Vince’s voice played in Preston’s head: One of my patients died. It happens, you know. Being a doctor, it’s something I have to deal with. But afterward it just…haunted me.
Preston hoped to hell Billy’s death still haunted Vince.
He clicked on the Deetses’ message. What did they have to say after so many months? The last flurry of e-mails they’d exchanged had gotten pretty heated. Jim Deets had insisted that Vince would have no reason to harm their child. Why would a doctor, a young man with a beautiful wife, a man who had it all, purposely make one of his patients sick?
That was the million-dollar question, wasn’t it? A normal person couldn’t understand it. But Preston thought he knew why. He’d seen Vince strutting around their house when Dallas fell ill, telling Christy she’d done the right thing by calling him, assuring them they had nothing to worry about now that he was there. Preston had known Vince liked to impress others, that he was trying to impress them, but he hadn’t realized how far Vince might go in order to accomplish that.
Closing his eyes, Preston shook his head. He should’ve seen it sooner. Vince lived for praise, fed on attention, craved the limelight. Since Dallas’s death, Preston had read about people like him. The disorder appeared more often among arsonists, who started fires to set themselves up as rescuers, but it was their intense need to be perceived as a hero that drove them, and Vince had that same craving.
Preston had told Jim Deets as much, but Jim had refused to believe it. In his last e-mail, over a year ago, Jim had said he’d get a restraining order if Preston ever contacted him again.
So what did old Jim have to say now?
Preston quickly scanned the message.
Dear Mr. Holman:
This is Rachel Deets, Jim’s wife. I probably shouldn’t be writing you. Jim wouldn’t like it. But something odd happened that’s got me wondering if maybe you were right about Dr. Wendell. In order to register Melanie for seventh grade, we had to fill out a card listing the dates of her inoculations. When I put down that she hadn’t had a shot since she was five years old, Melanie told me that Dr. Wendell gave her one the day she went in for her checkup, two days before she got sick. She said he did it while I was in the bathroom. But no one mentioned anything to me about an immunization.
Dr. Stone has Melanie’s medical records now, but there’s no notation of any shot being given. I tried to talk to Jim about it, but he doesn’t want to hear. Since her illness, Mel struggles to learn, and Jim’s having trouble dealing with it. But she’s pretty adamant about what happened. If Dr. Wendell hurt Melanie on purpose…Well, I’d hate to think he’s out there, able to do the same thing to someone else’s child.
Rachel
PRESTON LET HIS BREATH go in a long sigh. That Vince had given little Melanie a shot sounded all too familiar. When Dallas first fell ill, Christy had immediately called Vince to come over and take a look at him. Since it was late on a Saturday night, it seemed ultra-convenient that their best friend happened to be a doctor. Vince diagnosed Dallas as having a touch of the flu, which was what they’d expected. But then he came over early the next morning with a syringe, claiming a gamma globulin shot would boost Dallas’s immune system.
Considering what happened afterward, what Preston had learned since, Preston would bet his life that there was something besides gamma globulin in that syringe.
He sent a quick reply to Rachel Deets, thanking her for writing to him and wishing Melanie the best. Then he printed her message. So far, the police had refused to listen to him. But maybe this would help.
AFTER EMMA HAD showered and dressed, she nudged Max. “Let’s draw up your insulin, babe.”
He ignored her and continued to stare at the television screen.
“Max?”
“Hmm?”
“Will you put your insulin in a new spot today?” Emma tried to fill her voice with encouragement. Somehow, she had to get Max used to rotating his injection sites. The fatty deposits on his stomach were making it difficult for his body to absorb the insulin when he put it there.
Unfortunately, her light tone had no effect. “No,” he said, his expression becoming a dark glower when she handed him the needle.
“Will you at least try?”
Preston glanced over at them from where he was working on his computer. “Come on, Beast. Help your mom out with this, okay?”
Reluctantly, Max turned away from the television and pulled up the pant leg of his shorts. Emma was tempted to stay and watch, but she thought it might be easier for Max if she let him have some privacy to deal with this.
Moving to the nightstand, she perused the room service menu. Max liked having breakfast delivered. At the very least, it’d give him something to look forward to. But she found herself looking over at him every few seconds and biting nervously on her bottom lip. Come on, baby. You can do it.
“One, two-o-o…three!” Max’s voice held more determination than ever before, which gave her hope. But he still balked at the last second and sat staring glumly at the needle.
“What would you like for breakfast?” she asked Preston.
“An omelette and some coffee.”
Max jumped at the opportunity to distract himself. “Can I have sugar cereal?”
“Not today,” she replied. “You can have eggs and bacon or oatmeal.”
He grimaced.
“Which will it be?” she asked.
His shoulders slumped. “Oatmeal, I guess.”
“I could get some strawberries to go with it.”
“I like strawberries,” he said, somewhat mollified.
She called to place their order, adding some eggs and toast for herself. When she hung up, she turned as Max brought the syringe to eye level. “There’s a bubble in it.”
“No, there’s not, honey,” Emma said. “I already checked it.”
Hearing the flat tone of his voice, she was about to give up and let him put it in his stomach again, but Preston suddenly crossed the room to sit next to him.
“You think that needle’s gonna hurt?” he asked.
Max considered the syringe. “I know it will.”
“How bad?”
He shrugged.
“Why don’t we find out? Why don’t you give me a shot in the arm, then the leg, then the stomach, and I’ll tell you which one hurts the worst.”
Her son’s eyes narrowed. “You’re going to take a shot?”
“Why not?”
“Because you can’t take insulin, silly.”