About the Baby

  “Sure, Jack,” he said, cursing the other doctor’s timing as he poked his head in. “Sorry. I guess I was lost in thought.”

  “No problem.” Jack stepped into the room in a very un-Jack-like fashion. The former Bostonian was a fast walker and a fast talker—he did everything like it was a race. Today, though, he looked hesitant as he crossed the glorified storage closet that functioned as Lucas’s office.

  “What’s up?” Lucas asked, concerned enough to climb to his feet.

  “Just a case I want to talk to you about.” Jack motioned for him to sit back down, so Lucas did, but with a feeling of extreme trepidation. There was a note in Jack’s voice he didn’t like, one that told him something bad was coming.

  He waited impatiently while Jack settled himself in the only other chair in the room. “Do you remember examining a Taryn Washington?”

  For a moment, Lucas drew a blank, but then a face came to him. “Little girl, right? About six or seven? Big brown eyes and a beautiful smile with the front two teeth missing?”

  “One of them has grown in, but yeah, that description seems about right.”

  “I saw her for a broken arm and a black eye a couple of months ago, right? An accident on her brand-new bike, if I remember correctly.”

  “That’s what it says.”

  He didn’t like the odd note in Jack’s voice. “You don’t think that’s what it was?”

  “I don’t have anything concrete. Just a feeling.” He slid the chart across the desk to Lucas. “She came in again today.”

  Lucas’s stomach clenched sickly. “What for?”

  “I think a broken rib. I’m waiting to look at the

  X-rays. She’s got a bunch of bruises, including the beginnings of what promises to be one hell of a shiner.”

  “How’d she get them?”

  “Playing basketball with her older brother and his friends.”

  “Who do they play for? The NBA?”

  “That’s what I asked her mom.”

  “Oh, yeah? What’d she say?” Anger was beginning to blaze inside him.

  “She fell all over herself trying to come up with an explanation. But it didn’t make much sense to me.”

  Lucas nodded, flipping through the chart. “Amanda saw her three months before I did—for a sprained ankle and various bumps and bruises. Taryn told her she’d gotten them jumping off the front porch. She had thought she would fly.”

  Jack didn’t say anything, just nodded, and Lucas’s anger turned inward. “I missed it. How the hell did I miss it?”

  “Two incidents isn’t unheard-of.”

  “No, but it should have at least struck my radar.” He flipped through his case notes, looking for any hint that he’d been suspicious. But there was nothing there. “Taryn seemed fine, happy, even, when I talked to her. She laughed when I made a Speed Racer joke. I bought the dad’s act, hook, line and sinker.”

  “Don’t beat yourself up. I might have missed it myself if the mom had been a better liar.”

  “I don’t believe that. You did good, Jack,” he said. And he meant it. But God, it made him insane that he’d missed it. That he had sent that little girl home for more abuse. They knew about three times, but that didn’t mean there weren’t more. Didn’t mean she hadn’t been hurt, only that they hadn’t brought her in for medical attention at this clinic. There was still Grady Memorial if they needed free or reduced cost care, and if nothing else, they could have paid to have her seen somewhere, as well.

  “Did the girl’s brother come in with her?” he asked Jack as he reached for the phone.

  “No.”

  “Do you think he even exists? Did they mention a name?”

  “Taryn called him Bobby.”

  “Good.” He glanced at the clock as the phone on the other end of the line started to ring. It was only three o’clock, so hopefully he’d catch her.

  “Hey, stranger. Haven’t heard from you in a while.” The female voice that answered was somehow both sultry and teasing.

  “Hi, Roni. How are you?”

  “Pretty good, thanks.” She paused. “So, to what do I owe this honor?”

  He heard the note of interest in her voice and couldn’t help wincing. A couple of months ago he might have taken her up on it, might have been interested in picking up where they’d left off a couple of years before. Roni was smart, sexy and great with the no-strings thing. But things had changed for him and he knew that he had no interest in Roni whatsoever. Somehow, he thought that was going to be the case for all the women he knew, at least until he and Kara settled things between them once and for all.

  “Actually, I was hoping you could do me a favor. Off the record?”

  “Oh, yeah?” Her voice had cooled considerably. “How off the record are you talking?”

  “You still at Grady?”

  “Yes.”

  “I have a case over here at the clinic that I’m thinking is child abuse. We’ve seen her for broken bones and numerous other bangs three times in the last six months or so, and I’m just wondering, before I call Child Protective Services…”

  “If we have any cases for over here, as well?”

  “Exactly.”

  Roni sighed. “I’m not supposed to do this, you know.”

  “I know, and I appreciate it. I just don’t want to have to send that girl home tonight if I don’t have to. If there are enough incidents, I would suspect imminent harm and call the police instead of just CPS.”

  “You can’t tell them if I find anything.”

  “Of course not. But I can tell them that I suspect they’ll find a case file for her over at Grady, as well.”

  “Give me a minute. I’m almost at my office.”

  “You’re the best, Roni.”

  “That’s what all the guys say.” He heard a door close and then the sound of fingers typing on a keyboard. “Okay, what’s her name?”

  “Taryn Washington.”

  He waited impatiently as Roni scrolled through the hospital database. After a couple minutes, she asked, “Six years old?”

  He glanced at the birth date on the front of her chart. “Yep.”

  “We’ve got her. It looks like she’s been seen in the E.R. four times in the last year.”

  Lucas slammed a hand down on his desk, nodded when Jack looked at him sharply. “All for falls or injuries?”

  “Three times for that. Once for accidental poisoning.”

  That was all he needed to hear. “Thanks, Roni. I think that’s more than enough to get her taken out of the home tonight.”

  “Glad I could help.”

  Lucas started to say goodbye, when something else occurred to him. “Actually, could you do one more thing for me? Can you check and see if a Robert Washington has ever been treated there, as well?”

  “The father?”

  “Possible older brother.” He caught Jack’s eyes, started to gesture, but the other doctor was already on it. He left the room and came back with another chart a couple minutes later.

  “He’s eleven,” he said when he realized Lucas was off the phone. “We’ve seen him twice for skateboarding injuries and twice for bad falls on the basketball court.”

  “Grady’s seen him seven times in the last three years.” It was more than enough. “Do me a favor. Stall them while I call the police.”

  “Already on it,” Jack said as he walked out of the room, both files clutched in his capable hands.

  Lucas was
pissed off at himself for missing the signs that would have spared Taryn this latest injury and at the world for being the kind of place where this happened far too often. He made the call and was assured someone would be right there. Forty minutes later, he was still waiting. And fuming because of it.

  Abused children were his hot button, the one thing he saw in this clinic that guaranteed to make him crazy in ten seconds flat. When he’d been a kid, he’d had a friend whose father was a drunk. Usually he was too intoxicated to do any damage, but some nights—some nights his aim was perfect. Those were the nights Mark would limp over to spend the night at Lucas’s house. Oh, he’d pretend nothing was wrong, that he had gotten hurt skateboarding like Bobby Washington. But by the time Lucas was ten, he knew what those late-night trips to his house were about. Knew what the bruises meant.

  He’d told his father and his dad had called CPS, but Mark’s family was as rich and respected as Lucas’s. Plus, they had years of experience hiding both the senior Mark Robertson’s alcoholism as well as the abuse. In the end, nothing had been done, except that Mark spent more and more time over at Lucas’s house. Things had been fine for a while, or at least as fine as they could be when his friend was getting the shit beat out of him on a regular basis.

  More than once Lucas had wanted to confront Mark’s dad, but Mark swore things would only get worse for him at home if Lucas said anything. So he’d kept silent, and when Mark was sixteen and acting out, he’d gotten high—something he did a lot to escape his screwed-up family life—and then wrapped his car around a telephone pole.

  Lucas had never backed away from a fight since and he sure as hell wasn’t going to back away from this one.

  Even though he was technically off—and had been for close to three hours—he’d stuck around finishing paperwork, taking overload patients to keep things moving and, now, waiting for the police to come.

  He was just walking out of an exam room—a little boy with the worst case of Hand, Foot and Mouth disease he had ever seen—when he heard loud voices coming from the waiting area. He glanced at Maria, one of his nurses, to see if she knew what was going on, but she just shrugged, eyes wide.

  Dropping his patient’s chart on the nearest counter, he headed for the front of the clinic at a fast walk. Before he got there, he heard a loud crash followed by a string of obscenities in a deep, male voice.

  Amanda, eight-and-a-half months pregnant, poked her head out of an exam room to see what was going on and he shouted, “Get back in there and close the damn door. Don’t you dare walk out here right now.”

  Trusting Amanda to stay out of the way—for the sake of her unborn child if not her own sake—he ran the last fifty feet or so, bursting through the door into the waiting room just in time to see a huge man pick up a chair and hurl it against the wall. “You have no right to keep her from me!” he bellowed at Tawanda, the clinic’s receptionist and the toughest woman he knew.

  As he glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, he realized that the crash he’d heard had been the glass breaking in the window that separated her from the patients who came to check in. A chair was upside down on the counter, half resting on the computer and Tawanda herself was standing there yelling right back at the man even as blood dripped down her face from numerous cuts.

  “Jesus,” Jack breathed behind him. “What’s he on?”

  “PCP?” Lucas guessed before calling to Maria over his shoulder, “Call nine-one-one. Tell them what’s going on and that we need someone here, now.” They might not come quickly for an abused child, but destruction of property was another thing altogether. He ground his teeth together in annoyance. The world they lived in sucked.

  As the man picked up yet another chair, Lucas started forward into a waiting room gone mad, Jack right at his heels. The room had been full when this guy had started his rampage and now was filled with people shoving and pushing in an effort to get out the door. More than a few people had been knocked down and Lucas paused to help a girl of about thirteen back to her feet. Beside him, Jack lifted a screaming toddler into his arms then helped the boy’s mother to her feet, as well.

  “There’s an emergency exit around the corner,” Lucas shouted, pointing behind him. “Go out that way.” Then he turned to Jack. “Get people out of here, okay? And then get me a syringe of thioridazine. We’re going to tranq this bastard.”

  Jack nodded grimly, started funneling as many people as he could toward the emergency door. Seconds later, a shrill alarm sounded, indicating people were getting to safety.

  The sound only enraged the man more and he leaned his head back and hollered in anger. Which was fine with Lucas—he was beyond pissed himself.

  Striding across the large waiting room, he put himself between the man and Tawanda, who was screaming back at him and using every obscenity in the book as she did.

  “That’s enough,” Lucas told her, not taking his eyes off the other man—who he now recognized as Taryn’s father, who he’d been hoping wouldn’t show up until after his wife and child were gone. “Go get cleaned up. I’ve got this.”

  Sam Washington reached out and slammed a huge, beefy fist straight into Lucas’s chest. Lucas stood his ground, refusing to back up an inch, even though he knew it was going to cost him in the morning. But there was no way in hell he was going to give this guy any kind of satisfaction—he’d already gotten more than enough of that beating the shit out of his kids.

  When Lucas didn’t even stumble, the guy let out another enraged scream and picked up a chair, hurling it across the room straight at the head of one of Lucas’s oldest patients. If Jack hadn’t gotten in the middle of it, taking the brunt of the hit, the old woman would probably be laid out cold right now.

  “Hey!” Lucas said, firmly enough to get Sam’s attention. “You want to tell me why you’re wrecking my clinic?” Though he already had a pretty good idea.

  “This bitch won’t let me go back and see my wife and kid. They’ve been here for hours. I want to see them.”

  “Yeah, well, this isn’t exactly the way to convince us you should be anywhere near them.”

  Sam threw back his head and screamed again, muscles bulging in his throat and upper arms. Lucas’s stomach twisted sickly as he watched. This was what he’d sent Taryn back into because he hadn’t been sharp enough to figure out what was going on when he’d seen her three months before. This was what that little girl and her brother faced on a regular basis. It was a wonder they weren’t both dead.

  The thought enraged him. “Get the hell out of here,” he snapped. “We’ve already called the police and CPS. There’s no way you’re getting anywhere near Taryn again.” Lucas wouldn’t allow it, even if it meant he had to beat the hell out of the bastard himself.

  “You have no right! That’s my kid—”

  “I have every right and I should have called on you three months ago.”

  “Let me see them! Let me see that bitch I’m married to! What did she tell you?” Sam picked up another chair and used every ounce of strength he had to fling it straight at Lucas.

  Lucas caught it, though the impact sent shock waves of pain shooting straight up his arms. As he set the chair aside, he taunted, “Is that the best you’ve got?”

  The waiting area was almost empty—between the two exits and Jack directing traffic, the crowd had almost completely dispersed. If he could keep this bastard’s attention on him just a little longer the last of his patients would have a chance to get to safety.


  Lucas moved a little then, shifted to his right just to see if the guy’s eyes would track him. They did, but the pupils were dilated to hell and back. He was obviously on something, though Lucas didn’t know what. He doubted it was PCP, as he’d originally thought, simply because—though enraged—Sam was still following the conversation. Still participating in it.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Jack walking back into the waiting room, a syringe in his hand. He must have stared at him a second too long, though, because Sam started to turn to see what he was looking at. If he spotted the tranq, all hell was going to break loose in a way it hadn’t yet.

  Deliberately drawing Sam’s attention back to him, he sneered, “The only way you’re getting back there to see your wife and daughter is through me. And frankly, I don’t think you’ve got what it takes to beat up on a guy who can hold his own with you. You like to pick on little girls. Does it make you feel like a man every time one of her bones break?”

  “I’m going to kill you, you son of a bitch!” Sam roared. His entire focus was now on Lucas. Good. If the guy was busy trying to kill him, he was leaving everyone else—including his wife and child—alone.

  Sam raced straight at him, but Lucas stood his ground, waiting for a chance to put the guy on his ass. It came as Sam barreled full force into him. Lucas twisted at the last second, absorbing only part of the blow before he reached around and shoved Sam forward as hard as he could.

  The other man stumbled, from surprise as much as the blow, and the momentum he’d already gathered put him face-first on the floor. Furious, raging, he rolled over and started climbing to his feet. But Lucas was ready and he kicked him in the chest, sent him sprawling back to the floor. Then Jack was there, sliding the syringe into the bastard’s arm and depressing the plunger. Fifteen seconds later, it was lights out for Sam.

  “Jesus, Lucas,” Jack said as he stood back up. “Didn’t they teach you in med school not to taunt guys tripping on stimulants?”