“And one that would benefit from plastic surgery.”
“Yes, but—”
“This is another example of your cocky attitude and self-importance. You could have discussed it with me first. I think you’re wrong. You’re costing the clinic money it can’t afford and endangering a child’s health with your arrogance.”
“Dan, my suggestion wasn’t arrogance. I based it on my knowledge as a plastic surgeon.”
“Next time think about someone else’s reputation before you mouth off with your advice.”
Adam watched the doctor charge away, and he stood with his mouth hanging open. What was going on? The climate? The late shift? A full moon? He shook his head and checked the clipboard hanging beside the examining room. Adam recognized the name. He’d seen Felipe Garcia more than once.
“Señor Garcia,” Adam said, entering the examining room.
The man gave him a sheepish grin. “Toma mucho.” He tipped an imaginary bottle and pantomimed taking a drink.
Adam silently agreed he’d had too much alcohol and probably too many drugs. Adam’s chest tightened, thinking of the lives destroyed by substance abuse.
In minutes, he’d cleaned and sutured the arm wound. Adam knew the man would have pain and he looked through the cabinet and found the last few tablets of Darvocet. They would do him for now. “Regrese en de dos días.” He raised two fingers in the air, then pointed downward, indicating he wanted him to come back in two days.
Felipe nodded and eased down from the table. “Dos días. Gracias.” He lifted his hand in farewell, then vanished through the door, a white bandage wrapped around his arm.
“¡Adiós!” Adam called, his thoughts tangled in the plight of the locals with their poverty and poor living conditions. His heels thudded as he crossed the tile floor and slammed the cabinet door. He needed to tell Katherine to get someone to restock all the cabinets in the examining rooms.
Adam paused, hearing his attitude. The lecture he’d heard before he came to Doctors Without Borders rose in his mind. Staff needed the ability to work and live as a team, to manage stress, to be tolerant and flexible. His shoulders drooped with the thought. Perhaps he lacked that attribute. Flexibility was for the nurses and technologists, not surgeons. But here, he had to adjust.
Instead of heading back toward the nurses’ station, Adam headed for the dispensary to carry back a few supplies for the cabinet. He also had an ulterior motive. He wanted to be certain the Demerol and morphine he’d ordered had arrived, although Katherine would be irked if she knew he had checked on her.
He followed the lengthy hall to the end and turned the corner, digging into his pocket for the dispensary key, but as he neared the doorway, he saw the door was ajar.
Who would leave the room unlocked? He picked up his pace and pushed open the door.
His heart stopped. Blood froze in his veins.
“What are you doing?” he yelled.
A shot tore through him, smarting worse than a giant jejen fly.
He staggered backward. Heat and pain seared his flesh as his legs buckled.
Blackness.
Chapter Two
Pow!
Kate’s heart tumbled when she heard the shot.
Pow!
Another.
Her pulse pounded as she rose on trembling legs and tore into the hallway. She hesitated, panic charging through her body. Which way? The shot had come from the left, she thought.
She rushed along the corridor, fear pumping through her limbs while glancing through doorways.
Nothing. The office was empty.
She charged forward. Turning the corner, her legs buckled, and she grabbed the wall for support. Her head spun, her ears hummed with her rising pulse.
The dispensary door gaped, and her hands shuddered as she grabbed the jamb and pulled herself around the door frame.
“Adam!”
His body lay crumpled on the floor. Blood seeped onto the tile from his head.
“Help! ¡Socorro!” She dropped to Adam’s side, feeling for a pulse. It was faint and unsteady. She pushed back his blood-soaked hair and saw a wound. Fear gripped her. Gunshot to the head? She looked again and saw no entry wound.
Kate’s focus flew downward where the front of Adam’s green lab coat had begun to turn a reddish brown. Blood. He’d been shot in the chest.
“¡Dios mio! No.” Carmen’s high-pitched wail echoed in the doorway.
Kate pivoted toward the voice.
Carmen stared at Adam’s body, wide-eyed, while her fingers outlined the sign of the cross on her chest. “¿Quién hizo esto?”
“I don’t know who did this,” Kate answered. She waved her hand toward the hallway. “Find Dr. Reese.”
Carmen stood as if not hearing, her hands clasped near her throat as if in prayer.
“Hurry! ¡Vaya!”
“Sí,” Carmen cried as she fled from the room.
“Adam,” Kate intoned, hoping to rouse him. The blood oozed a darker, wider circle on his surgical jacket as Kate’s fear deepened. “Adam, listen to me. Hang on.”
Kate froze as another shot rang out in the distance. Her mind and body caught on a whirlwind of frenzy and fear. Who? What? Why? Questions ricocheted through her thoughts like buckshot. Dr. Reese? Dr. Valenti? Dr. Eckerd? Who was the victim this time?
Kate pulled open the lab coat, then unbuttoned his shirt and gaped at the entry wound—the torn, burned flesh brought bile to her throat. She rose and grasped sterile pads from the shelves.
Near the doorway, she saw a carton and forced it beneath Adam’s legs to elevate them. Then she pulled a blanket from a nearby shelf and covered him to ward off shock.
Kneeling, she pressed the sanitary packing against the pulsing wound. She listened to his ragged breathing as he struggled to pull air into his lungs. The shallow, raspy sound punctuated her panic.
Her fingers shifted again to his pulse, feeling the soft, erratic beat. Lord, keep him safe. Kate uttered the words over and over like a litany. With her other hand, Kate ran her finger along his death-white cheek, feeling the prickle of whiskers and longing to see his eyes open. Fearful, she lifted his lid and viewed only white sclera. The bright blue irises that often sent her heart spinning hid behind the socket where a sliver of color remained.
Tears pooled along her lashes, and hopelessness crushed her as she waited for Dr. Gordon Reese. Adam needed a surgeon and none were on duty tonight, and she knew Carmen would have to summon him from the nearby living quarters.
“Adam, you’ll be all right. Hang on. Just lie still until we find out if anything’s broken.” She gazed at the handsome man lying inert beside her. He struggled for breath, and his chest shuddered with each attempt.
She checked her watch while her prayerful litany continued until the sound of running footsteps riveted her attention to the doorway.
Gordon Reese dashed into the room, his face drawn and ashen. “What’s happened?” He knelt beside Kate, his trained eye studying the situation. “He needs a chest tube. The bullet punctured a lung.”
Kate rose and waved Carmen from the doorway where she hovered, her hands clutched against her chest. “Get the gurney. Over here.” She pointed to the metal table, in case the woman didn’t understand.
Carmen