Duplicity (23 page)

BOOK: Duplicity

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“It’s not your place, Bill. You and Maggie have been wonderful to me.”

“You’d do the same for me…” Bill studied the gaunt man leaning beside the refrigerator. “….if you could.” He threw the pencil onto the desk. It bounced off and rolled across the concrete floor, stopping inches from Paul’s feet.

Paul picked it up and put it back on the desk. “You dropped this.”

“Son of a gun.” Bill grinned. “Half-crocked and still trying to get me to control my temper.”

“It’s bad for your blood pressure.”

“Maggie will thank you. Probably with one of her chicken casseroles.” Bill doodled around the edges of the desk calendar, turning the one into a stick figure, putting ears and a tail on the eight. Then he sat back in his chair, tapping the pencil against his teeth and studying his artwork.

Paul waited. He had nothing else to do except go to his empty apartment with its bleak bare walls and its stark functional furniture. Bill would insist on driving him, and Paul would consent. He had no intention of adding highway murder to his list of sins

“A woman came to see me today,” Bill said. “A woman and a little boy.”

Paul went very still.

“Her name’s Susan…Susan Riley. She knew about the center from that article in the newspaper last week.”

There had been many articles written about Dr. Bill McKenzie and the research he did with dolphins. The most recent one, though, had delved into the personality of the dolphins themselves. An enterprising reporter had done his homework. “Dolphins,” he had written, “relate well to people. Some even seem to have extrasensory perception. They seem to sense when a person is sick or hurt or depressed.”

“Her little boy has a condition called truncus arteriosus…” Bill squinted in the way he always did when he was judging a person’s reaction.

Paul was careful not to show one.
Truncus arteriosus. A condition of the heart. Malfunctioning arteries. Surgery required.

“Bill, I don’t practice medicine anymore.”

“I’m not asking you to practice medicine. I’m asking you to listen.”

“I’m listening.”

“The boy was scheduled for surgery. But he had a stroke before it could be performed.”

For God’s sake, Paul. Do something. DO SOMETHING!

“Bill…”

“The child is depressed, doesn’t respond to anything, anybody. The mother thought the dolphins might be the answer. She wanted to bring him here on a regular basis.”

“You told her no, of course.”

“I’m a marine biologist, not a psychologist.” Bill slumped in his chair. “I told her no.”

“The child needs therapy, not dolphins.”

“That’s what I thought, but now…” Bill gave Paul that squinty-eyed look. “You’re a doctor, Paul. Maybe if I let her bring the boy here during feeding times – “

“No. Dammit, Bill. Look at me. I can’t even help myself, let alone a dying child and a desperate mother.”

Bill looked down at his shoes and counted to ten under his breath. When he looked up Paul could see the pity in his eye.

He hated that most of all.

o0o

About Peggy Webb

In a career that spans 26 years, the Mississippi author has written more almost 70 books. Writing as Peggy Webb, she pens romance and mystery. Writing as Anna Michaels, she pens literary fiction. She has been on the romance bestseller list numerous times and has won many awards, including a Romantic Times Pioneer Award for creating the sub-genre of romantic comedy. Several of her romances have been optioned for film.

The Tender Mercy of Roses
, 2011, written as Anna Michaels, is a Delta Magazine Top Five Pick, a Literary Guild and Doubleday Bookclub Featured Alternate. Pat Conroy, author of
The Prince of Tides
, called it “astonishing.”

She is excited about bringing her romance classics (originally published as
Loveswepts
) back to readers as E-books.

Follow the author on her websites:
www.peggywebb.com
and
www.annamichaels.net
and on Facebook as both Peggy Webb
http://www.facebook.com/people/Peggy-Webb/1728199449
and Anna Michaels
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Anna-Michaels/143290865720358
.