Note: This is a sequel to "Little Things"...you should read that first to avoid confusion!
An ear-splitting scream, accompanied by a multitude of shouts, slams, and loud swearing, shattered the relative quiet. He took off down the corridor at a run to investigate.
Fists flying, they went at each other, intent on doing the most damage in the shortest amount of time. This gang war was not a personal thing; rather, it was territorial and symbol-driven.
He pulled the girl from beneath a pile of brawlers going at each other with knives. Leaving the termination of the fisticuffs to the security detail, he carried her into the nearest available treatment room as he called for a nurse to assist.
“What’s your name?” he asked the girl softly as he examined the wounded shoulder.
“Melai,” came the dour answer.
“108 over 62,” she reported, removing the blood pressure cuff and moving off to prepare the equipment he would need for the sutures.
The girl’s shoulder had been deeply slashed, requiring almost thirty stitches, but, in spite of that, it did not appear to be overly serious, especially since he had gotten to it in short order and the blood loss had not been too severe. Several days of rest, immobilization of the limb coupled with antibiotic treatment, and young Melai should recover completely. He did not even think any mobility would be lost.
They were bandaging the wounded shoulder when the door slammed open and the young man stormed into the treatment room.
“Please wait outside,” he said.
Paying no attention, the young man instead came over to the examination table to see the girl for himself. “You a-bein’ OK?” he asked Melai as his eyes darted about, missing nothing.
She nodded and he said, “C’m on!”
“Wait a minute! You can’t take her out of here!”
A knife appeared in his hand as he replied, “Can’t stop me.”
Taking a step back, he sought to reason with the young gang leader. “She needs to stay here,” he declared. “Those stitches in her shoulder . . . . . . . .”
“Can’t stay. Gotta go. NOW!” With that, he dragged the girl to her feet and pulled her toward the treatment room door.
She stepped in front of him, blocking his exit. “Now you listen!” she sternly demanded. “She needs medical treatment. That shoulder wound could become infected or the stitc- . . . . . . . .”
The young man roughly pushed her aside.
He moved to break her fall, but he was too far away and she tumbled backward, knocking over a stool and landing in a heap on the floor. The bottle of Betadine she’d been holding splashed everywhere, leaving dark stains on her white uniform.
Determining that she was not hurt, he helped her to her feet. The young man was gone, along with the girl, and there was nothing more they could do.
Ruefully assessing the damage to her uniform, she concluded it would require a professional’s services. With a discouraged sigh, she resignedly set about cleaning up the treatment room.
Thankfully, the next couple of days were quiet and the regular hospital routine quickly re-established itself as everything settled down once more. But the quiet was short-lived and, by the end of the week, over-busy shifts once more became the norm for the Rampart staff.
The brassy tones sounded at the station yet again, mobilizing the tired men into action. It had been a day filled with runs, and they were all bone-weary.
“KMG-365,” Captain Stanley responded as he acknowledged the call. Handing the address note to Roy DeSoto as he passed the squad, he quickly moved toward the engine and both vehicles headed out to answer the call, sirens screaming.
It turned out to be a fairly standard call, if there could ever be such a thing as a “standard” call. A four-car pile-up on the freeway had resulted in a grass fire alongside the roadway. Johnny and Roy tended to the victims while Mike and Chet set about addressing the fire. Marco and the captain were busily working to free an uninjured victim trapped in her car. All in all, pretty routine stuff for the men of Station 51. Still, it managed to eat up a huge chunk of their already-hectic day.
Kell offered her a hot cup of coffee as he exhaustedly observed, “This has certainly been a day for the record book!”
“I can’t remember when we’ve been so busy in the middle of the week,” Dixie commented, gratefully accepting the mug.
Joe Early came through the door and dragged himself over to the empty chair beside Dixie, the same weary, battle-worn look in his eyes. Smiling sympathetically, Kell drew another cup of coffee from the pot and placed it on the table in front of his exhausted friend. “I see it’s been that kind of a day for you, too,” he observed with a rueful chuckle.
“We should be declared a disaster area!” Joe replied. “I sure can’t keep up with all these patients.” Laughing, he joked, “Maybe we fell into a time warp and our problem is that we’re using stone knives and bearskins to treat our patients!” They shared a chuckle at the thought, then fell into a weary silence.
Mike Morton sent the man up to the cast room as he, too, headed for a cup of coffee and a moment’s respite from the hectic-ness of the day. Sometimes they’d been a mere half a step ahead of the next emergency and it was a credit to all of them that they’d managed to handle every case quickly, efficiently, and, most importantly, compassionately. The base station squawked to life as he was walking past, though, and he never did get to have that cup of coffee . . . . . . . .
Sticking his head in the door, Mike broke into their silence as he announced, “Four ambulances coming in --- freeway pile-up.”
Sighing in resignation, they went to treat the incoming victims. Some days it just didn’t pay to even try for a coffee break.
Dixie was phoning the lab for some test results when Roy and Johnny walked up to the counter at the nurses’ station. They waited while she finished her call, and then wearily greeted her. “Guess you’re having the same kind of day we’ve had,” Roy observed, looking around. “We’ve been on the run all shift.”
“Absolutely non-stop around here today,” Dixie wearily replied.
Their handi-talkie squawked to life and Johnny commented, “I’ll sure be glad to see this shift come to an end!”
As they headed down the corridor and out the door, Dixie nodded her head in tired agreement.
Ultimately, the hectic pace settled down once more [were these things always cyclical?], and everything became more routine for both the hospital staff and the men of Station 51.
“Hold on a second!”
Frustrated, she stopped and waited.
“What’s the big hurry? How about having a cup of coffee with me before you go?”
She had already worked well beyond the end of her shift, throwing her schedule for the rest of the day into disarray. She sighed in acknowledgment and tried to explain her haste. “I’m already late getting out of here. Before I can even think about heading toward home, I have to go to the bank, get some stamps from the post office, stop by the drug store . . . . . . . . “
“Why the drug store?” he interrupted.
“Vitamins . . . . . . . .”
“Oh . . . . . . . .”
“Then I need to drop off the library books,” she continued, “stop at the dry cleaners, and pick up some groceries. After that, I have to come back here to pick up . . . . . . . .”
“Whoa!” he interrupted, holding up his hand. Astounded by the task list she’d amassed, his quick evaluation of the situation led him to seek a way to somehow make it a bit easier for her. “Sounds like you have more than enough on your personal ‘to do’ list,” he observed. “Why don’t you run your errands and let me take care of everything here?” Hoping to seal the bargain, he added, “And then I’ll take us out to dinner.”
“That sounds . . . . . . . . lovely,” she said with a smile. And with that, she headed toward the parking lot.
If they had known what lay ahead, he never would have let her go.
Tiredly, she folded the uniform over her arm as she waited for the clerk to count out her change. Ordinarily, she took care of her uniforms herself, but the Betadine that had gotten spilled all over her during that gang fight mess in Emergency last weekend had required professional attention. Silently, Dixie marveled at the ease with which she’d managed to complete her errands at the bank and post office when, to her surprise, she’d found no long waiting lines at either place. The library books had been dropped off, and it was definitely beginning to look as if she might actually get home a bit earlier than she had at first thought. There might even be enough time to relax with the tw- . . . . . . . .
The sudden slamming open of the door interrupted her musings as three young men swarmed into the shop. In a flurry of shouting and gun-waving, they forced everyone to line up and kneel on the floor in the middle of the room as they emptied both the cash register and the safe. That task completed, they set about collecting wallets and credit cards from their hostages. A signal passed between them and two of the young men came over to the kneeling group of people. Laughing, each of them touched their guns to the back of the heads of the first two people in the line and calmly pulled the triggers. One of the women screamed as they moved on to the next two people and the abhorrent scene repeated itself.
A hoarse shout interrupted their shooting as the third youth fell to the floor with a bullet wound in his arm. Edgily, the two gunmen held their fire and one of them rushed over to their companion to see what he could do for him.
Letting loose a string of epithets, the wounded leader berated the gunmen for their carelessness, for allowing a shot to go wild and strike him. The gunman looked around for something to staunch the flow of blood from the wound as the injured man concluded his ravings with an exclamation of, “DAMN!”
Spying the uniform still folded over her arm, the gunman came over to her and, grabbing hold of her hair, roughly demanded, “You a doct’r or som’thin’?”
“I’m a nurse,” she answered, consciously working to keep her voice calm so as to not belie her inner fear.
Dragging Dixie to her feet, he hauled her over to his injured companion. She examined the wound, then tore several strips from the uniform to use as bandages. “He needs a doctor,” she told them, knowing full well the chances of medical help being sought were somewhere between nil and none.
“He’s got’cha,” the gunman declared, “and you’re gonna make sure he’s OK!”
Following his injured leader into the street, he dragged her away as his companion completed their gruesome dispatching of all the witnesses to their presence in the dry cleaning shop.
Catching himself pacing yet again, Kell checked the clock for the umpteenth time, trying to fathom what could possibly be delaying her. Unnerved by the memory of events following the earthquake, he knew it wasn’t like Dixie to be so late . . . . . . . .
They traveled a good distance out of the city proper, ending up in a rough-hewn, ramshackle out-building in a dark canyon. Throughout the trip Dixie had struggled to control the bleeding and now symptoms of shock began to manifest themselves.
“The bullet needs to come out,” she declared.
“Take it out!”
“I’m not a doctor and I . . . . . . . .” Dixie began, her comment interrupted by a bone-jarringly rough slap across her face.
“Take it out,” he repeated.
“I don’t have . . . . . . . .” she began, flinching as he once again raised his hand to strike her.
The other gunman slid a Swiss army knife and a spool of thread across the table to her, ending her “I don’t have . . . . . . . .” excuse, and Dixie silently accepted that there was absolutely nothing she could do except hope that the bullet was in an easy-to-reach position and that she would not inflict too much damage with the unwieldy knife. Looking at the knife with dismay, she had a fleeting thought about bearskins and stone knives and, with a wordless prayer for help, she set about, as best as she could, the tasks required of her by these hoodlums.
The ringing of the doorbell startled him from his worried reverie. Two policemen stood there on the porch and Kell instantly knew that it was much worse than just bad . . . . . . . .
The injured gang leader lay unconscious on the table as Dixie worked at applying bandages to the wound. Amazed that she’d actually managed to remove the bullet and stop the bleeding, she marveled that she had gotten the stitches in OK with the sewing needle and thread that had been provided. Even so, the scar would be ugly, shock was still an issue, and it would be a major miracle if infection didn’t set in . . . . . . . .
Coming over to the table to observe, one of the gunmen demanded, “Is he dead?”
“No,” Dixie replied with a shake of her head. “But he needs to be in a hospital . . . . . . . .”
“No hospital!” he declared, grabbing her hair and pulling her around to face him. “You’d just better take good care o’ him, right here!” With a jerk, he released his hold on her, causing her to stumble as she fought to keep her feet under her.
Numbed by terror, Dixie focused on her unconscious patient.
“We’ve identified all of the people who were . . . . . . . . still in the shop, and your wife isn’t one of them,” he continued. “But we found a trail of blood leading away from there, so we’re pretty sure that at least one of them was injured somehow. We think they might’ve taken her with them to treat the . . . . . . . .”
“What are you doing to find her?” he interrupted.
“We don’t have too much to go on right now,” the policeman told him. “We got lucky --- finding her name and address on the customer order slip attached to the . . . . . . . . .”
“Why aren’t you out there looking for her?” he demanded.
“We’re doing everything we can,” his partner interrupted, sensing the difficult direction in which the conversation was beginning to move. “We’re checking out the shop and all our sources on the street, we’re following up every lead . . . . . . . .”
Numbly, he tuned out the rest of the policeman’s comments. Helplessness and terror clutched his heart and stole his breath.
Once again checking, she was relieved to find that he seemed stable and was managing fairly well. Groaning in pain, he opened his eyes and she fought to keep her attention focused on him as the continued whispering and laughing between the other two gunmen worked to fill her with uncomfortable dread.
Sauntering over, one of them suggestively brushed his hand through her hair, increasing Dixie’s level of terror. Savoring the soon-to-be-played cat-and-mouse game he was setting up, he roughly slid his hand down her back, taunting, “C’mon, now, baby!” Gun in hand, he opened the door and pushed her outside, smirking, “Do ya’ wanna live?” Laughing maliciously, he added, “Why don’cha run? And when I ket’cha . . . . . . . .”
She ran.
“Come on, Charlie!” they yelled. “Run! Run faster! Faster!”
Charlie, struggling to keep up, took his eyes off the ground. A misstep into a gopher hole tripped him up and he slammed to the ground. Pain arced up his leg from the broken ankle.
The other boys, far ahead, kept on going.
Heading back toward the station, Johnny noticed the child and pointed to him. “Roy, look! Let’s stop and check it out.”
Roy pulled the squad over to the curb. Johnny ran over to the child as Roy made the call. “L. A., this is Squad 51. We have a still alarm at the corner of Western and Union . . . . . . . .”
“We need an ambulance,” Johnny shouted.
“Respond an ambulance to our location.”
“Ten - four, 51,” came the acknowledgment.
It didn’t take them long to free Charlie’s foot and immobilize his leg in a splint. But by the time they had finished the task, the other boys had drifted back in search of their playmate.
“What happened, Charlie?”
“Charlie will be fine,” Roy told them. We’re taking him to the hospital and the doctors will put a cast on his broken ankle.”
“Wow, Charlie!” Awed with the paramedics, the ambulance, and all the fuss, the boys took off to get Charlie’s mother.
She arrived shortly thereafter, scolding, “Didn’t I tell you not to run?”
Johnny and Roy just looked at each other in amazement.
“Tell me something!” Kell desperately implored the detective as they entered the break room. “It’s been more than a day!”
But the detective said, “No news yet.” Knowing what needed to be said, he uneasily continued, “And most likely we’ll never get the news you want. Remember, they’ve already executed seven witnesses --- and they won’t hesitate to make it eight in order to protect their identities. If she’s still alive . . . . . . . . and that’s a very big ‘if’ right now . . . . . . . . she’ll only stay that way as long as she’s of some use to them. Once they’ve gotten whatever it is they want, they won’t think twi- . . . . . . . .”
“Then why in hell aren’t you out there finding her?” Kell angrily demanded. Most of his coping reserve was long gone, and he was hanging on only by the merest of threads.
“We’re doing everything we can,” the detective replied, shifting uncomfortably in the chair. “The more people who know the circumstances of your wife’s disappearance and could recognize her, the better our chances of finding her. That’s why we did the news bulletins and put her picture on the front page of every newspaper and on every television station. If anyone has seen her, they might be able to give us a lead or help us find her in time.” He paused to let that bit of hope take hold. “However, they could have gone almost anywhere --- and we’re only guessing that they need her alive for her medical skills.” Fully understanding the helpless hopelessness the doctor felt, the detective hesitated a moment before quietly adding, “I know it must seem to you . . . . . . . .”
“Your ‘doing everything you can’ certainly doesn’t seem to be anywhere near enough,” he interrupted. “Have you decided it’s hopeless? Are you just waiting . . . . . . . . have you already decided that she’s de-?” The words caught in his throat and Kell turned away, unable to give voice to his worst fear.
The detective had nothing more to say.
Suddenly the world tumbled upside down as someone grabbed her from behind, clapping a heavy hand over her mouth and slamming her backward to the ground. Pain lanced through her shoulder as it smashed against a rock. She was roughly shoved into a deep, dark crevasse beneath a huge fallen tree and, despite repeated efforts, she was not able to free herself from her captor’s strong grip. A rough voice in her ear demanded she stop struggling and keep still; more fearful of the consequences if she did not obey, Dixie acquiesced. They remained hushed and unmoving for so long that her muscles began to cramp up but she dared not budge.
Silence enveloped her, broken only by the muted sounds of her captor’s breathing and the occasional scurrying of some small animal through the leaves. Dixie could hear the muffled reverberations of the gang members calling to each other as they tramped about, searching for her, but gradually all the sounds of their hunting faded into silence as in her present predicament she remained invisible to them. Terror mounted, blocking all attempts at rationalization and for an eternity she remained restrained by her unseen captor in the dark stillness of the deep crevasse.
Unexpectedly, Dixie’s captor hauled her out from beneath the tree; she was surprised to find herself still in darkness until she realized that night had fallen some time ago. Wordlessly her captor swiftly dragged her through the darkness up the side of the canyon, stopping at a beat-up old car hidden in a thick tangle of underbrush. Pushing Dixie down onto the floor in the back, he threw a musty old blanket over her as he warned her not to move and not to make a sound. Doors slammed; then the engine sputtered to life and they sped off into the night.
Dixie tried to evaluate the situation, but she had no idea if she was in a better position than before or not. On the plus side, she was still alive. But she had no feel for what this new captor had planned for her, and she had no idea of where she was being taken. Dixie struggled to keep from crying, but her terror-driven control was fast crumbling and she silently wept as they zoomed toward some unknown destination.
“I need he’p,” he demanded.
“What’s the problem?”
“Out here,” he began, heading toward the door.
“Let me get someone to . . . . . . . .”
“NO!” Then, “Jus’ you . . . . . . . . please.”
Dixie was unable to determine how long she had been in the car, but she slowly came to the realization that the vehicle had stopped moving. She tried to shift her position to relieve her cramping muscles, but her injured shoulder hindered her movement and the confining space in which she lay did not afford her the luxury of sufficient room in which to easily move.
“I a-hided ’er frum dem,” he said by way of explanation as he urged him toward the car. “Den I be a-bringin’ ’er here.” Jerking the car door open, he yanked the blanket from over her and, as he pulled Dixie out of the car, he concluded, “You gived Melai bac’ t’ me. We be even now.”
With that, he carefully pushed Dixie toward Kell, and, sobbing, she fell into his arms.
“I din’t a-hurt ’er,” he added, “but I hadda hided ’er a lon’ time a-til dey all lef’ . . . . . . . .”
Staggered by this totally unanticipated turn of events, Kell managed to stammer an almost inarticulate, “Thank you,” as he wrapped his arms tightly around her and unbelievability gave way to tearful joy.
Quickly hopping in behind the steering wheel, he grimly added, “Iffen youse tell anybudy an’ dey a-find out I gived ’er bac’ t’ youse, I be dead in da gutter afor mornin’.”
Snapped more or less to the reality of the moment by the dire message being delivered by Dixie’s enigmatic rescuer, Kell managed a heartfelt promise, “You have our word. They will never know about it from us.” A pause, then, “Thank you.”
That said, Dixie’s captor-turned-rescuer slammed the car into gear and screeched away.
As if in a dream, he picked her up, then, and, relishing in the feel of her in his arms, the warmth of her breath on his neck, he breathed a prayer of thanks as he turned to carry her across the parking lot. All at once overwhelmed, he felt insensate, as if he was a floppy rag doll and he couldn’t quite figure out how to make his legs move. Dixie’s tears, coupled with all the anguish that had built up inside him over the eternity of the past day, smothered him, and as he held her in his arms, he sank to the ground right where he stood.
Sometime later, as he held her close, he somehow found enough presence of mind to manage, “Are you all right?”
Tearfully, she whispered, “They killed all those people at the dry cleaners. They didn’t even think about it --- they just shot them all . . . . . . . .”
“Ssshhhh, Love,” he said softly, hugging her tightly as she cried on his shoulder.
After a time, Dixie drew a deep breath, quietly telling him, “I was so scared . . . . . . . . I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”
“Me, too,” Kell told her as he buried his face in her shoulder. She winced, and he felt her reaction. “You’re hurt,” he said as he snapped back to the reality of the present.
“It’s nothing serious,” she told him. “I hit something on the ground when he pulled me down . . . . . . . .”
“Who pulled you down? Why? When did that happen?” As Kell tried to find out the details of what had happened to her, it occurred to him that they probably should not be sitting on the ground in the middle of the hospital parking lot and he made a conscious effort to get both of them up.
“I was running, and he grabbed me from behind and pulled me down,” Dixie explained as he stood and helped her to her feet. “They were chasing me,” she continued with a shudder.
“Ssshhhh,” Kell interrupted, not wanting to hear any more just then. Grateful to have her back alive, he held her tightly, determined to keep her safe, as he thought aloud, “The police will ask a lot of questions and we have to make sure that neither one of us says anything to get that young man killed.”
She nodded in agreement, realizing that she couldn’t tell them much about him because she didn’t know very much . . . . . . . . not even his name. But he had risked his very life to save her from certain death --- and who knew what else --- and she would absolutely do everything she possibly could to protect him. “How can they live like that?” Dixie wondered aloud, confused. “What makes that gang so important to them?”
Picking her up in his arms once more, Kell answered with a noncommittal, “I don’t know,” as she rested her head on his shoulder and he headed for the door. Moving mainly by instinct, he was more intent on Dixie than on looking around and he nearly ran into Joe as he came to the door. Startled and anxious, he looked at Joe, his dark eyes pleading for help. Dixie had lapsed into quietness, her stillness panicking him. Joe turned and went back through the door, leading him to the nearest treatment room, where he gently laid her on the table.
Joe immediately set about assessing her condition as Kell, working to bring his emotions under control, held her hand. Despite the less-than-optimistic outlook promulgated by the police, she certainly was alive, and did not appear to have suffered serious injury. Sighing, she looked at Joe wordlessly, tears pooling in her eyes and threatening to spill over. Kell reached out to gently stroke her cheek but as she turned her head and he saw the purpling bruise where she’d been struck, he gently brushed her hair back instead. She was emotionally fragile, a state which Joe acknowledged as she burst into tears. Kell, not faring much better, gathered her into his arms.
Recognizing that Kell was in no condition to make any sort of decision, Joe took charge of the situation and set about notifying both security and the police as he had her admitted.
“I can’t tell you,” he told Detective Ramirez. “I have no idea.”
“I need to talk to her,” the detective vigorously declared.
“Not tonight,” he immediately replied. “She’s in no condition to talk to anyone. Besides, she’s been sedated . . . . . . . .”
“You’re not being very cooperative, ” the detective affirmed.
“The welfare of my patient is my first and only concern.”
“We care about her welfare, too,” he petulantly pointed out.
“Then put a guard outside the door,” Joe responded with unyielding resolve. “You can talk to her tomorrow.”
Sighing as he realized that the doctor was immovable, the detective said, “I’ll have a guard assigned.” Rising to go, he forcefully added, “But I must talk to her as soon as possible.”
“I’ll let you know,” Joe answered, determined to do everything in his power to ensure her safety.
Kell looked up and quietly said, “Thanks,” as Joe came into the room the next morning. Joe smiled, grateful for this ending, and there was no need for any other words. In an effort to return some sense of normalcy to his friend’s life, he said, “I checked on Kevin and Kelsie. Rita says they’re just fine, no problems, and you can have them stay at the Center for as long as you need them to. Roy and Joanne said they would take them, too, if you’d rather.” After a moment, he returned to the unspoken topic at hand as he softly reminded his friend, “The police are ready to knock down the door to talk to her.”
“I know,” Kell replied. “Thanks for handling that, too. What did you tell them?”
“Not much,” he replied. “I don’t know anything to tell them.”
Nodding his head, Kell managed a contrite laugh. “Yeah, well, I guess that does make it rather difficult . . . . . . . .”
Dixie’s stirring interrupted their conversation, and she slowly opened her eyes as she returned to wakefulness. Joe smiled. “Hi, Honey,” he greeted her. He could feel tears gathering in the back of his eyes, forcing him to admit to himself just how afraid he had been that he would never see her alive again.
“Hi, yourself,” she answered with a quivery smile as she consciously worked to retrieve some of her usual spirit. She tried to banish the fear with which she had been living, but it had wrapped its tendrils around her soul and would not be so easily dismissed. Tears pooled in her eyes and, as they spilt over, Kell reached out to gently brush them away.
Joe made a quick examination, assuring himself that she was all right. “I can’t keep the police out of here too much longer,” he reminded them gently. Much to his puzzlement, Dixie immediately gave Kell a panicked look.
“It will be OK,” Kell told her in an effort to soothe her fears. “You can talk to them. Answer their questions, tell them whatever they want to know . . . . . . . .”
“What about . . . . . . . .”
Kell glanced over at Joe as he interrupted her question to say, “Just tell them you don’t know --- that’s not a lie . . . . . . . .”
That seemed to satisfy her concerns and Kell quietly offered a quick explanation to his friend. “Remember that gang fight we had a couple of weekends ago down in Emergency?” Joe nodded as he continued, “The young man who took the girl out of here . . . . . . . . he’s the one who brought Dixie back last night. Apparently he went out on his own, tracked down wherever they had taken her, and rescued her . . . . . . . . seemed to think he owed a debt for our taking care of his girl.”
“Why keep it a secret?”
“You can never tell anyone, Joe. Promise. If anyone connects him in any way to Dixie’s rescue, he told us he would be killed.”
“Gangs.” Joe murmured the soft invective with a despairingly sad shake of his head as he promised to keep their obligatory secret. A knock on the door startled them out of their private reveries; Joe warned, “That’s probably our anxious detective.”
Dixie gripped Kell’s hand tightly as she fervently hoped she would be able to avoid giving the must-keep secret away. Unexpectedly, she asked, “Could I please have some coffee?”
It was, indeed, the detective and, as Kell, careful of her injured shoulder, settled her back on the pillows, Joe moved toward the door. Seeing Carol in the hallway, he blocked the entrance as he asked her if she would please bring a cup of coffee for Dixie. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, he ushered the detective into the room.
“Good morning,” he said as he came to stand beside the bed. “I’m Daniel Ramirez.”
Kell nodded in greeting as Dixie, still clutching his hand, softly said, “Good morning.”
The introductions were interrupted by the arrival of the coffee, and Joe handed her the mug. She smiled as she took it, but her hands were shaking so badly that she spilled the coffee, burning her hand with the hot liquid. Joe and Kell both moved to address the situation and, in short order, her burned hand was attended to and she had her coffee back --- this time with Kell’s hands over hers to hold the mug steady. She smiled at him over the top of the mug as she sipped at the coffee and, after a few minutes, he took it from her and set it on the bedside table. Then he carefully put his arm around her shoulders.
“I’m glad to see that you’re all right,” the detective said to Dixie. He had silently observed the entire coffee episode and he made a mental note of her obvious distress. Wanting to get the information he needed with minimal stress for her, he gently said, “I need you to tell me what happened, from the beginning. Don’t leave anything out, no matter how unimportant it may seem to you. Take as much time as you need and try to remember as much as you can.” Smiling, he added, “I’ll try not to interrupt you with too many questions.”
Nodding her head in agreement, Dixie drew a deep breath and blinked away tears as she fought to acquire some semblance of detachment so that she might relate the chain of events into which she had been so unwillingly drawn. In a quavering voice, she began, “I went to pick up my uniform from the dry cleaners, and they came in with guns.” A pause, then she whispered, “They took the money and then they started shooting everyone . . . . . . . .” Tears spilled down her cheeks as she remembered that particular horror.
“How many were there?” the detective asked.
“Three. One of them got shot. I had my uniform and they thought I was a doctor . . . . . . . .”
“How did he get shot?”
“One of the bullets they fired hit him instead of . . . . . . . .” Unable to continue that thought, she shifted to, “He was really angry because . . . . . . . . he said they were careless and shot wild.” More able to handle that line of thought, she continued, “I tore the uniform to make a bandage . . . . . . . . I told them he needed a doctor. They said . . . . . . . . I was going to . . . . . . . . take care of him and . . . . . . . . they made me go with them.”
Kell squeezed her hand and, strengthened by his presence, she continued, “We drove for a long time and ended up out in a canyon. There was this run-down old building . . . . . . . .”
“Do you know where?”
Shaking her head, she asked, “Does it matter?”
Kell jumped in to reassure her that, no, it didn’t matter at all if she didn’t know where it was. Relief shone in her blue eyes.
Detective Ramirez gave them a quizzical look. Trying to draw her back to recounting the events, he urged, “Go on, please.”
“Well,” she said, “ . . . . . . . . he needed medical treatment. I told them that he should be in the hospital . . . . . . . .” She drifted off, then, falling silent as she was caught in the memory of the fear.
“They didn’t seem to understand . . . . . . . . I’m a nurse, not a doctor,” she commented, almost as if she were talking to herself. “They told me to take out the bullet, but . . . . . . . .”
“What did you do?”
She shook her head in sad resignation as she said in soft bewilderment, “I took it out.”
Kell chuckled in spite of the seriousness of the situation. “Good for you!” he said with a smile as he gave her a gentle hug.
She gave him a baffled look, then quietly said, “With a Swiss army knife . . . . . . . . and sewing thread for sutures.”
The two doctors looked at each other, shaking their heads in amazement. Her eyes brimmed with tears as she defended her actions with, “I didn’t really have much choice . . . . . . . .”
“No one’s criticizing what you did, Dixie,” Joe said earnestly. “I’m just amazed you were able to do it with . . . . . . . .”
“Stone knives and bearskins, Joe?” she interrupted with a smile.
Joe laughed, nodding his agreement. The good-natured interplay between the three friends seemed to bring her to a more relaxed frame of mind and, for a moment at least, helped to ease some of the tension in the room, allowing her to focus on something that did not raise her level of fear.
“Can you tell me what happened next?” the detective interrupted, causing an abrupt cessation of the laughter and raising the tension in the room back to its former stressful level.
“When he came around, one of the others . . . . . . . . started making . . . . . . . . . he laughed and he pushed me out the door,” Dixie continued with a sigh. “He told me . . . . . . . .” In a quivery whisper she added, “He said if I wanted to live, I should run.”
“And?” prompted Detective Ramirez.
“I ran.”
Tears streaked down her cheeks. “Someone grabbed me from behind and pulled me down. After a long time, he dragged me up the canyon to a car, and he brought me here.”
“Can you describe him? Do you know who he was?”
Shaking her head, she said, “I never saw him . . . . . . . . and I don’t know what his name is. It was dark.” With a shuddering sigh, she put her head on Kell’s shoulder and closed her eyes.
“Enough for now, Detective Ramirez,” said Joe sternly, ushering him out of the room. “No more questions.”
With a resigned sigh, he put his notebook away. “Thank you,” he said. He walked toward the door, but turned back before reaching it. “I really am glad that you’re all right,” he told her.
“Thank you,” she replied softly as she snuggled into Kell’s hug. When she drifted off to sleep, Joe insisted Kell go have something to eat and get some rest himself.
“The guard is still here,” he pointed out, “and even if the police weren’t, Rampart security is.”
Surprised, Kell’s eyes followed his friend’s gesture as he pointed toward two of Rampart’s security officers discreetly watching the door to Dixie’s room. Surprised but appreciative, he walked over to them and began, “Thank you . . . . . . . .” but they interrupted him almost at once to say how glad they were that Dixie had been rescued and that they would make sure she stayed safe. Gratefully Kell nodded his thanks as Joe ushered him off toward the cafeteria.
“How come?” he asked Joe as they stepped into the elevator. He knew that Rampart’s security force was not large enough to afford two people to do nothing except watch Dixie’s door.
“Administrator’s orders,” Joe told him. “People around here care,” he reminded his friend gently. “And this really scared all of us a whole lot more than we would like to admit.”
Kell nodded his understanding.
As usual, the hospital rumor mill was busily churning out the news of the day. Unlike most days, however, this day’s news was so important that it even got churned out correctly --- Dixie had gotten found and rescued and was actually all right. And as the news raced around the hospital, everyone wanted to express their relief to Kell, so it took a while for Joe to get him sitting down at a table to eat.
They had just about finished, and Joe was hoping to convince him to sack out on the sofa in his office for a while, when Detective Ramirez came over to the table.
“Detective,” said Joe. “Problem?”
“No, just some questions. Mind if I sit?”
“Sure, sit down,” said Kell casually as he finished his sandwich.
Sighing, Joe squelched his objections as the detective sat down. “What questions?” he asked, hoping this was not going to turn everything upside down.
Ignoring Joe’s question, the detective turned to Kell and pointedly asked, “What did your wife tell you about all this?”
“Just what she told you,” he said, sipping his coffee. “Why?”
“Nothing else?”
“What makes you think there’s anything more to tell?” he demanded, annoyed at the insinuation.
The detective said nothing but continued to look at him, waiting to see what else he might say in the heat of anger. It was a calculated risk, but it often paid big dividends . . . . . . . .
Fully understanding Kell’s propensity to occasionally losing his temper, Joe fervently hoped that this would not be one of those occasions. If the secret was as important as he and Dixie seemed to think it was . . . . . . . .
“Oh, yes,” Kell said after a few moments, his voice dripping with both sarcasm and thinly veiled anger, “there was just one other thing. I guess I must have forgotten to tell you about it.”
“And what was that?”
He stood up, his anger just barely under control. “She said she was scared.”
And he walked out of the cafeteria without saying another word, leaving the detective to his contemplations.
Joe looked at him askance. “Well,” he queried, “did that accomplish whatever it was you expected?”
“I expected to get the truth.”
“I think you already had that,” Joe said carefully. “You know, they didn’t do anything wrong. Since when did the victims become the accused?”
“I didn’t accuse them of anything.”
“Didn’t you?” Joe asked as he stood up. “Surely sounded like it to me.” He started to leave, then turned back to the detective. He was not happy with what he was about to do, but he felt it was the best course of action under the circumstances. Knowing that everyone in the room had heard Kell and was now listening to his conversation with the detective, he took a step toward the table as he asked, “Why does it trouble you so much that she got rescued and brought back here? Why is that such a bad thing in your book?”
“It’s not,” he replied. “But I find it very strange that she doesn’t know anything at all about this mysterious rescuer. I think there’s more to the story than has been told.”
“You’re inventing subterfuge, Detective Ramirez,” he said. “You’re so busy worrying over what you don’t know about this rescuer that you’ve totally ignored the success of your own plan. You set up this campaign to educate the public and get her found before those maniacs killed her. And exactly what you said you hoped would happen happened; only now you’re running your own success into the ground! And why? Just to dabble in a theory that there may be some tiny shred of information that someone might have forgotten to tell you?”
Shaking his head, Joe added, “There’s no subterfuge on their part, Detective.” With that, he headed out of the cafeteria, secure in the knowledge that it wouldn’t be long before all of the Rampart staff had rallied together to protect Dixie and Kell from the perceived threat he had just made of the detective. And that meant that Dixie’s courageous rescuer would remain unidentified --- and safe. Whatever else he might be, no one could deny that he had been brave in rescuing her and returning her to them. He hoped that he would some day get to tell him just how noble a thing it was that he had done.
He was right.
It didn’t take long at all for the Rampart people to rally around and Detective Ramirez ultimately abandoned the issue. While Joanne and Roy kept the twins, Kell took Dixie away for a few days, and, as always happens, the entire episode somehow became yesterday’s new, replaced by newer crises of the instant.
“I still think we’ll run errands together from now on!” Kell declared as he and Joe settled down in the living room with their coffee. Dinner finished, Dixie was off in the nursery singing a quiet little lullaby to the twins as she tucked them into their cribs for the night.
Joe laughed as he commented, “Probably not a bad idea. I know of a few people who would be willing to fill in if you’re ever not available . . . . . . . .”
“You’ve already filled in way above and beyond, Joe,” Kell said solemnly and appreciatively. “We really put you in an untenable position --- not exactly the greatest way to treat your best friend!”
“It was no big deal, Kell.”
“I think it was a very big deal,” Dixie said quietly as she came back into the room, catching the end of their conversation. “I’m really sorry we forced you into that.”
Joe smiled at her as she came around and sat down next to Kell on the sofa. “Don’t give it another thought, Dix . . . . . . . . and you didn’t force me into anything!” he said earnestly. “It’s truly not that big a deal. After all, it really came down to either Detective Ramirez’s feelings or someone’s life --- and I have absolutely no problem at all in making that choice!”
“I just don’t understand this gang stuff,” she said seriously. “And such a strange code of conduct . . . . . . . .”
“It does give you pause for thought,” Kell declared. “Still, if I ever see that young man again . . . . . . . .”
Amid solemn nods of agreement, the conversation moved on to other topics, and the entire episode was somehow pushed into the background of their lives.
Dixie easily slipped right back into her routine at Rampart and life settled into its customary regularity, as it always does, although everyone tended, for a while at least, to worry about her going off and doing things alone. On occasion Dixie found this quite aggravating, but the friendship and concern behind it was so appreciated that she tried to brush away her aggravation. Although it was hard for Dixie to accept feeling so dependent on her friends, the frightful feeling of vulnerability was not a better choice, so she gamely accepted their concern and tried to get on with things as best she could.
Several months later, the evening news led off with the report of the police capture of three suspects believed to be responsible for the dry cleaning shop massacre and it looked as if the whole thing might at last really be over.
“Excuse me,” he said as he came up to the counter at the nurses’ station. Dixie, busy making some notations on a patient’s chart, looked up as she finished. She stared at the man standing in front of her for a moment, looking for all the world as if she had just seen a ghost. Dropping her pen and the chart onto the counter, she seemed transfixed, her eyes riveted on the man before her. Getting up, she slowly moved around the counter, almost bumping into Mike Morton. Suddenly, she looked right into his eyes and declared, “Go to hell,” as she walked away. The two men looked after her in stunned silence.
Attempting to salvage a situation he did not understand, Mike provided the visitor with his requested information and escorted him to the elevator. Then he headed down the hall for Kell’s office.
“Got a minute?” he asked as he knocked and stuck his head in the door.
“Sure, Mike,” Kell answered cheerfully. “Come on in.”
“I’ll talk to you later, then,” Joe said, rising to leave.
“No, if you have the time, please stay,” Mike requested.
Shrugging, Joe sat down again.
“What’s the problem?” Kell asked.
“I have no idea, but something is definitely wrong. Dixie just told someone to go to hell and walked out of the hospital.”
Kell and Joe both laughed.
“I’m not joking!” Mike gravely declared. “She looked . . . . . . . . upset . . . . . . . . afraid. And then she just said, ‘Go to hell’ to this guy and walked out.”
Puzzled, Kell picked up the phone and requested a page for Nurse McCall. Awkwardness filled the room as they waited for her response, but after a short time it became apparent that Dixie was not going to answer the page.
“Who was she talking to?” he asked Mike. “I want to see him.”
“I’ll find out if he’s still in the hospital,” Mike replied, heading off to try and locate the visitor.
Concern and worry written on his face, Kell impatiently waited for Mike to return as Joe went to answer his own page.
A few minutes later, the knock came. “Yes?” he called out.
Mike opened the door and ushered a tall, uniformed man into the office. “Doctor Kelly Brackett,” he said indicating Kell and, pointing to the man in uniform, “General Jason McKittridge.” He excused himself and headed off to complete his rounds, closing the door behind him.
The two men shook hands and Kell indicated to General McKittridge that he should sit. After a moment, he leaned on the edge of the desk and folded his arms across his chest as he said, “I understand you had a bit of a run-in with one of our nurses.”
The general chuckled as he shook his head in disbelief. “It’s the first time such a pretty lady ever told me to go to hell before we’d even been introduced!”
Kell did not laugh. “You don’t know her, then?”
“No, sir,” he replied. “I’ve never been here before. Only came down today because one of my men is here . . . . . . . . automobile accident on the freeway. I just wanted to find out what room he was in.”
“How is he?” Kell asked.
“Broken leg and shoulder, but they said he’ll be OK,” the general answered.
“Did you say anything she might have interpreted as . . . . . . . .”
“I didn’t even get even past ‘Excuse me’!” he declared.
“Well, I don’t know what’s going on, but I’ll certainly look into it. And, on behalf of the hospital, you have my apology.”
As the general rose, the two men shook hands once more. Kell watched him leave, more puzzled than ever.
Totally oblivious to everything around her, she wandered on, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, knowing nothing except for her own thoughts . . . . . . . . thoughts that were far away, thoughts that had trapped her in the unspeakably horrible memory.
With a rueful acknowledgement to himself that he was getting pretty good at this, Kell got the twins up, fed, dressed, and out the door with relative ease. Once he got to Rampart it was pretty simple to get them delivered to Rita and settled in the Child Care Center. That done, he headed down to his office, his thoughts in turmoil. He met Joe in the elevator on the way.
“Got a minute?” he asked.
“Sure.”
“Let’s go to my office,” he said, somewhat distractedly. The expression on his face made it perfectly clear that he had no intention of saying anything further right then and they rode the rest of the way in silence.
“Dixie didn’t come home last night,” he said without preamble as Joe sank down into a chair in his office a few minutes later.
Surprised, he asked, “Why not? What happened?”
Kell dispiritedly shrugged to indicate his lack of an answer to those questions as Joe added, “Did you call the police?”
“Yeah. No reports of accidents or anything like that. But they won’t officially declare her a missing person until she’s been gone twenty-four hours.” Grimly, he added, “Of course, they said they’d look for her, strictly ‘off the record,’ just in case this was related to that gang mess from before.” He was anxiously pacing the floor as he related all this to Joe, and his troubled face wore double masks of concern and fear.
“So, now what?”
“I talked to General McKittridge --- that’s the guy she told to go to hell --- and he has absolutely no idea what that was all about. No one seems to have seen her after that --- I asked Betty to check with the rest of the nurses. And she didn’t show up for her shift this morning . . . . . . . .” After a moment, still pacing, he added, “I can’t wait for the police. If she doesn’t show up by noon, I’m hiring a private detective to find her.”
She wandered along, purposelessly.
The officer stepped in front of her and took hold of her arm, stopping her from wandering on. “Ma’am, are you all right?”
She gave no response, staring straight ahead and apparently seeing nothing.
He looked at his partner.
“Do you need help?” he asked, but still she made no response.
The two patrolmen, puzzled by her strange behavior, carefully led her, silent but acquiescent, to their squad car and headed for County General Hospital.
The day dragged on toward noon. Slow to the point of nothing to do --- this on a day, Kell ironically noted, when he would much rather be racing from treatment room to treatment room trying to keep up with everything. This way gave him far too much time to think.
Joe . . . . . . . . who once again found himself trying to cover all the bases in support of his friends . . . . . . . . told Betty that Dixie was not feeling well, got her shift covered for the rest of the week, and somehow kept the news of this new disappearance quiet. Time enough later to deal with all of that. Of course, if they were really lucky . . . . . . . .
As he headed for the break room and a cup of coffee, Joe passed a tall, uniformed man who he assumed was the General McKittridge to whom Kell had referred. Trying to figure it out, he watched the man as he stepped into the elevator and headed upstairs. Perplexed, he shook his head in consternation as he tried to puzzle through the mystery.
Compliant but silent, she sat unmoving in the chair.
“. . . . . . . . no identification other than this,” the patrolman was saying to the doctor as he pointed to the nameplate fastened to her uniform. She doesn’t seem to be hurt . . . . . . . .”
Reading the nameplate, the doctor said, “Miss McCall?” but she gave no indication of having heard him and she made no reply.
“And she was just wandering along the sidewalk?”
“Yes,” the police officer said. “No idea of what was going on around her . . . . . . . . like she was off in another world.”
“OK, we’ll take it from here,” he told the two officers. “I’ll have someone call around and see if we can find out where she works. Maybe then we can get some details and figure out what’s going on. I’ll let you know what we find out.”
With that, the patrolmen left her there and the doctor set about having her admitted to the hospital.
The ringing of the telephone startled him. He’d been trying to finish up some paperwork, but it was almost impossible for him to keep his mind on it as he continued to worry about Dixie.
“Doctor Brackett,” he mechanically answered.
“Rich Bertrand, over at County General. You have a Nurse McCall on your staff?”
“Dixie! Yes!” he said, instantly alert. “What about her?”
“She’s here at County General. I need to contact a relative.”
He rose from behind the desk, extending his hand, as Kell entered the office.
“Kelly Brackett,” he said, taking the proffered hand. “Rampart Emergency.” Then, “Nurse McCall --- Dixie --- she’s my wife.”
“Rich Bertrand,” he said. Reading the concern and worry etched on his face, he quickly worked through the preliminaries and went on to tell him, “The police found her wandering around downtown and brought her here. We called every hospital and clinic until we tracked you down.”
He looked puzzled, so the doctor added, “Her nameplate on her uniform . . . . . . . .”
Understanding showed in his eyes. “Is she hurt?” he asked.
“Not that we can find,” the doctor reassured him. “She’s just cataleptic.”
“That’s a pretty big ‘just’,” he wryly observed. After a moment, he declared, “I want to see her, to talk to her.”
“She hasn’t said a word since she’s been here, and nothing to the police officers before that,” Rich Bertrand reminded him. “It’s doubtful that she’ll talk at all, even to you.”
“You won’t know until we try.”
Nodding in inevitable agreement, he said, “I guess not. Shall we?”
Doctor Bertrand led him down the hallway, stopping at the door to her room. Expecting no response, he nonetheless paused to knock. He waited a moment and then opened the door and ushered Kell inside.
She was sitting up in bed, staring straight ahead, apparently aware of nothing.
Quietly, Doctor Bertrand told him, “She was like this when they brought her in.” After a moment, he added, “The staff psychiatrist has tried to talk to her, but . . . . . . . .”
The doctor remained by the door as Kell slowly walked across the room. “Dixie? Can you hear me?” he queried softly.
She remained motionless.
“Dix, it’s Kell,” he tried again. “Dixie . . . . . . . .” He paused, working furiously to keep his own emotions under control.
Drawing a quavering breath, he took time to simply brush back her soft blonde hair. She remained detached and immobile.
His emotions finally a bit more in check, he began once again. “Dixie, Love . . . . . . . . Dix . . . . . . . .”
She still said nothing, but her eyes brimmed and tears spilled down her cheeks. Wordlessly, he sat down on the edge of the bed and, unmindful of his own tears, he gently reached over to brush hers away.
“Whatever it is . . . . . . . . ”
She drew a trembling breath and blinked her eyes. She fought her terror and despair, trying to make a connection to him. She continued to stare, then suddenly shuddered. Drawing another deep breath she finally managed, “A whole lot more than you bargained for,” she whispered, attempting to control the tears still streaming down her cheeks. “I promise . . . . . . . . I’ll understand if you want to just walk away . . . . . . . .”
“Walk away?” he repeated in amazement.
Finally, somewhat in control, she stopped weeping; still, a sea of tears brimmed in her blue eyes, but she said nothing more.
Taking hold of her hands, he gently said, “Now and forever.”
At that, the tears spilled over once more and, in a voice filled with desperation, she murmured, “But it’s too terrible . . . . . . . .”
“Whatever it is, we’ll deal with it together,” he told her, working at keeping his own tears under control. “Now and forever.”
She cried then, huge, racking sobs from somewhere deep inside. Holding her in his arms and trying to comfort her, Kell waited for her to cry through whatever it was that had so unnerved her. Idly, he wondered if this was a delayed reaction to the gang thing, but he couldn’t reconcile that with her strange, uncharacteristic comment to the general. Realizing it was pointless to try and second-guess this situation, he settled for holding onto her and providing whatever support and comfort she could derive from his presence.
She had cried herself nearly to exhaustion as Kell held her, all the while trying not to worry but worrying nevertheless. All sorts of unimaginably horrible thoughts crowded his mind despite his efforts to banish them, and he found that he was afraid to hear whatever it was that she might say. She stirred then, abruptly bringing his thoughts back to this time and place as she lifted her head from his shoulder and sat up.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked her quietly, not at all sure he was ready to hear about whatever it was that had distressed her to the point of such utter panic.
She quietly whispered, “Are you sure that you want to hear it?”
Fighting back his fears, he replied, “If you want to tell me, yes.”
And so she told him.
“Where’s Kell?” Joe asked as he came down from surgery.
“Don’t know,” said Mike. “He left in a hurry yesterday afternoon and hasn’t been back since. Peters is covering.”
The arrival of the ambulance interrupted their conversation, and both doctors spent the rest of the morning busy with patients. It was well past lunch time before the last of them had been cared for and Joe had a free moment.
Not feeling the least bit hungry, Joe declined the offer to join Mike for a sandwich. Instead, he opted for a hot cup of coffee and uninterrupted time to think through this strange puzzle.
Pouring the coffee, Joe idly wondered if Kell’s sudden absence had anything to do with Dixie. Staring into the mug, he speculated on this peculiar situation. He was at a loss to understand how Dixie, who was always so professional and in control, could have told any hospital visitor to go to . . . . . . . .
“Excuse me. Doctor Early?”
Joe started as his thoughts were interrupted. “Yes?”
“I’m Jason McKittridge. Doctor Morton said that you’d be able to answer some questions. If you’ve got a moment . . . . . . . .”
“Sure,” Joe said, indicating that he should sit. “Coffee?” Receiving an affirmative nod, he drew a hot cup from the pot and set it on the table in front of the general. The two men spent the next several minutes discussing the condition of the young soldier that had been involved in the freeway accident. Joe answered his questions and addressed his concerns. Finding the man to be quite likeable, as the general rose to leave, Joe couldn’t help but wonder about the connection between Dixie and Jason McKittridge.
Frustrated and confused, he went to see if Kell had returned.
Captive to the dark thoughts swirling through his mind, Kell stormed into the office, and, finding Joe there, absently greeted him. Unadulterated anger filled his eyes.
“Kell?” he queried, full of concern. This cold, vehement anger was something he had never seen in his friend before, and he was at once filled with apprehension.
“Is there any news about Dixie?” he asked.
“Dixie’s over at County General,” Kell curtly replied.
Heaving a sigh of relief, he asked, “Is she OK?”
“No.”
“What’s wrong? What happened?”
“She’s not hurt,” came the answer, making Joe even more confused. “She’s . . . . . . . . upset.”
“Upset?”
Kell said nothing more, and Joe’s bewilderment grew.
“Why is she upset, Kell? What happened?”
“Our friend, the general,” Kell said coldly.
“What?” Joe asked, even more confused now that he had an answer. “What does Jason McKittridge have to do with Dixie?”
“He sent her to hell,” Kell icily replied, stomping out the door.
Bewildered and confused, Joe hurried after him.
He strode toward the nurses’ station. Johnny and Roy were deep in a discussion with Mike Morton concerning the finer points of a case they’d handled in the field under Doctor Morton’s supervision and Betty was busy working on filling their supply request.
“Betty,” he asked as he came up to the counter, “can you find General McKittridge and have him come to my office? If he’s not here in the hospital, ask that soldier how to get in touch with him and give him a call. Have him get over here as soon as possible. Tell him it’s an emergency.” His thinly veiled anger surprised them and the fury in his voice was not lost on any of them. “And ask Doctor Peters stay around here in Emergency for a while longer.”
“Right away,” she replied, but he had already turned away.
Almost as an afterthought, he turned back. “Please let me know if there will be any delay before General McKittridge gets here.” With that, he headed back down the corridor, meeting up with Joe. Following a brief conversation, the two doctors both continued on down the corridor toward Kell’s office.
“Wonder what that was all about?” Mike mused as Betty went to work on his request. Johnny and Roy simply shrugged as they gathered up the supplies and headed back to the squad.
“You want to explain?” Joe asked his friend as they returned to his office.
“Yes, but I don’t have time right this minute. I’ll explain it all as soon as I can. Right now, Joe, I need your help. Please. It’s important.”
“Whatever you need . . . . . . . .”
Kell explained what he wanted and Joe agreed, even though he didn’t understand at all.
A short time later, Jason McKittridge arrived. Coming into the office, the general was surprised to find Joe waiting for him. “Doctor Early!” he said warmly. “I thought I was supposed to see Doctor Brackett.”
“Doctor Brackett asked me to give you this,” Joe replied, handing him an envelope.
Puzzled, he tore open the envelope, paling visibly as he read the enclosed note. After a moment, he turned to Joe in confusion and quietly asked, “I guess we’re going to see Doctor Brackett now?”
“Let’s go,” Joe answered, and, as he had promised his friend, he delivered the general to the appointed place, but neither of them were prepared for what they found when they got there.
Captured in the terror of the nightmare, she screamed.
She struggled, fighting him in abject terror as she remained caught in the memory. Nonetheless, he held her flailing fists and tried to control her struggling as he continued his efforts to extricate her from the cruel grasp of the fear, ultimately winning the battle as she came fully awake at last.
He drew her into a hug as he fought to keep his anger in check. It would be so easy if he could just lash out --- but he knew that would only make everything harder for her, and he simply was not willing to allow that to happen. But his very soul ached with her pain and his heart hurt with the realization that he had no ready answer or simple solution for her to cling to. Life never seemed to come gift-wrapped with a neat little bow fastened on the top.
“Tell me about it.”
Her eyes full of tears, she settled into the hug as she whispered, “It’s always the same. We’re going down the road . . . . . . . . and he says he does not have time to do this . . . . . . . . he stops . . . . . . . . and I get out and start walking back . . . . . . . . and then . . . . . . . . there are soldiers everywhere . . . . . . . . and it’s dark . . . . . . . . I keep telling them I’m a nurse, but . . . . . . . . they are angry because I don’t know . . . . . . . . because I can’t tell them what they want to know . . . . . . . .” Her voice faded out then as she trembled with the memory, but she managed to keep her tears in check.
As understanding dawned, Jason McKittridge softly whispered, “Oh, dear God,” as he slumped back against the wall.
Oblivious to everything except her, he held her tightly as he sought to soothe her panic, “Ssshhhh . . . . . . . . It’ll be all right.”
With a remorseful look, she said, “I suppose.” She paused, then went on, “It’s hard to explain,” she said with a soft sigh. “It’s like . . . . . . . . there was a wall, keeping it all hidden away. But now . . . . . . . . the wall just crumbled away . . . . . . . .”
“And?” he asked gently, still holding onto her as he sat on the edge of the bed.
“I really don’t know,” she admitted. “It’s not so overpowering, but it’s still . . . . . . . .” She closed her eyes and, finding comfort in his arms, she relaxed, trying to push the nightmare out of her mind. Idly, her fingers lightly traced over the silver POW / MIA bracelet he always wore on his wrist.
His thoughts were in turmoil. All this had certainly come at him from out of left field, leaving him totally unprepared for dealing effectively with the situation. Medically, he had some idea of what needed to be done, but that, too, was all tied up in his feelings for her and it was difficult for him to disconnect them or to sort them out. He instinctively knew that she needed him to be strong for both of them, but rage kept boiling over as it built up within him and it became difficult for him to separate the emotions. Looking deep within himself, he knew he could very easily lose control completely . . . . . . . .
Jason McKittridge pushed himself away from the wall and, with a deep breath, walked across the room. Quietly he said, “I had no idea. I didn’t know . . . . . . . .”
Kell, still holding Dixie, did not turn around. With great effort, he reined in his anger. “I’m afraid that doesn’t help her at all.”
“I suppose not.”
He was silent then, recognizing that his anger could easily lead him into doing or saying something best left undone or unsaid. And so, instead, he focused his attention on her, on squelching his almost overwhelming urge to make this man suffer as he much as she had suffered because of his actions.
Lifting her head from his shoulder, Dixie looked up at the man standing behind Kell. After a moment, she quietly said, “I hope whatever it was that you had to do was worth it.” Agony radiated from the deep blue of her eyes, but she held her gaze steady as her eyes met his.
He stood silent. Finally, he said, “Nothing could be worth that.” Then, “I’m so sorry . . . . . . . .”
Her gaze remained fixed on him. After an eternity, she dropped her eyes and she quietly whispered, “I guess I owe you an apol- . . . . . . . .”
“No,” he interrupted. “Most certainly not.”
Comforted as Kell continued to hold her tightly in his arms, it occurred to her, then, that everything was not dark and empty like it had been before. This time, she had Kell . . . . . . . . and his love . . . . . . . . and they had the twins . . . . . . . . and wonderful friends who were always there . . . . . . . . and it had all happened a very long time in the past. And with that understanding came the realization that she no longer had a need to rebuild the wall.
Joe, totally mystified, spoke up. “Maybe we should all go get some coffee and let Dixie rest.”
Dixie sat up and nodded her agreement. Smiling at Kell, she said softly, “I’ll be fine. Go have some coffee with Joe.”
With a sigh, he acquiesced. As they reached the door, she asked, “Could you stay for just a minute, General?”
Surprised, he turned around.
She looked at Kell and nodded. Worriedly, he smiled at her as he worked to keep his anger at bay. But he didn’t want to over-manage the situation and make her feel less capable of handling things, so, swallowing his fear, he nodded his agreement. Then he and Joe stepped out of the room and headed for the coffee shop.
As they sat down, he offered the promised explanation to his friend. “McKittridge was in Korea when Dixie was there. One day he was supposed to drive her to a consultation at another field hospital, but there was some reason that he didn’t want to do that and so he just dropped her off on the road to let her walk back to the camp. Only she never got there . . . . . . . .”
“What happened?” Joe quietly asked.
“Enemy soldiers . . . . . . . .” After a long pause, he added, “She had it all forgotten and buried away somewhere, never again to see the light of day. But when the general showed up at Rampart and she saw him, those walls of hers crumbled and all that stuff she’d hoped to forget forever came back . . . . . . . .”
“How come McKittridge didn’t know what was happening then? He said he didn’t know her . . . . . . . .”
“That was true. They never really knew each other. He’d been assigned to drive her over to this consultation, and that’s the only time she ever saw him until he showed up here the other day. I guess he never checked to make sure she had made it back safely and so he never found out about it . . . . . . . .”
Their conversation was interrupted as General McKittridge came up to the table. “It never occurred to me that I needed to do that,” he said quietly.
Kell looked up at him, concern for Dixie written on his face.
“She’s OK,” the general said. “She said I should tell you ‘always and ever.’ She said you’d know what it meant.”
Kell nodded as a brief smile crossed his face. He felt his anger ebbing as the unspoken message contained within her words brought relief to his heart and soul. He blinked back the gathering tears as he stood and said, “Thanks.” With that, he breathed a quiet prayer of thanks as he calmly walked past the general and headed back toward Dixie.
“Sit down,” Joe invited.
The general slumped into a chair. “My God, if I could only do it over again . . . . . . . .”
“I think we’ve all wished that at some time or another. Doesn’t work that way, though.”
“I really had no idea . . . . . . . .”
“We hardly ever know the repercussions from the things that we do. That’s why it’s so important to always try to do the right thing.”
“I was a young soldier,” he said. “Korea was my first assignment. That day I was supposed to go to a strategy meeting that might well mean we could ship most of our people home. I never meant for anything to happen to her. My God, we were in sight of the camp! I never thought there was any danger . . . . . . . .”
Gently Joe reminded him, “You’re going to have to put this into perspective. If we let all our mistakes eat us up . . . . . . . .”
“This was a whole lot more than just a mistake!”
“What did Dixie say to you?”
He sighed at the recollection. “She said it was far too late and far too long ago for me to start blaming myself now.”
“Smart girl.”
“She also told me what she wanted from me.”
“And what was that?” Joe asked, surprised.
“She said I should remember this and make sure that everyone under my command understood how their actions could affect someone else.” He paused, fighting to control his emotions, and then quietly continued, “She said if I did that, it would mean it had not all happened for nothing, and if it could help avoid that kind of horror for even one other person . . . . . . .”
“I told you she was a smart girl,” said Joe with a quiet sigh. He swallowed hard, then asked, “And what will you do?”
“Everything she asked. Everything I possibly can to make sure we are a whole lot smarter than I was that day.”
“That’s not such a bad legacy, General.”
Kell sighed as she settled her head on his shoulder and they wrapped their arms around each other. He turned his head to look at her and, kissing her forehead, he said, “I love you.” He wondered if she had any idea that she wholly owned his very heart and soul.
“I love you, too,” she said as she snuggled into silence. After a few minutes, she whispered, “I’m sorry.”
Swallowing the huge lump that had suddenly grown in his throat, Kell blinked away the gathering tears as he replied, “You have nothing to be sorry for, Love.”
“So much fuss and confusion, so much turmoil,” she reflected. “I certainly haven’t made your life very calm and quiet lately, have I?”
“Maybe not, but you’re the most important thing in my life.”
Having said that, Kell reflected on just how much she really meant to him, and how caught up in her his life had become. True, it had been a pretty rough ride lately, what with the gang mess and now this. But as he examined his feelings, he realized that both of these things had cemented their relationship into something strong enough to carry them through anything --- as long as they were together. Somewhere along the way, somehow, she had literally become his very life. Knowing that it could serve no good purpose, he worked at putting away his anger and instead focused on where they would go from here.
Dixie seemed to have managed to find a place of peace about all of this, he noted with relief, and he knew time to be a great healer. He smiled as he held her tightly in his arms, feeling his anger dissipate in the face of the stronger hold love had over him. And in that instant, he knew that they would always have each other . . . . . . . . and that together they would face whatever might be found in all their tomorrows.
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