“Then why didn’t you do that first?” Doug asked.
The question was accusatory, but Dr. Overton took it well. “It’s not our first course of action. Besides, Beth’s skull fractures provided some of the same effects. But it’s not enough. First we tried the medications we do have, and we monitored the pressure. But now we need to drain the cerebrospinal fluid. If it doesn’t help, then we’ll make the decision about the craniectomy.”
Kay’s hands and feet were ice cold. She slid her chair back and got up. She couldn’t sit here and listen to a matter-of-fact discussion about opening her child’s skull. How would Beth survive it?
“What about infection?” Doug asked. “If her head is open — ”
“The benefits outweigh the risks,” Overton said. “We have been able to get the antibiotics we need, so we would be able to fight infection.”
Doug seemed so calm, so engaged in this cruel conversation.
“What would you do with the bone you remove? Of the skull, I mean? Would you ever be able to put it back?”
“We implant it in the abdominal wall until we can replace it where it belongs.”
The room seemed to be closing in on her. Kay staggered, backing up against the wall. Reality pressed down on her with smothering heat. Her hands still felt like ice cubes. Doug got up and steadied her.
“I’m afraid Beth’s brain isn’t her only problem,” Dr. Overton said. “Her kidney function is diminishing.”
“We’re going to put her on dialysis,” Derek said. “Doug, Kay, these are all problems with solutions.”
“Solutions?” Kay managed to say. “These don’t sound like solutions. This is a nightmare.”
“I know it seems that way,” Dr. Overton said.
Kay pushed off from the wall. “Is she suffering?”
“I don’t think so. From all we can tell, she isn’t aware of anything.”
But they weren’t sure, Kay thought. For all they knew Beth was screaming in agony. Would she be strong enough for anesthesia, or would they just saw away without it?
Doug put his arm around her, pulling her morbid, racing thoughts to a halt. She pressed her face into his chest.
“Why are her kidneys failing?” he asked. “Her brain was injured, not her kidneys.”
“But you see, the brain controls the function of all of her organs.”
Kay brought both hands to her face. “She’s dying, isn’t she?”
Dr. Overton folded his hands in front of his face. “I haven’t lost hope, Kay, and I still believe in miracles — ”
“Miracles?” Doug repeated. “Is it going to take a miracle to save her?”
“Right now, it is. If we had the diagnostic tools we need, if we had the right drugs . . . even then we’d be walking on very thin ice. But without those things . . .”
Anger fired like bottle rockets in Kay’s brain, bringing blood to her face. She slammed her hand on the table. “Beth is going to wake up and she’s going to be back to normal. God would not take her from us. Do you understand?”
Doug slowly sat back down, his eyes locked into the surgeon’s. “God can do this. He doesn’t need diagnostic machines and computers. But until he does, we want to use whatever is available to save our daughter’s life. We’re not giving up on her and we don’t want you to, either.”
“I understand, and I won’t. That’s why I’ve presented you with these seemingly drastic options. If she survives, we don’t want her to have lasting consequences of this injury — ”
“If she survives? Beth’s death is not an option,” Kay bit out. “And neither is being a vegetable. You have to save her, Doctor.”
Dr. Overton stood up. “I’ll get her prepped for the ventriculostomy.”
DOUG AND KAY STAYED BEHIND IN THE CONFERENCE ROOM when the doctors left. Doug wanted to hold Kay, to comfort her, but his muscles felt as if they’d petrified into stone. He couldn’t seem to move.
Kay couldn’t stop moving. She trembled as if she were freezing and hugged her arms as if she comforted a broken child.
When she spoke, her voice was cracked, hoarse. “Every day of my life . . . every single day . . . I have prayed for the protection, safety, and health of my children, naming them one by one. Why would God let this happen to her?”
Doug just stared at his hands. “I don’t know, but we have to trust him. There is a reason.”
She looked at him as if he’d betrayed her. “There’s no reason! There’s no reason for a child to be tormented by some maniac killer and left to die in a hospital bed without the equipment and medicines they need to save her!”
“Kay, this is when it matters. This is when everything we’ve ever believed is put to the test.”
“I’m sick and tired of tests,” Kay cried.
He looked at his hands. They were callused and hard from the work he’d done over the last year. He could do so many things now. But he had no power to save his daughter. He opened his hands. “What can we do? We have no choice but to trust God to save her. There’s no one else who can. With all their tricks and solutions, there’s still so little doctors can do.” His mind groped for Scripture. “The Bible tells us to consider it all joy when we encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of our faith produces endurance.”
“Endurance for what? So we can cope through more trials like this one? How could I even think of considering it joy? There’s no joy in this.”
She was right. There wasn’t. And as deep as he dug inside himself, he couldn’t find any. Some spiritual leader he was. Some preacher.
Second only to watching his daughter die, was watching his wife suffer. “Kay, we’ve come through severe trials before and God has been with us, hasn’t he? We have to look back on all the times he came through for us.”
She couldn’t answer.
“Remember when Deni disappeared and all looked so hopeless? God didn’t let us down that time, did he?”
She shook her head. He could tell from the look on her face that she wanted to hold on to her anger. It gave her energy, adrenaline. It made her feel alive. But it was also a cruel poison.
“And God didn’t let us down when little Sarah was kidnapped. God answered our prayers then, didn’t he?”
“Yes,” she said. “He did.”
“And when Mark was falsely accused, we prayed again and God answered.”
He saw the fury draining from her face, but not the fear.
“Kay, he’s going to answer our prayers this time too. He’s doing a work in us, and we have to let him.”
She met his eyes with a glassy, terrified stare. “What if he’s asking us to give more than we can?”
“Then he’ll give us the strength to do it,” Doug whispered.
She clearly didn’t like that answer. She shook her head. “Well, I’m not giving up. I’m going to fight and wrestle with God until he gives me what I want. I may walk with a limp for the rest of my life, but by God, as far as it depends on me he’s going to answer this prayer!”
Doug pulled her into his arms and held her, and she weakened against him. Thankfully, no other agonizing families were brought into the room for fatal news of their loved ones. They sat there until she had no more tears to cry.
Spent, she pulled a tissue from the box by the door and blew her nose. As she wadded it up, she looked down at it and gave a bitter laugh. “A few weeks ago I made a list of all the things I wanted to buy with our money. Stupid stuff. Hair dye. Lip gloss. Sugar. Things that seemed so important then. Now I don’t care if I ever see those things again. If we had a million dollars to save Beth, it wouldn’t do any good. There’s nothing we can buy to make her better.”
“We can pray. That’s the most heroic thing we can do for her now. And we’re going to ask God to do in us whatever it is he’s trying to do.”
“Yes, and we have to do everything it takes to make sure our prayers are answered.” Kay’s gaze moved from side to side, searching. “I’ve been trying to think of my sins, t
o repent. But every day there are new sins. I was jealous this morning when that old man next-door to Beth got better and was moved out of the ICU. I actually complained to God about it. And those people in the waiting room . . . so many people to share Christ with. But I’m so wrapped up in my own troubles . . .” She scratched her head as she looked at the wall. “There are other sins. Help me think of them, Doug.”
“If you have unconfessed sin, God will help you think of it.”
She looked up at him. “What about you? Have you confessed your sins?”
“Yes, Kay, and if I’ve missed something, I’m sure you’ll point it out to me.”
Finally, she managed a weak smile. He smiled too, surprised he still could.
“I don’t think we’re being punished or ignored because we’ve done something wrong. God is listening. He’s working. He knew the number of days Beth had before there was even one. Like the woman with the unrighteous judge, we’re going to bang on the doors of heaven until we finally get our answer. And whatever happens, we’re going to continue to trust God. Are you with me on that?”
She nodded, but he saw in her face that she wasn’t so sure. Her faith seemed to balance on a thin fulcrum of outcomes.
And he wasn’t sure that his was any stronger.
EIGHTY-ONE
DENI’S NEWS ABOUT THE PROGRESS IN THE CASE RAMPED up Doug’s anger to an unmanageable degree. Across town, a woman was getting away with murder. If what Deni believed was true, Melissa wasn’t simply an accomplice — she was guilty of first-degree murder for hiring her husband’s killer. And she had covered that guilt by trying to do away with Beth.
Frustration over her freedom almost did him in. “Why haven’t they arrested her?” he asked Deni.
“Because Brad thinks the case isn’t strong enough yet to present to a judge. He wants a rock-solid case, so he needs more evidence of an affair between Melissa and Clay — something other than the fact that they knew each other.”
Doug rubbed his temples and let out a long sigh. “I should be there helping them.”
“Dad, how could you be? No one expects that. They’re working on it. It’s just going to take time.”
He didn’t want it to take time. Melissa might realize she’d been found out and flee the county. He went to the waiting room window and gazed out on the parking lot. Something inside him felt that if he could just solve this crime, Beth would turn a corner. Maybe if he took a crack at finding the evidence, he could convince Brad to issue an arrest warrant.
He turned back to Deni. “I’m going to the conversion plant to talk to Tharpe’s coworkers. If one of them knew he was involved with Melissa, maybe that’ll be enough for Brad.”
“I’ll go with you.”
He didn’t argue. He’d seen Deni’s investigative skills at work before.
They walked the few blocks to the conversion plant. Deni carried her notepad and the yearbook she’d gotten from Tharpe’s neighbor, so she could show pictures of Melissa Tomlin to Tharpe’s coworkers. They went in through the open bay. The noise level was high as engines roared and men yelled to communicate.
Doug saw Ned Emory as they walked in. He and Deni crossed the room to the plant director, who was also their neighbor.
“How’s it going, Doug?”
“We’re hanging in there,” he said.
“Has Beth come out of the coma yet?”
“No, not yet.” He didn’t want to talk about Beth. “Listen, I need to talk to some of the guys who knew Clay Tharpe best.”
Ned shrugged. “Why? Tharpe’s dead. Isn’t the case closed?”
“Actually, no. We believe there was a second person who hired him to kill Tomlin. A woman he might have been seeing.”
Ned’s thick eyebrows came together. “No kidding. You just never know about people.”
He pointed to a group of men in a corner of the building. They had grease smeared up to their elbows and dirty perspiration on their faces. Two of them were under a car, and the other two stood over the engine. “Those guys over there were on his team. You can start with them.”
Doug thanked him, and they headed over. The men noticed Deni before Doug, and as they moved closer, they stood straighter — almost strutting for her. He wondered if she realized it.
“Hey, guys,” she said, “Ned Emory just told us you’re the ones who worked most closely with Clay Tharpe.”
The two under the car rolled out and sat up, wrists on their knees.
“Yeah, it’s too bad what happened to him,” a guy whose nametag said “Gordon” said.
“Must be hard for you guys,” Doug said. “Having one of your friends die like that.”
“And under such bizarre circumstances,” Deni added.
“Tell you the truth, we don’t know whether to be depressed or angry.”
Doug looked at the hulking man leaning over the engine. His nametag said “Smitty.”
“The guy was a pain in the neck,” Smitty said, “but we never would have wanted him to be shot to death.”
“Did he really kill those people?” someone else asked.
Doug felt someone come up behind him and glanced back. Ned had joined them.
“The little girl he tried to kill is this man’s daughter and her little sister,” Ned told them.
The men looked at them with new eyes. Doug didn’t like being pitied.
“Sorry about that, man,” Smitty said. “You work with a guy for a year, and you think you know him.”
“Look, would you guys mind answering a few questions for us?” Doug asked.
“Sure, what do you want to know?”
“When the sheriff’s deputies questioned you earlier, you told them that Clay Tharpe liked the women.”
“That was me.” Smitty lifted his hand.
Deni took over. “Were there times when you saw him with other women besides his wife?”
“Now and then, but not in the last few months. Mostly he was just always looking.”
Deni opened the yearbook to the bookmarked page with Melissa’s picture. “Did you ever see him with this woman? This picture was taken about ten years ago, but she hasn’t changed that much.”
The men studied the picture. “Yeah, we know her.”
“You do? How?”
“She comes up here sometimes,” Smitty said.
“To see Clay Tharpe?” Deni asked.
“She knew him, I know that. Only . . .” Smitty stopped and glanced at Ned.
Doug looked at the plant director. Ned’s eyes were locked on Smitty. Doug turned back to the man who’d stopped midsentence. “Only what?”
Ned took the book and looked at the picture. “Oh, yeah, the frizzy-haired blonde.”
“Did she come here to see Clay?”
Everyone looked down, as though they didn’t want to answer. It was as if the shutters over their eyes had closed. He glanced back at Ned again, saw the cool look in his eyes.
Something told him he was hitting a nerve.
He turned back to Smitty who seemed the most forthcoming. “Smitty, you were going to say something.”
Smitty cleared his throat. “Why are you asking about her? What difference does it make, if Clay is dead? It’s no crime to have a fling.”
“So she was having a fling with him?” Deni asked.
Smitty backed off. “No, I’m not saying that.”
“Can you just answer the question?” Doug asked. “Did you ever see Clay with her?”
Again, Smitty glanced at Ned. “It’s just — I don’t think she was up here to see Clay.”
“Then who was she here to see?” Doug pressed.
“All of us,” Ned cut in. “I think she just liked being around all the men. She seemed to need attention.”
Deni’s mouth came open. “So she just bopped up in here now and then to flirt with the guys?”
“Something like that.”
Doug wasn’t buying that. “She must have had a favorite. She didn’t show any special attention
to Clay?”
“Not really,” Smitty said. “She’d speak to him. ‘Hey, how ya doing,’ that sort of thing. I mean, they were friends. But I think that was all.”
“So she wasn’t having an affair with anyone up here?”
Smitty glanced away again. Shrugging, he said, “Not so’s anyone could tell.”
“WHAT DO YOU MAKE OF THAT?” DOUG ASKED DENI AS THEY LEFT the conversion plant.
“I think they’re hiding something.”
“But when did the tide turn? They acted like they wanted to talk at first.”
“It changed when we asked them about her.”
Doug played the conversation back through his mind. Did he just imagine that they were being forthcoming until then? “Why would they want to protect her?”
Deni walked along silently, thinking. “What if they’re telling the truth, and Melissa and Clay weren’t having an affair? Maybe Mark and I just got it wrong. Or maybe they were hiding it well from the other guys.”
“No, I didn’t get the feeling that they were ignorant about an affair. It was more like they were shutting down. They sure weren’t protecting Clay, so it had to be that they didn’t want to implicate her.”
Deni looked at him. “Maybe it was a mistake to tell Ned that you thought she was involved.”
Doug drew in a deep breath. This was why he should stay at the hospital. He was too distracted to do good police work. Yes, he’d tipped Ned off, and if the guys at the plant had any affinity for the friendly, attention-seeking young woman, then Ned probably had signaled for them to shut up.
As they walked back through town toward the hospital, they passed Brad’s office. The sign outside that said “City Prosecutor” beckoned him. “Let’s go in and have a chat with Brad.”
They found Brad in his sweltering office, buried in files. He greeted them with hugs.
“How is Beth?”
“She’s having seizures. That increases her chances of irreversible brain damage. And to make matters worse, they can’t get the antiseizure medications she needs or the drugs to fight the swelling in her brain.”