Secret Santa (8 page)

CHAPTER NINE

A
S
THEY
APPROACHED
the fairgrounds, the pulse of the Wurlitzer music lifted Neil’s spirits even more than they already were.
I could get used to this,
he thought as he guided Charli through the turnstile line and handed over his tickets.
I could indeed.

Once they cleared the turnstiles and they stood on the edge of the midway, Neil breathed in deeply; popcorn and the hot sugary smell of funnel cakes permeated the air. High-pitched squeals of excitement rose up from a neon-blinking flying-saucer ride that apparently was the hot ride of the fair. A beribboned clown with a rainbow wig hawking a big bouquet of pastel-colored cotton candy strolled past them. Neil took two quick steps in the clown’s direction.

A half beat too late, Neil realized Charli had hung back. He turned, letting the clown make a clean getaway.

Charli’s mouth was twisted in anguish, her jaw clamped shut. When she saw him looking at her, she ducked her head.

“What?” Neil asked. A boisterous pack of middle-school boys had raced by as Charli had said something. Neil put his hand on her shoulder, tipped her face up to meet his. “What’s wrong? Did you hurt yourself?”

“I don’t think I can do this. I’m sorry.” She started to say something else, broke off and tried to turn away from his gaze.

Neil guided her face back to meet his again. “Hey, Charli. What’s going on?”

She closed her eyes, shook her head. “You go ahead. This was a mistake.”

He took one of her hands in his and gently unfurled it. “You thinking about your dad?”

“Yeah—no, not exactly. The last time I was at a fair, my dad took me. I was maybe eleven.”

From the wry expression on her face, that childhood trip to the fair hadn’t been a raging success. Neil tried a noncommittal, “Yeah?” to encourage her to keep talking.

Charli shoved her hands into the pockets of the cardigan she wore. “Dad got ticked off with one of the guys running the games and cussed him out and it was—oh, well. Let’s just say it wasn’t a fun trip to the fair after that.” She laughed, the sound broken and rusty. “I hid the panda bear I won—Dad said he really bought it for forty bucks—because every time I saw it, I’d think of that awful...” She shook her head.

Her shoulders slumped. Charli met his eyes, then dropped her gaze down at the straw at their feet. “This is crazy. What am I afraid of?”

He squeezed her shoulder. “I think you’re afraid you’ll have a good time.”

Beside him, Charli sucked in a quick breath, and he realized he’d hit the nail on the head.

“Charli, I’ve been where you are. I know how bad it hurts to lose a parent. All I’m trying to do is to help you the way my dad and my aunt helped me.”

“They took you to a fair when your mom wasn’t even good and cold in the ground?”

“Work with me here,” he pleaded. He looked around for some sort of inspiration, anything to help him get his next few words right for Charli. If he blew this, like he had with the hot cocoa, whatever door that was cracked open would surely slam shut.

But there was nothing to help him. The cotton-candy guy swapped his last bundle of the fluffy stuff for a token from a guy with three screaming kids. Neil wondered about the wisdom of trying to split one thing of cotton candy among all those mouths. Somebody was going to feel shortchanged.

“No, really.” Her body was going rigid as she apparently worked up the willpower to refuse him. “I appreciate this....”

Neil saw how the dad knelt down, patiently dividing the cotton candy in handfuls for the kids, making it a game. It reminded Neil of
his
dad’s patience with him in the days after Neil’s mom passed away. He remembered the scary feeling that he would forget his mom, forget her by having fun.

The memory helped him keep his voice light and easy and calm. “Give me a half hour to snap some pics for the paper, a couple of rides, some cotton candy...and after that we’ll go. You can endure anything for thirty minutes, right?”

Charli looked torn. He was sure she was going to do an about-face and dash out of the fairgrounds. But then one shoulder lifted and she scuffed aside a little hillock of straw with the toe of her shoe. “Okay. You win. I got through med school and residency, and that was a lot longer,” she told Neil without much excitement. “Thirty minutes.”

“At least.” He offered her his arm. “M’lady? Our chariot awaits in the bumper cars!”

She blushed and wrapped her arm around his. In a lighter voice, she said, “Lead on, my knight in shining armor. The spell ends in—” she glanced at her watch “—about twenty-nine minutes.”

Forty-five minutes later, Charli hadn’t looked at her watch once. She’d laughed, she’d proven she was no candidate for special-forces school with her bad aim at darts, she’d even consented to share a funnel cake with him.

They were high up on the Ferris wheel, her fingers gripped tight on the safety bar. “This isn’t like any Ferris wheel I remember!” she yelled. “What happened to the slow glide?”

The wheel jerked back and forth, more like a mild version of a kid’s first roller coaster. Neil actually preferred it. Charli? She looked petrified.

“Eh, we’re okay. Open your eyes! You can see the whole midway and we’re not even at the top.”

She shook her head and left her eyes firmly closed. “I. Can’t. I. Am. Praying.”

“About what?” He tried to smother his laughter, but she must have felt it shaking his body beside her, because she scowled.

“That all of these nuts and bolts are tight!”

The contraption would pick that exact moment to give a mechanical groan as it winched its way higher still. The chair they were in was set to a violent swaying. “Aww, now,” Neil said, feeling chagrined that what would be fun for him was obviously not for her. “It’s not so bad, is it? Here, I’ll hold your hand. That better?”

She kept her eyes closed. The breeze picked up tendrils of her long blond hair and whipped it across her face. Neil took his fingers, still holding hers, and pushed the strands out of her face. The curve of her cheek and her skin felt so smooth to his touch. But what really got him was how she had stopped freaking out. She had this studious look, as though she were examining sensory input from Ferris wheels for some sort of research project. Smart and brave—a killer combination. Impulsively he leaned in and kissed her.

“Oh,” she murmured. She sagged against him, leaning into his kiss. She tasted of sugar from the funnel cake, and he decided at that moment this was the world’s absolute best way to sample funnel cake icing.

The chair swayed again, breaking their kiss. Charli put her hand to her mouth. “I— Is—”

“First time for me. Never kissed a girl on a Ferris wheel.” He held up his good hand in a palm-out “I swear” move. “But hey, look, it’s going down. We could ride it up again and see if it’s just as great a second time?”

“Oh, no—I’ve had enough of this contraption. Once my feet hit the ground, I won’t be leaving terra firma again any time soon.”

Neil liked the way she was at ease beside him as they stepped off the Ferris wheel. Back in the wash of the crowd, she seemed in no hurry to leave, didn’t even check the time on her watch.

And then an unholy wail went up—a woman’s anguished cry.

“My baby! My baby’s hurt!”

Even over the raucous marching rhythm of the Wurlitzer, the fair suddenly seemed silent. It was as though the fairgoers were frozen in space for a moment.

Frozen except for Charli.

She’d taken off at a run, shoving through the crowd. “I’m a doctor, let me through, I’m a doctor, let me through!”

Neil followed her. She’d reached the merry-go-round, which had come to a stop. A small boy with impossibly curly dark hair was splayed out on the dirty floor of the carousel.

“Aw, just got the breath knocked out of him,” shouted a big burly man in a plaid flannel shirt. He was pulling the woman away and had his hand outstretched to yank the boy up. “He’ll be fine—”

“Don’t touch him,” Charli ordered.

Neil recoiled at the ice in her voice. He’d never seen this side of Charli. It didn’t matter that the boy’s father—for that’s who it must be—was twice her size. She threw herself between the man and the boy. “I’m a doctor. Let me look at him. It may be you’re right. But if he hasn’t moved by now, he’s at least got a concussion.”

A woman fell on her knees beside Charli. “Oh, please, Doctor, help my baby—is he breathin’?”

“You mean, he could be—” The father broke off, not finishing his question.

Charli had leaned over, started assessing. She looked up. “Somebody call 9-1-1, tell them closed head trauma, possible spinal injury, get a chopper ready. Neil? Do you know CPR?”

His blood ran cold. “No.”

She’d immediately started compressions, elbows locked, two hands locked together in the middle of the kid’s chest, shoving so hard he was sure she was going to break the boy’s ribs. “Anybody? CPR? I could use some help here!”

A guy with long greasy hair and wearing a muscle shirt showing off a sleeve of tattoos on each arm—had to be one of the carnival workers—swooped in beside her. “I do. You want chest compressions?”

“Better let me keep up with the compressions—careful with that neck—I’m at ten, eleven, twelve...”

“Got it,” he said, and bent over the boy’s mouth to give two breaths. She continued compressions and, despite the mother’s wailing, never missed a count of the relentless, measured rhythm of her hands. She hollered out, “Did somebody call 9-1-1?”

Neil could barely work his fingers to get the phone out. By the time he had, someone else had been able to muster the strength to make the call. A pool of nausea formed in his gut. That child could die. Right here. The only thing between him and heaven was Charli and a tattooed carnival worker working in eerie synchronization.

The carnival worker jerked back as the little boy coughed and sputtered and flailed his arms. The crowd gave an audible gasp of relief. The worker swapped high fives with Charli.

Now she was hyperfocused on examining the little boy, murmuring to him to soothe him. He seemed scared and combative, not really making much sense, but Charli seemed elated at his change. The carnival guy leaned in, distracting the kid, cracking jokes that Neil wasn’t sure the kid even heard.

He felt envious of the worker, a total stranger who’d known what he was doing, who could somehow understand the short, staccato orders Charli had snapped out.

And standing there, Neil felt less than worthy of Charli. She did something meaningful. She saved lives. She’d saved that kid’s life. And him? He wrote articles about people’s pet chickens.

The EMTs pushed through with their stretcher and loaded their tiny bundle on a backboard. Charli stayed beside them while they wheeled the kid over the uneven ground as gently as they could.

It was only when they loaded the kid into the ambulance, with the interior backlighting Charli leaning over the boy’s stretcher, that Neil remembered his job. He lifted the camera, careful to avoid getting the kid’s face due to privacy concerns, and captured the moment. Charli’s expression had been filled with compassion—and professionalism. She definitely knew what she was doing.

As Neil dropped the camera back against his chest, she seemed to realize he was there. She looked up. “I really need to go and make sure he’s stabilized. Sorry, I had fun—I did.”

The ambulance doors closed, and Neil was left alone among the crowd.

CHAPTER TEN

C
HARLI
SCANNED
THE
emergency room’s waiting area to see the parents of the little boy. The father appeared considerably more contrite now, while the mother’s face was pale and drawn. Beside her sat, of all people, Louredes from the community clinic. Neil sat across from the trio.

“Mr. and Mrs. Chatham?”

Everyone scrambled to unsteady feet. “My baby—” Mrs. Chatham got out.

Charli grasped the woman’s hands in her own. “Luke is stable enough for transport, Mrs. Chatham. We’re flying him to Memorial Health University Hospital in Savannah. From what I can tell, he has a severe concussion. With these little ones, you don’t want to take any chances.”

“Can I see him? Can I ride with him?” the mother asked.

“Yes, you can see him, but no, you won’t be able to ride with him. The chopper is very small, and the crew needs all the available space.” Charli took in a deep breath before she plunged ahead as gently as she could. “Before I take you back, I want to get you prepared for what you’re about to see. We’ve had to put Luke on a ventilator—a breathing tube—to help him breathe.”

Mrs. Chatham crumpled and would have fallen had Louredes and Mr. Chatham not caught her. Neil stepped closer and helped guide Mrs. Chatham into a chair.

Charli felt the seconds ticking in her head—she couldn’t wait much longer. The boy needed transferring. If she’d had her druthers, the helicopter would have met them on the scene, but that hadn’t been possible in Brevis.

“Mrs. Chatham, we don’t have much time before they fly him out. Why don’t you come on back with me, and see Luke, and then afterward I can answer any questions?”

The family struggled up and toward the door, the mother mumbling regrets and prayers under her breath. Louredes and Neil stopped abruptly at the access doors, but Mr. Chatham turned to Neil.

“Could you—do ya mind? I’d appreciate it a whole heap if you’d come back here—you and Louredes. I might... I’m not too steady on my feet.”

So Neil and Louredes followed behind them, Charli wondering if Neil knew the family, and how Louredes figured into all of this.

Charli guided Mrs. Chatham into the trauma room, where blue-suited flight nurses were getting Luke switched over from the hospital’s vent to the portable unit they used on the flight.

She stepped back, allowing the woman to keen over her son, the father to grasp his boy’s pale hand in his. In her move to give the family privacy, Charli accidentally trod on Neil’s toe.

“Oh, sorry,” she told him.

He gestured for her to follow him into the hall. Louredes followed, as well. “Look,” he told her, “These are just country folks. They don’t have insurance. They’re worried about the bills—that’s why they called Louredes, because they usually go to the community clinic.”

“It’s okay. Memorial will help them with all that. They’re not going to turn down a kid this sick just because he doesn’t have insurance.” Charli switched her gaze to Louredes. “I hope you told them that.”

“I did...but they’re worried about driving in Savannah, so Neil’s going to take them down there.”

“Oh, what a good idea! Louredes, you think of everything.”

The woman beamed. “No, Neil was the one who offered. But keep that good impression of me, because I’m gonna need a reference when the clinic closes.”

“So it’s still closing?” Charli glanced over her shoulder to be sure that the family didn’t have any questions yet, then turned her attention back to Louredes. “There’s nothing that can be done?”

“No.” Louredes’s chin wobbled, but she straightened up and lifted her head. “It’s okay. It just wasn’t meant to be. But bless your father, Dr. Prescott. Because of him, so many patients got care for a little while.”

Charli’s heart seemed to twist. To see what her father—this father she had never known—had worked so hard to build...

She didn’t have the luxury of asking for more details now. A family waited—and one way to carry on her father’s legacy was to be sure, insurance or no insurance, that this child got the absolute best care possible.

Charli returned to the bedside and began the process of guiding Mr. and Mrs. Chatham away so that the flight crew could complete the loading protocols. Charli knew from her own experience with her father how their hearts raced, how their minds couldn’t take in her answers to their questions, how terrified they were at the prospect of Luke not making it. It gave her extra patience to answer questions she’d already answered, to give them time to stumble over what they needed to ask, to give them one more chance to squeeze Luke’s hand before the flight crew whisked him away. The parents ran after the gurney, and Charli knew they didn’t want to let him out of their sight.

She turned to Neil. “Thank you for doing this. It seems like you’re always rescuing somebody.”

“I’d say it was my pleasure but...is he going to make it?” Neil whispered.

“Kids are resilient―still, cross your fingers and pray. We’ve given him every chance. And he’s stable. That’s good.”

“If nobody else tells you, I just want you to know...you were amazing,” Neil said. With that, he pressed a quick kiss to her lips and dashed off in the wake of Luke’s parents, leaving Charli to press her fingers to her mouth in complete and utter shock.

* * *

F
ROM
C
HARLI
’
S
POSITION
across the street in her car, the lights of the community clinic were dark, with only one or two fluorescents on for security purposes.

The day had been overcast, with low clouds holding the promise of a rare snow flurry, and the temperatures had taken a sharp downturn. Now it was inky black, with rain beginning to drizzle.

All the better for what she was planning to do.

Charli’s heart rate spiked as she reached for the envelope of cash.

Was she really going through with this?

The clinic can’t close. And Dad wouldn’t have let it, not with this much money squirreled away.

Charli had made up her mind only that afternoon, after she’d read Neil’s article in the paper about the clinic’s doors closing. Most people had thought she was reading Neil’s laudatory article about how she’d saved Luke Chatham—who was doing much better but still at Memorial in Savannah.

In reality, she’d read and reread the article beside it―Neil’s last-ditch plea for someone to save the community clinic.

People like Luke Chatham’s parents and that proud diabetic she’d treated used the clinic. Without it, where would they go?

True, she could absorb some into her practice, but no other doctor in town seemed interested in the slightest about helping to fill the vacuum.

She had the money, even if it wasn’t exactly hers. She had the means. Hang her med school loans. She’d pay them off some way. With that decision, she’d made a beeline for the bank, liberated the money and put together a shaky plan to drop off her donation.

With a label gun Charli had used in college, she’d printed out FOR THE CLINIC and ATTN: LOUREDES in the most generic Helvetica ever. She’d even used latex gloves to move the money into a priority mail envelope and put the label on. A bit paranoid, and definitely evoking cheesy TV crime shows about kidnappings, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

She’d toyed with the idea of just giving it to Louredes with strict instructions not to reveal who donated it. But what if Louredes was questioned about who’d given it to her? Maybe the IRS would need to know, even if the public didn’t.

Charli wanted to avoid making trouble for her mom—who was already in enough pain—and her father’s accountant had been crystal clear; declaring large sums of money could mean years of questions and large penalties from the IRS.

No, she’d thought. Better to do it in an anonymous way. But how?

Charli didn’t want to send that much money through the mail, and she couldn’t FedEx it—there’d be a record of who sent it. The best option would be to drop it off at the clinic and rely on the staff to do the right thing.

So that was why she sat, surveying the clinic. Casing the joint, so to speak. The rain pelted down harder on the roof of her car.

Now, how to avoid the video camera that was installed over the door? She’d stopped in earlier this afternoon to update Louredes on Luke Chatham’s progress, and had noticed that very item. A businesslike camera perched over the door, and another one inside pointed toward the front entrance.

The only thing she could do was make herself as unrecognizable as possible—or give up on the whole enterprise. She’d have to walk through the empty parking lot and try to disguise herself as best she could.

In the car, Charli pulled a knit cap down low on her forehead, wrapped her scarf around her neck and tightened the belt on her raincoat. It was nondescript and black, and between the hat, the coat and her father’s big black umbrella, maybe it would be enough to hide her identity. Man, she felt as if she was preparing to rob the clinic, rather than gifting it with money it desperately needed.

She opened the car door and gasped at the knifelike cold swirling around her—both from the rain and the wind. Pulling her coat tighter around her and grateful for the knit cap she’d donned as part of her disguise, Charli crossed the street.

She almost lost her nerve at the corner of the vacant building beside the clinic.

This money isn’t mine. It might not have even been Dad’s—at least, not legally. It might have been a payoff. A man died.

She stood on the sidewalk, wind tearing at her, rain driving into her back, despite the umbrella. What she should do was go confess all to her mother, then talk to the police or the medical board or somebody who had jurisdiction over a twenty-year-old crime.

She leaned against the empty storefront, seeking shelter from not only the weather but also her whirling thoughts and doubts.

The same questions that had plagued her for days―weeks, now―kept yanking at her. Charli sighed, then stiffened as a lone car zipped down the deserted street. She ducked her head just in case anyone was looking her way. Yellowed newspapers dated from two years earlier covered the inside of plate-glass windows of the store, and no light gleamed from within.

If I don’t do this, the clinic will be just this empty.

The car’s engine noise faded as it rushed away, leaving her alone once again.

What Dad did or didn’t do, I can’t help. And probably nobody else could, either. If I report the money, nobody gets it, and the clinic closes. No matter what mistakes he made, he got this clinic right.

Charli sucked in a breath, squared her shoulders and called up the fortitude that had gotten her through every tough exam, every cranky professor’s interrogations, every time her father had questioned her medical school ambitions. She was a few dozen steps from doing something good and lasting—and something she knew would make her father proud.

Across the blacktopped parking lot. Up the concrete steps. In the darkness, she fumbled, one-handed, for the mail slot by the door. For a heart-stopping moment, the thick package wedged itself in the slot and wouldn’t go in or come out.

Despite the cover the porch offered, the wind yanked at the umbrella, threatening to turn it inside out and deprive her of part of her disguise. She tightened her grip on the umbrella’s handle and pushed even harder on the envelope. She could do this. It would go. It had to.

Her scarf began unwinding, but she dared not let go of the umbrella—what if the video camera above her got a clear glimpse of her face? Finally, the stubborn envelope surrendered to the mail slot and dropped in the bin with a satisfying thud. Done.

The money was gone, the clinic safe and nobody had to know who’d come to its rescue.