Born To Die (Alvarez & Pescoli)

Throwing the main switch, along with the security lights, she heard the furnace rumble to life.

Bam! Bam! Bam!

A loud pounding echoed through the rooms.

She slammed the door to the closet shut, realizing Trace O’Halleran and Eli were already here. Sure enough, she heard Trace’s voice boom through the walls. “Dr. Lambert? Kacey?”

“Coming!” She was already hurrying along the hallway and through the front reception area, snapping on banks of fluorescents, which flickered before offering up any real illumination. “Sorry,” she said quickly. “I’m having trouble with the electricity here. The circuit breaker is always flipping. A real pain in the behind.” Then, as he walked inside, she said to the boy, “Hey, Eli. How are you feeling?”

He didn’t answer, and she could see as the lights began to fill the offices with illumination that he was feverish. He coughed loudly, and he winced. “Complains of a sore throat,” Trace said.

“Let’s take a look.” She twisted the dead bolt behind them and said, “Come on, Eli.” The boy was wearing pajamas, a jacket, and was wrapped in a sleeping bag. Once in the examination room, she took his temperature and other vitals, looked down his throat and ears, and listened to his lungs. All the while Trace stood leaning against the counter, his fingers gripping its edge.

She forced a smile. “I think we need to get you into the hospital,” she said, trying to sound encouraging.

“Hospital?” Trace repeated.

“Noooo!” Eli, taking a cue from his father, began to protest but ended up only with another coughing fit that made him cringe and his eyes water.

“I think yes.” She glanced toward Trace, silently suggesting he support her on this. “It’s just to make sure you’re going to get better as fast as possible.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Trace said.

Eli’s face crumpled as he had another coughing fit.

“Hurts, doesn’t it?” she said to the boy. “I know. You’ll feel better.”

“You’ll come with me?” Eli asked.

“Of course,” Kacey assured him. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

“I don’t have to stay there.”

“For a while,” she said, “but let’s figure that part out once we get there, okay?” To Trace, she added, “I’ll meet you at the ER at St. Bart’s, and we’ll get him admitted.”

“You got it.”

Two hours later Eli was in a hospital bed, hooked up to an IV, pronounced “stable,” and sleeping soundly. The nursing staff was taking care of his boy and had promised to call Trace in the morning and keep Kacey in the loop. From what Trace got out of it, his son still had bronchitis, along with strep throat and possible pneumonia. Kacey had insisted the boy stay overnight where he could be monitored, his fever tended, and Trace was a little relieved, though he wanted to camp out in his son’s room on the one uncomfortable chair.

“I’ll look in on him before I go to the clinic tomorrow,” Kacey promised as they walked out of the main lobby of the hospital and into the parking lot, where several cars were scattered around and the sky was thick with clouds. A cold breeze skated down the canyon where the river, far below, cut through the shimmering lights of the town.

“He won’t like being here.”

“Who does?” She glanced back at the building, lights glowing upward for three stories, a garland of fresh cedar bows draped over the portico. “But he should be out tomorrow, I’d think.”

He walked her to her car, and as she opened the door, Trace grabbed her by the crook of the arm, holding her back a second. “Thanks, Kacey,” he said.

“No problem.”

“I mean it.”

She looked up at him expectantly, turning her face so that as the first flakes of snow fell from the sky, they caught in her eyelashes and melted against her cheeks.

In the bluish lights from the security lamps, she appeared a little ghostlike, her skin pale, her eyes a shade darker than they were in daylight. For half a heartbeat, he was reminded of Leanna.

Or was it Jocelyn?

A chill settled in his guts. “You’re more than welcome, Trace,” she said and smiled. “I’m glad you called. Eli needed to be here.”