Peril (14 page)

Sally felt weak all over. She doubted she'd have the strength to storm from his office.
How can that be the first thing he asks about? Money!
Her assessment of his character, the rumors of his selfishness, they were all true.

“You misunderstand the purpose of my visit. Morgan is a wonderful girl. She works at Sacred Heart Children's Hospital. She's a charge nurse in the pediatric ICU. Has worked her entire nursing career to save kids.”

Reeves leaned back in his chair. “That's great, Sally. But why tell me now if it isn't money you want?”

“She's sick.”

“My work is pretty limited right now to the brain, and I'm more of a researcher. I don't really do primary care, but I can refer you—”

Sally held her hand up. “Can you please just stop and listen to me? Morgan needs a kidney transplant. None of her close family is a match. That's how I found out Morgan is your daughter. My husband turned up with an incompatible blood type. They said he and I together couldn't have had a child with Morgan's blood type.”

At first, Sally couldn't understand the look in his eyes. It was as if she had spoken a foreign language; a look of confusion overwhelmed his features. He was wide-eyed; fearful even, his features held like a silent-movie scream.

Then he shook his head, the look of dread dissolving into frank astonishment. “I can't believe it. What they say about irony is true.”

“What are you talking about? Will you see if you can help her?”

He placed his arms on his desktop and leaned forward. “You know I don't have the best track record. Our being together was out of loneliness. But what you don't know is I was the architect of my own misery. My daughter—Lilly Reeves. She's an emergency physician over at Blue Ridge.”

“I'm sure she's a lovely—”

“Lilly sees me as responsible for her mother's death.”

Sally's heartbeat kicked into overdrive.

“I did learn about them when I was pregnant with Morgan. That you'd left them.”

“If only that was my most terrible sin.” Reeves templed his hands. “Lilly's mother needed a kidney transplant. I was a match. To make a long story short, I refused to go through with the surgery. I left them because I didn't want to take care of a chronically ill wife and needy child.”

Pain burst through Sally as though her chest were being split open. How could a doctor withhold a lifesaving measure—for his own wife?

“She was never able to find a donor. After years on dialysis, she didn't want to live that way anymore, and her depression fed into that. She gave up on treatments. Even with a daughter, she didn't have the will to live.”

Sally bolted from her chair, nearly knocking it over. “How could you do such a thing? Leave a woman to die such a horrible death?”

He rubbed his hands over his face. “I deserve anything and everything you would say to me, but you don't have the right. You don't have any
claim over my life. Trust me, I've felt the pain of that decision for years. Lilly and I are estranged. I've made some small steps to try to change that but we've got a long way to go.”

“Maybe this would be a step in the right direction. Do what you should have done years ago. Just get tested . . . that's all I ask.”

“Sally, though it was fine to see you again and hear of your news, this isn't something I can do. I'm under contract for a very complicated research protocol, and I simply cannot be laid out for surgery, even assuming I'm a match.”

“How can you refuse? Put aside the fact that you are her biological father. What about the doctor in you? Don't you value life?”

He exhaled heavily. There was something he wanted to say. She could see the burden of confession pull his eyelids closed, a tortured look set into his face.

“Sally, if you knew me . . . really knew me, you would know that valuing life has nothing to do with my job. I wish you and your daughter the best.”

Chapter 15

Early Afternoon, Thursday, August 9

S
ALLY KNEW THIS
was a bad idea.

She had misgivings from the moment she pulled into the parking lot of Blue Ridge Medical Center. For several minutes, she sat in her car, battling the pros and cons.

After Thomas Reeves rejected her request, his revelation of his daughter's place of employment brought only one thought to her mind.

Maybe Lilly Reeves isn't as obstinate as her father.

Maybe she was a mother. Maybe she'd been gifted with compassion, even though that seemed to be genetically absent from her father.

The thought of Morgan's death finally propelled her from the car. She entered the emergency department and walked to the admissions desk. The clerk looked up from her computer. “Can I help you?”

How could she explain in a few simple words? “I'm here to see Dr. Lilly Reeves. I'm a friend of her father's. He sent me here.”

How many lies will I tell to save Morgan's life?

“Sure. Let me see if she's busy. You might be in luck. It hasn't been too crazy today.”

After a short phone conversation, the woman ushered her back into an examination room. At first, Sally sat on the paper-covered table, but it didn't take long for the annoying rustling under her fidgeting extremities to make her move to the chair.
What am I going to say exactly?
At least with Thomas, even though it was in the distant past, she had a relationship. An open door to at least begin the conversation. With this woman, there was no easy way to start. How much history should she give?

There was a soft knock.

“Come in,” she called. Her voice sounded high and tight.

Lilly Reeves was striking. Long black hair. Deep blue eyes. She strode
right in, held out her hand in a formal welcome. “Dr. Lilly Reeves. And you are?”

Sally let the woman's hand close over hers. “Sally.” She cleared her throat. “Sally Meyer.”

“Well, it's a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Meyer. What can I do for you today? The unit clerk said my father sent you?”

Lilly pulled a gray rolling stool that was housed under the counter to the center of the room and sat down, those piercing oceans of deep blue begging a confession from Sally's lips. Her mouth opened but no words spilled out. Shaking her head, she started again. “I did just come from seeing your father, but he didn't send me here. I came on my own accord.”

The woman crossed her arms and edged back from Sally a little. “You're a friend of his?”

“
Was
a friend would be a better way to phrase our current relationship.”

Silence hung in the room like an unwelcome friend. Why wasn't she saying anything?

“Are you a mother, Dr. Reeves?”

At the question, her lovely blue eyes darkened. A heavy sigh escaped her lips. “I never know how to answer that question.”

Sally bit into her cheek. Lilly's response didn't shed any light on her situation, but sadness painted a haunted darkness to her voice.

Salty blood crossed Sally's tongue as she released the inside of her cheek from her teeth. “I'm sorry. There seems to be something painful there. I'm here because of something painful I've done.”

Lilly slid her stool to the left and leaned against the wall. “Ms. Meyer, I'm sure you're one of the nicest women ever. But I'm not a psychiatrist and you haven't signed in as a patient. Is this a personal matter for which you really need a mental health professional?”

Sally clasped her hands together. How could she phrase the next sentence so the good doctor didn't unleash a troop of well-muscled men carrying a white straitjacket? Did they still use those? “Dr. Reeves, your father and I had an intimate relationship at one point in time.”

Her eyebrows rose slightly then a professional coolness erased the hint of surprise. “Ms. Meyer, I'm not a priest either, but I can get someone from the chaplain's service to come and talk with you.”

Dread sank its hooks into Sally's flesh. She was losing this woman, and the crazy house was certainly the next step.

“Dr. Reeves, the reason I asked if you were a mother is that I'm here to ask for your help in saving my daughter's life. I don't know if you've ever been at the point of desperation at saving a child who is close to you, but it's why I'm risking telling you something your father probably doesn't want you knowing.”

Sally stilled, waiting for a response. For many moments, her eyes focused at some point on the wall, Lilly Reeves sat there, quiet—contemplative. What was it about her that pulled at the edges of Sally's memory? She'd visited this ER a couple of times but never remembered this woman caring for her.

Finally, she turned to Sally. “Okay. I'll hear you out. But only because I do know what it's like to have someone threaten a child close to me.”

The swell of triumph nearly brought Sally's fist up in a chorus of alleluias. Now, for the next risky move. “Your father and I had a child together nearly thirty years ago.”

“What?”

“A girl. Her name's Morgan Adams. She's a nurse.”

“Here?”

“No, at Sacred Heart. She works in the pediatric ICU.”

“You're saying this woman is my sister.”

“Well, I guess half sister would be the correct term. But, yes.”

“My father knew this for how long?”

“Honestly, I just told him today.”

“Why after all these years?”

Sally settled her hands on her legs. “Denial, I guess. When I found out I was pregnant I silently hoped it was my husband's. We'd gone through a rough patch and I strayed. Timing was close enough I didn't really think to worry about it. After Morgan was born, my husband fell madly in love with her. In my heart, I knew he'd be the best father, even though it needled me to think he possibly was not her biological father. Why upset a happy home and childhood?”

Dr. Reeves tilted her face up ever so slightly. “Except that it ended up being a lie.”

Of course, she's right. Morgan's anger is a testament to that.

“Yes . . . and I don't know if I can repair my relationship with Morgan,” Sally said, “but I will try until my last day to prove to her how much I love her.”

A posed smile set on Lilly's face. “I respect that. I can say that's something my own father has never made a priority.”

“So, you're not close?”

“His selfishness put my mother in her grave. I've not forgiven him.”

“I'm sorry to hear that.”

“He never had to worry about taking responsibility for anything. My mother's sister took me in after that.”

“I see.”

Lilly hugged herself. “Enough about me. Water under the bridge as they say.”

Was it, really?
Her demeanor oozed the sense of weighted regret bound around her neck. To Sally it seemed she did want a relationship with her father.

“What does Morgan need to be saved from?” Dr. Reeves asked.

The sentence focused Sally's thoughts. “She's in kidney failure.”

“I'm sorry to hear that.”

“Neither my husband nor I are a match for a kidney transplant. When I learned that, I decided to find out for sure if the man Morgan knew as her father really was in the genetic sense. The test came back negative.”

Lilly laughed out loud. Not a that's-hilarious type release but more like an if-you-only-knew-the-irony rupture. “So you went to my father asking for a kidney?”

“If I had known about his previous actions, I wouldn't have approached him. I never knew about what happened to your mother.”

“Would it have made a difference?”

What was this? A character test? “What do you mean?”

“Would it have stopped you from having the affair?”

The hollowness in Sally's gut said no. Could she speak those honest words and still have the hope that Lilly would give permission for a drop of her blood to be tested to see if she could save Morgan's life?

“No, I would have done the same thing. Back in those days, I wasn't thinking about anyone but myself. And asking for your forgiveness now would seem like an insincere attempt to garner favor for my next request.”

“Let me guess, my father declined to be tested.”

“He did.”

The lack of surprise on her face spoke volumes of the true distance
between father and daughter. “And that's why you're here now? To ask me if I'll help? Because we're related?”

Sally folded her hands together. “Yes. It is why I'm here. I can't bear the thought of her giving up. Morgan's not had the easiest life of late. Being on dialysis has sapped her strength. After her baby girl's death, I think it's all becoming too much for her.”