the many challenges Rae presented to her, something as simple as an acronym that would give her brain fits until she finally solved it. They didn’t agree on everything, and they never would, but they respected each other enough not to hit below the belt when they disagreed and were sensible enough to back off when it was appropriate.

Nic had never thought she’d want to share her life with someone; the sacrifice of her space and time was never easy. Yet with Rae, she didn’t find it a sacrifice at all. She longed to see her at the end of each day, smiled at the sight of her toothbrush beside hers in the bathroom and her shoes beside hers in the closet. This, she’d realized a while back, was love.

While Nic’s conscious mind had been wandering, her subconscious had been processing, and suddenly the answer came to her. “That was easy.”

“What?”

“Thank God it’s Friday before Vacation.”

Rae tickled her. “You’re too smart for me.”

“No, just the right amount of smart, I think. So how’s your day look? Will you be home at a decent hour?” Nic asked.

“Unless something disastrous happens, we’ll be on the road on time.” Rae’s office was as busy as ever. She’d spent months putting together a prosecution for Marc Simonson for illegally manufacturing and distributing controlled substances. They never found any money, and the white Lexus that had alerted her to his presence at the lake disappeared, but they had enough evidence to convict if the case went to trial. If. Simonson had already been convicted of murdering Billy Wallace and two garage attendants, and unless those cases were overthrown on appeal, she didn’t think the drug charges would be attested in court. Why waste taxpayer money to convict a man on death row for another crime?

It had been a great outcome, and Rae was happy to put the Simonson case behind her, but there was always a new fire to extinguish, and with the drug problems facing the country, they were usually infernos.

“Well, that’ll make about a million cars heading to the mountains for the weekend.” Nic hated the traffic in the city, and on this Friday before the July Fourth holiday it would stretch all the way to the Pocono exit of the PA Turnpike, some eighty miles of speeding, swerving cars challenging death at every curve of the road.

“Ah, but we’ll be staying for the week.” Rae sounded pleased by the thought.

Nic liked the idea, too. Since she’d moved back to Philly nine months earlier, she hadn’t made it home as often as she’d have liked. She and Rae made the two-hour trip at least once a month, but by the time they unpacked and cleaned up the house, it seemed it was time to turn around and head back to Philly. Nic always left with a heavy heart, disappointed that she couldn’t spend more time with her parents or relaxing at the lake before coming back to the chaos of every day life and the apartment they now shared.

They’d put Rae’s apartment on the market. After six months of living next to each other, during which time they spent very little time apart, they’d decided to move in together. Nic’s place was the logical choice, since it was roomier. Nic secretly hoped to sell her place as well and move to the Northeast, where she could be closer to her sister.

Getting to know Katie over the past twelve months had been one of the greatest experiences of Nic’s life. It amazed her to see the power of their common thread of DNA. Of course, they looked alike. The behaviors they shared were startling, though—from compulsive habits like nail biting and their common addiction to nicotine to their preference for classical music and their love of art. That they were both amateur artists who paid the bills with their careers in the medical field was too improbable to be a coincidence.

Every day, Nic seemed to discover something else about Katie that fascinated her, and every night she said a prayer of thanks—to all the gods—for the gift of her sister. They were friends, too, not just linked by some familial obligation, and Katie made Nic smile and laugh and think. She wasn’t afraid to give Nic a piece of her mind, and that was one of the things she liked most about Katie. A genetic factor had definitely determined this feisty component of her personality.

Chloe and Andre were the big bonus in this lottery she’d won. They were full of energy and optimism and love, and being in their company was wonderfully exhausting. She and Rae had been keeping them overnight on Fridays, to give Jet and Katie a date night. And Nic saw them every Tuesday, because she was off from work. With Katie and Jet both working, and Nan getting too blind to use the stove, Nic spent her Tuesday mornings preparing dinner for the Four Fs (Finan, Finan, Finan, and Fox) and Nan, who’d moved with them when they bought a house. Nic cooked very little but could make basic meals like lasagna and pot roast, which she delivered to the Four Fs once a week. She’d spend an hour playing cards with Nan before the kids arrived home from school, and then she’d help them with their homework before she headed home to feed Rae her dinner. It was nauseatingly domestic, and wonderful.

Nic showered and read the paper and kissed Rae before heading out the door to work. Friday was one of her three days at the clinic, Jeannie worked the other two, and they rotated Mondays, so every other week they could have a three-day weekend. The arrangement worked perfectly for them. Jeannie had time with Sandy, and Nic could cover for her so she could travel, but she still had control and the peace of mind of knowing the clinic was in good hands.

In the end leaving the ER had been easy. Since Jeannie’s clinic offered walk-in services, Nic still had some excitement in her practice. At least once a day she had to suture a wound or drain an abscess, and about once a week she saw someone truly sick, with heart disease or uncontrolled diabetes, and put her skills to use. It wasn’t as exciting as the ER, but the trade-off was a good one—she didn’t have to work overnight, she didn’t have to work weekends, and she didn’t have to work holidays. She could have gotten a job in a Philly ER if things hadn’t worked out at the clinic, but they were turning out just fine, and everyone was happy.

It was only a fifteen-minute ride to work, and Nic parked right behind the building and let herself in the back door. She started at seven, taking the early patients with a skeleton staff of one nurse and a receptionist. Later the residents and other doctors would arrive, and the place would be hopping.

“Hey, Jet,” Nic said.

“Morning, Nic.”

“Anyone here yet?” Although their scheduled appointments didn’t begin until nine, they left the first two hours of the morning open for walk-ins and encouraged their patients to use that time for any minor emergencies. It kept them out of the ER and helped provide a continuity of care.

“Mr. Danbury is in the treatment room.”

Nic turned and frowned. “Again? Wasn’t he just here like a week ago?”

“Yep.”

“Argh,” Nic replied.

She deposited her lunch bag in the kitchen and her purse in her locker, donned her lab coat, and made her way to the treatment room. She could smell Mr. Danbury’s foul body odor even in the hallway. He was curled up on the stretcher in the darkness, quietly awaiting her arrival.

Nic didn’t turn on the light. “Good morning, Mr. Danbury,” she said as she found a seat in the chair beside the stretcher. “What’s going on today?”

“It’s another sick headache.”

“Did you try your medicine at home?”

“Yes, I did. It don’t seem to help much.”

Nic inquired about recent head trauma and fever, but nothing was unusual about his headache other than it was a bad one.

She rose to examine him. “You smell awful,” she teased him.

“Sorry about that. I lost my water.”

He smelled like he’d lost his water, that was for sure, but when he continued Nic realized she’d misunderstood his words. “I lost my electric, too. Fell behind on the payments.”

“So you have no water at your house, and no electricity?”

“That’s right.”

“How are you eating?”

“My neighbors have been helping me.”

Nic completed her exam and told him that all seemed well. “I’m going to have the nurse start an IV and give you some medicine for your headache.”

“I appreciate that, Doctor.”

Nic found Jet in the hallway. “Can you please start an IV and give Mr. Danbury a liter of saline? And thirty of Toradol and four of Zofran.”

“Sure.”

“Oh, and Jet? Call the social worker. The man is diabetic and had a bypass. I’m sure those are good enough reasons to have his power and water turned back on.”

Jet smiled at her. “I’ll take care of it.”

Nic handed her the chart and walked back down the hall to the staff kitchen. She opened her lunch box, which was packed with food, and removed a few items. When she was done, she headed down the hall to Mr. Danbury’s room.

“I brought you some breakfast. When you have migraines, it’s important not to skip meals. That goes for your diabetes, too. Your sugar can drop too low and you can die. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“Don’t skip meals.”

“Exactly.”

Nic opened the bottle of organic, sugar-free orange juice and handed it to him, then peeled a banana. She placed both on a paper hand towel, then removed the wrap from a blueberry muffin and added that to his makeshift plate.

“Doctor, could you find me a cup of coffee in this office?”

Nic tilted her head slightly and scowled. “Don’t push your luck, Mr. Danbury.”

Then he smiled, a wide grin that revealed mostly open space in the places that God had intended for teeth.

Nic smiled back, a genuine smile filled with warmth and affection. “Do you want cream and sugar?” she asked.

Jaime Maddox grew up on the banks of the Susquehanna River in northeastern Pennsylvania. As the baby in a family of many children, she was part adored and part ignored, forcing her to find creative ways to fill her time. Her childhood was idyllic, spent hiking, rafting, biking, climbing, and otherwise skinning knees and knuckles. Reading and writing became passions. Although she left home for a brief stint in the big cities of Philadelphia and Newark, as soon as she acquired the required paperwork—a medical degree and residency certificate—she came running back.

She fills her hours with a bustling medical practice, two precocious sons, a disobedient dog, and an extraordinary woman who helps her to keep it all together. In her abundant spare time, she reads, writes, twists her body into punishing yoga poses, and whacks golf balls deep into forests. She detests airplanes, snakes, and people who aren’t nice. Her loves are the foods of the world, Broadway musicals, traveling, sandy beaches, massages and pedicures, and the Philadelphia Phillies.

On the bucket list: Publishing a novel, publishing a children’s book, recording a song, creating a board game, obtaining a patent, exploring Alaska.

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