Sealed with a promise (34 page)

  “Vicky says she will stop fighting and go to the hospital if Chief Dulaude will come with her. I don’t know why she’s fixated on him.” Emmie thought she heard a male voice in the background say, “… can’t believe you indulge her like this.” Charlotte talked over it. “Do you think Chief Dulaude would do that?”

  “She’s trying to control you,” the male voice in the background put in.

  “I’m sure he’ll do what he can,” Emmie reassured her. After getting Charlotte’s number and the address of the doctor’s office, she assured her she’d get right back to her.

  Caleb felt ridiculously good when he saw the phone number his cell phone displayed. He’d called Emmie’s number enough times to memorize it. This was the first time she’d called him though. He slowed down so that he wouldn’t be panting when he called her back. Man, it felt so good. He laughed at himself. He was as eager as a kid. Wanting to be cool, to play it right. His heart thumped with anticipation at talking to her, although he’d left her less than forty-five minutes ago. Maybe she wanted him to pick up milk or bagels. That would be good. In fact, even if she didn’t ask, he might.

  “What’s up?” he asked, when she answered on the first ring, knowing he had a huge smile on his face.

  “I just had the strangest phone call from Charlotte Calhoun. Vicky needs to go to the hospital for some tests, and apparently, she’s flinging a fit, unless you’ll go with her.”

  “Why me?”

  “Charlotte says she doesn’t know why. I think it’s because she respects you, plus she’s got a bit of hero-worship going on. Do you want to know what’s really strange? Caleb, Vicky’s afraid of needles, just like you. Do you think something like that could be genetic?”

  “According to some studies, it may be. About eighty percent of people with trypanophobia have a relative with it.” At the time he had come across an article on the phobia, he hadn’t known any of his relatives- assuming he had some-so the information had been totally academic. He hadn’t considered how it would feel to recognize
kin
ship. Suddenly, the implications of phrases like
member of the family, blood kin, like a brother to me,
took on personal meaning.

  He wasn’t starry-eyed about how well kinship always worked. A lot of his friends thought their relatives were pains in the ass. But people like that, people who were
kin
to each other, understood at a deep cellular level what it was like to live with certain traits. They understood, from the inside, what it was like to be you.

  “That’s the medical name for it, trypanophobia?” He heard the scholarly curiosity in her voice and knew she was writing it down, probably to research it the first chance she got.

  “Or belonephobia. Or needle phobia.”

  “So. Do you think this means Uncle Teague really is your father, and she’s your half-sister?” He hadn’t corrected the impression, okay, the lie, he’d handed Emmie that he thought Calhoun
might
be his father. The DNA test he’d had run on the glass Calhoun had used at the wedding reception made paternity ninety-nine percent certain. Strange. There could be a link with Vicky when he had nothing at all in common with Calhoun. “Caleb?” Emmie asked when he didn’t reply.

  “I’m getting used to the idea.”

  “I don’t understand. What is there to get used to? Do you think she’s your sister?”

  Caleb wrenched his mind from the thousands of competing thoughts about what it meant to be related to a little girl and accepted that he was in charge of getting the kid to the hospital. “Can you pick me up? I’ll call Charlotte and tell her we’re on the way, as soon as I shower.”

  “No! I’m not going to do it. You say ‘just one,’ but it
isn’t
just one. It
never
is.” Caleb could hear Vicky’s raised voice as soon as the elevator stopped on the pedi-atric floor. He shoved past the man and woman in front of him and turned down a corridor, guided by her voice. “You lied! You said we’d wait.
No.
Get away from me. No more sticks!
No
more sticks.
No
more sticks.” Vicky’s protests dissolved into sobbing screams. Caleb slapped the room’s door open without slowing.

  In one glance he took in the cowering child squeezed between the bed and the nightstand, her tear-stained cheeks and terrified eyes, the elderly man, Fairchild, pulling the little girl’s arm, and the shocked young woman, her blue lab coat and carryall of vials and test tubes proclaiming her a lab technician.

  “Stop,” he commanded. All three took his command to mean them. Vicky’s wails ceased, the technician took a step back, and Fairchild released Vicky’s arm. He stood and straightened the cuffs of his gray suit.

  Vicky scrambled to her feet and launched herself at Caleb with a frantic cry. Not content to fling her arms around him, she tugged at his coat and belt as if she were to trying to climb him. He lifted her into his arms, and she immediately clung to him, arms around his neck, legs wrapped around his waist. Deep tremors shook the little body.

  Little kids were his soft spot. He hated to see them scared, hurt, or neglected, and he had seen too many in Afghanistan. Many of the mountain villages were preyed upon by the Taliban- aligned forces, and terrible reprisals threatened for any resistance to their tyranny.

  “You are interfering,” Fairchild snapped. His pale blue eyes glittered with dislike.

  “Yes I am.” Caleb kept his voice light, as if the notion had just occurred to him. For now, Fairchild was powerless, and they both knew it. A pissing contest would only upset Vicky further.

  Caleb carried Vicky to the bed. She tightened her arms into a stranglehold around his neck. “Easy, Little Bit. I’m not going to let go of you. I’m just going to sit on the bed, so you’ll be more comfortable.”

  “Where’s Emmie? I want you, and I want Emmie.” Vicky sobbed. The breathless quality of her crying, and the way her little heart pounded against his chest scared him.

  “Emmie’s coming.” He arranged her on his lap and cupped his hand around her head when she hid her face against his chest. “She’ll be here in a minute.”

  The lab tech edged toward the door, a placating smile on her face. “If it’s all right, I’ll come back in a while.”

  Fairchild ignored her. “You’re not doing her any favors you know.” He sneered at Caleb. “Sooner or later she will have to do as she’s told, and you’re just making it harder.” At face value his words might be reasonable, but Fairchild’s tone dripped contempt.

  His presence challenged Fairchild’s authority. Caleb wondered if that was enough to make the older man dislike him. Not that he gave a shit what Fairchild thought. He had no intention of discussing Vicky with him. To Caleb’s way of thinking, Charlotte Calhoun was the only person with the authority to direct Vicky’s care. “Where is her mother?”

  “Here,” said Charlotte from the door. Despite her smooth, imperturbable face, her deep brown eyes burned hot. The tech ducked behind her and escaped. “What happened?”

  “The technician came in a few minutes after you left.” Fairchild adjusted the amount of white cuff showing at his wrists, again. “I saw no reason for her to waste her time. After all, we’re here to have these tests done. The sooner they’re complete the sooner she, and we, can leave. You, Charlotte, have spoiled Vicky. You have refused to set firm limits, and now
she
is paying the price. She has no respect for authority. I have told you again and again, and now you see the results. She refuses to cooperate even when it is for her own good.”

  Charlotte let her leather bag slip from her shoulder. “Wait a minute. The technician came in to do a blood draw, and you
let
her? When you knew how hard I had worked to persuade Vicky to trust me? I had promised her nothing,
nothing,
would happen until Chief Dulaude got here.”

  “You shouldn’t have to bribe her with rewards for being obedient.”

  Charlotte tilted her head to one side, her eyes narrowing. “I was not out of the room for ten minutes- and the woman in admitting said I needn’t have come at all. She planned to bring the papers here. I’m putting a lot of things together, Edward. You said the Senator couldn’t be reached for several hours. You said it would cause speculation if Chief Dulaude walked into the hospital with us, and you talked us into arriving separately. You suggested I get the papers out of the way while we waited. You didn’t just disagree, you deliberately undermined me.”

  “Charlotte, you’re upset about nothing-a child’s tantrum!”

  Charlotte’s face turned hard and her voice very, very soft. “Get out. Do not come near me or my child again.”

  “As usual you’re reacting emotionally. You’re being unreasonable.”

  Apparently, Fairchild couldn’t grasp, “Get out.” Caleb thought he would have to add his persuasive abilities. Fairchild’s weapon was words, his favorite ploy driving like a tank over anything he didn’t agree with. Any SEAL worth his salt knew you didn’t engage an enemy where he was strong. The more he could make his point to Fairchild without saying a word, the more effective he could be.

  “I’m going to put you down on the bed,” Caleb told Vicky softly. “You’re all right now.” Vicky’s arms tightened briefly, then let go. “Good girl.”

  His size alone was probably enough to intimidate Fairchild, but Caleb didn’t underestimate small men. Neither Caleb’s height nor his spare build were necessarily assets in SEAL work. Many SEALs were average and shorter, and he’d had his ass kicked more than once. If there was going to be a confrontation, he wanted Vicky behind him.

  Caleb stood. He smiled. Not a nice smile. He took a step toward the much older, much smaller man.

  Fairchild fell back a step. Good. Caleb smiled again and jerked his head toward the door. The man’s pale blue eyes went to Charlotte. He caught the cuffs of his coat in his palms and jerked the sleeves tight. It made him look like a stick puppet.

  He stalked to the door Charlotte had left open, but turned back to fire a parting shot. He didn’t see Emmie, who hesitated in the doorway, taking in the tense atmosphere in the room. “Charlotte,” Fairchild warned, “do not think this man is your friend. He’s trash. A low, manipulating opportunist.”

  “That’s funny,” Emmie exclaimed from behind him as if she’d made a delightful discovery. “That’s what my grandmother said about
you.
”

  “What?” Fairchild whirled around.

  “Um- hmm.” Emmie gave him her most wide-eyed look. “‘Opportunist.’ That was her very word! Hey, Charlotte-” Emmie peeped around Fairchild and waved. “Mr. Fairchild, you know when you said the other day that you and my grandmother were friends? I didn’t remember that, so it got me thinking about what I
do
remember. You know my grandmother liked to speculate about how people arrive at their places in life. She was talking about you one day. I wish I could recall more, but what I do remember her saying was, ‘I reckon Mr. Fairchild was useful to Mr. Calhoun-she always called people Mr. and Mrs.-of course,
Mr.
Calhoun was Uncle Teague’s father-but (this is what she said) ‘personally, I don’t see why Teague keeps the little toad around.’”

  Caleb bit down on the inside of his cheek. Emmie was channeling Aunt Lilly Hale. Just when he thought her tone couldn’t get any blander, it did.
And
her eyes got wider. “Don’t you think that was interesting, Mr. Fairchild? I do. I’d be happy to tell you more about it sometime. Of course, like I said, I don’t remember much more she said about you.” Fairchild was edging away. “But I remember things she said about other people-oh, but you were leaving, weren’t you? Don’t let me keep you.”

  Fairchild threw a glare at Caleb and Charlotte, and a look of disgust at Emmie, and stalked off.

  “I don’t know when I’ve laughed so hard!” Charlotte wiped her streaming eyes. “Look at that!” She examined the dark smudges on the balled up tissue in her hand. “Emmie, you’ve made me ruin my makeup. I haven’t done anything to destroy my eyeliner in public since before Vicky was born!”

  Emmie chuckled to think a woman could live for ten or more years with perfect makeup. She was still challenged to remember to put on lipstick, and she knew she would never take it seriously. Somehow, there wasn’t a gap between her and women like Charlotte anymore. They were part of a continuum.

  “Fill me in,” Emmie said, from her perch on the arm of the room’s easy chair in which Caleb sat. Anyone coming into the room would assume she was on his side. Well, she was. Sometime in the last few days, all feeling of existing at the edge of life, of being insignificant even to herself, had disappeared. She enjoyed feeling like a participant, and even more, she appreciated knowing she and Caleb could relate as a team. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get here earlier. I had to go over to campus long enough to hand out exams. A graduate student will collect them, but I’ll need to go back soon. Talk fast. What did I just walk in on?”

  Charlotte stroked Vicky’s hair. “Sweetie, tell us what happened before I got here.”

  Vicky’s lip quivered. “She was already in here.”

  “You mean the lab technician?” Vicky nodded. “When we came in downstairs,” Charlotte explained to the adults, “Edward suggested I stop by the admissions desk, and he would bring Vicky to the room. But the technician was
already
in the room. Vicky, are you sure?”

  “Uh- huh. And I said I didn’t want to. I wanted to wait for you and Caleb. But they wouldn’t let me, and he said you wouldn’t come for a long time. And he said he would hold me down, but I got away and ran around the bed. Then he caught me by the arm-” Vicky hid her face against her mother.

  “When I came in, Fairchild had her trapped between the bed and the nightstand.” Caleb’s voice was darker than Emmie had ever heard it.

  “Caleb picked me up and didn’t let them get me.”

  Charlotte closed her eyes. “How long was it until I got here?”

  “About a minute,” Caleb replied.