AllFreeNovel
Share Us
A thick jacket hit him on the head, and he looked up at Luke. “That’s my daddy’s. He said he wanted me to drop it off to be dry-cleaned. I put it on so that I’d not lose it. You think that’s all it was, Mister?” He said the only way to find out was to test it on the dog. “I’m not going to be happy if you’ve been funning with me about this. He already bit me once today.”
Once Luke was out of the tree, he could see how badly the boy had been knocked around, too. Telling him to put his hand out to the dog earned him a look, but he had confidence in the plan that he’d laid out for him.
The dog was growling at the back of his throat, but he did inch his way to Luke. Almost as if he would have given up, the dog jumped into the little boy’s arms and was trying to lick his face off. The giggling little boy and the happy pup were just what he needed right now.
“Now that he’s not going to chomp on you anymore, do you mind if I have a look at your wound? I don’t want him to lose you again because you got an infection.” Setting the two of them on the sidewalk, he cautiously looked at not just the superficial bite mark but also as many wounds on his arms and legs as he could. “I think we should all pay a visit to the hospital to make sure you’re up to date on your shots. We can check on your mom and sisters while we’re at it.”
“You a doctor or something?” He said he was a doctor. “We sure could use a doctor in my family. Dad comes around with his fists, all ready to do some hurting, and you could patch us up. Momma gets the most beating around. So does Serenity, but she hits him back now so he don’t mess with her too much. Momma would too. She used to anyways. But since she’s got the cancer, it’s hard on her to defend herself.” Luke looked up at the two of them. “I don’t know what I’m going to do if I lose her. She’s the best momma there ever was.”
“She sounds like it.” They took a hand each, and the three of them, with the dog following right behind, walked down the street. Sebastian said he had parked his car down here when he’d seen Luke up the tree. That was when he saw Caleb. “I have to talk to Caleb for just a minute. Do you think you guys could wait for me to go with you? I’d like to have a couple of tests run while—just give me a few minutes.”
He was prepared for the bear hug that he’d gotten every time he came upon Caleb. It was breathtaking, literally, as well as it really did make him feel quite a bit better about things in general. However, he didn’t have good news this time, and he almost hated to let him go.
“I heard about it.” Nodding, he told him he was so sorry. “I am as well. While they didn’t give us any kind of information on the two of them, it’s still tragic that they both passed away. The young woman, Cassie, she had lost a lot of blood, you said, and the young man, Bradley, he was hurt pretty badly.”
“If you don’t mind me asking, how did you know?” He told him that his butler had gone to check on him and had heard him talking to someone about it. “I guess I could have been more discreet about it. I’m sorry that you had to find out that way. While I didn’t really hold out much hope for the young woman, as you said, she’d lost a great deal of blood. I did hope for the young man to make it.”
“Do you know what happens now?” He said that they’d make arrangements to have their bodies picked up for them. “No. I mean, I’m glad that is going to be taken care of. I meant about their killers. Do you know anything about if they’ve found them or not?”
“Several factions are taking credit for the deaths, though they don’t say who they killed or where, so we’re not putting much out there on that. I know that the president has his best men working on finding them. It happened on our soil, and he’ll make sure that doesn’t happen again. The two of them, brother and sister, from what I’ve been able to figure out, have lost a great deal in working for the government. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what else comes to us about it. I just don’t know.”
“Thank you for telling me.” He got another hug. “You’ll be staying, right? I mean, you just got here, and I’d hate to lose you so soon.”
“I’m retired. I mean, I was retired before I came here. It was an easy assignment so that I could get my last fifteen days so that I could have my full retirement.” Caleb smiled. “That’s not to say that I might not get called in for something on this. Being on the scene when it first happened is about all the help I’ve been able to give them. But I was first on the scene, and I’m not sure what that will mean for the president.”
“I’ll have a talk to him.” Daniel laughed, but Caleb didn’t. He was never sure about this man. He’d never play against him in any game of life or just a board game. He held himself out there like he didn’t have a care in the world, but once you got to talking to him, you saw a whole other part of him that he thought very few people did.
Going back to where he’d left Sebastian and Luke, he got into the car with them. As they were headed to the hospital, he thought about being a part of this growing family. He knew about Caleb and the others. Much more than he thought that they did about each other, and he was afraid that someone or something might happen to them. They were, he’d come to discover, just as friendly and nice as he’d read about them.
They pulled into the lot and went inside to the emergency department. There didn’t seem to be a lot going on, but there were people waiting in the waiting room. A lot of them, about forty people. Daniel asked to see who was in charge.
“Nobody is.” He didn’t think that was right but asked again who was in charge of this shift in this department. “Are you deaf as well as stupid? Nobody. Fill out the paperwork over there on that kiosk thing and sit down. We’ll get to you when we get to you.”
He turned and looked at Sebastian, who looked as shocked as he felt. Going to the kiosk, he spoke quietly to Sebastian while trying to figure out how to handle this. He asked him if Caleb had any pull here.
“Yes. So does his grandparents. Want me—let me reword that. It would be my pleasure to call them and have them come here. The president of the hospital was terminated about a week ago. I don’t have any idea what for, but I’m beginning to get a clearer picture now.” Luke said he’d been turned away the other day when he’d come to see if his friend had broken his arm. “What happened to him?”
“He got himself an infection from the break, and they had to run him up to a bigger hospital. Sure is a shame, too. His family can’t see him that far away.” Daniel hadn’t heard anything about the hospital around here. Not even working about as close to it as he had. He wanted to think that it was a one-time thing, but it was slowly becoming apparent that this was the norm for here. “You gonna get them in trouble? I hope that they don’t know that my mom is in here. They’ll take it out on her if they do. Or maybe she’ll get better care. They been holding her pain stuff, Sen told me.”
Enough was enough. Calling Caleb while Sebastian called Caleb’s grandparents, he laughed when he heard that someone was calling in the wives. Just the little bit of time that he’d spent with Tabby, he knew better than to fuck around with her. She was the sweetest little thing, but she had a fire in her that could burn down a house at fifty paces.
Caleb showed up first. No one even blinked an eye when he asked who was in charge. They told him the same thing that they’d said to him. Nobody. This time, however, she sounded out each syllable like it was something she wasn’t fond of repeating.
When the grandparents showed up, it was iffy if they were going to be arrested. Mrs. Anderson was well up into the face of the woman behind the check-in counter, and she wasn’t backing down, not even when security showed up. A sorrier bunch of men and women he’d ever seen, too.
After two more hours, he found himself sitting in the room of Olivia Branch. When Luke had said that his mother was dying, he hadn’t mentioned that it might be as soon as today. It hadn’t helped the woman to have been a punching bag for her husband, either. The daughters, five of them, were more protective of their mother and brother than he’d seen national security types protecting something.
“I don’t have long, do I, Doctor?” He shook his head, and two of the girls stood up and dragged Luke along with them. “They’re all I have in the world, and now I’m going to leave them to their father. Do you know of anyone who can take care of them for me? Just until my sister and Aunt can get here. I called them, but, well, money is tight everywhere. I was saving for them to send them money, but Burt took it all when he wanted to go and celebrate.”
“What did he have to celebrate, Mrs. Branch, that was more important than your family having food on the table?” She said that he didn’t pass that along to her, then laughed. “Luke takes after you in finding fun in about everything, I think.”
“He’s a good boy. Burt, he don’t like him none because he’s smart and corrects him all the time. Luke, he don’t show off and talks like he’s got not one brain cell in that noodle of his, but he’s brilliant. Going to be ten next month and already done with high school. He’s afraid his daddy will find out that he’s really smart and make him find a job. My poor baby.” The older daughter, Sen is what she went by, sat down on the other side of her mom and took her hand. “This one here, too, is brilliant. All of them are but Luke and Sen here, they’ve been the smartest of them all. Smart enough too that she won’t marry anybody her daddy brings around because he said so.”
“I don’t live with them when he’s home. I guess I thought that I could do more good than not if I had a job. I do, but it doesn’t matter how much I bring to Mom and the others. Dad seems to know and takes it all.” She told him that she was twenty-seven. “Though there are times when I feel like I’m twice that.”
They talked to each other while Olivia dozed in and out. It really wasn’t much longer for her to live. He’d been able to give her morphine to help with the pain, but she was almost too weak to do much more than moan. His heart broke for the little family, and he felt like he needed to do more.
What that would be wasn’t anything that he could put his finger on. When Caleb showed up with food and the other kids, he helped Luke get his food loaded up on his plate and sit on the other bed. He ate with them as it had been a long time since breakfast, he told the little boy.
