Butterfly Bayou (Butterfly Bayou 1)

Gene turned a shade of red Armie was fairly certain no human ever should. “She’s trying to steal my DNA. We’ll see about that.”

Armie sat back with a long sigh as Gene fled the building. “I was going to try to convince him to give you a chance.”

“Yeah, that’s been a theme today.” She didn’t look back, merely took the seat Gene had previously occupied.

“Is he going to be okay without his medications?” It was clear he would have to do something about the situation at the clinic, and the easiest place to start was with the woman in front of him.

She shook her head, not an ounce of emotion on her face. “Not at all. He has high blood pressure that requires stabilization. He needs those meds, but I can’t prescribe them without ensuring that he’s okay.”

Maybe she wouldn’t be the easiest way to solve the problem. “So you’ll let him die because his liver might get damaged.”

“I’m not letting him die,” she replied. “I’m simply not going to prescribe a medication that might be hurting him without testing. I would be doing him a disservice. I get the feeling Dr. Hamet was very lax in his practice. I don’t intend to be.”

“A little tolerance might go a long way here.” He’d ease her into this because by little he meant a whole lot. So much tolerance was needed. “I know I’m the sheriff and I understand the need for laws, but I also know there’s a time to bend those rules a little for the right reasons.”

“Yes, and bending the rules could go a long way to me losing my license. I understand. The doctor was a beloved member of this community and I’m an outsider.”

“The doctor is an ass most of the time, but the people around here know him and they trust him.”

“I don’t know why.” Her mouth firmed to a stubborn line. “I shouldn’t have trusted him at all. He told me the clinic made money.”

“I don’t know about that, but they do a whole lot of bake sales. What are you going to do about Gene?” He wasn’t sure why the woman fascinated him, but it had been so long since he’d wanted anything for himself that he wasn’t going to question it. He was going to follow his gut, and his every instinct told him Lila was worth the trouble. “I know he’s obnoxious, but he really won’t come back into the clinic. And he won’t go anywhere else. He’ll go without.”

She seemed to think about the problem for a moment. “I can give him an extra month. But I can’t risk my license and I can’t not follow the rules. There are reasons for the rules. I’ll write up the prescription and have Mabel take it to him. But you have to work on him. If he doesn’t want me to draw the blood, Mabel can.”

She was bending and that was all he could ask her to do. “Thank you, Lila.”

He wanted to reach out and take her hand in his, but they weren’t there yet. The way her eyes held his gave him hope. She stared at him and the ghost of a smile crossed her lips and then she broke the moment, retreating to her previous businesslike demeanor.

“I’m actually here because of one of those rules we were talking about. I need to inform you that I have reason to suspect a woman named Carrie Petrie is being physically abused by her husband.”

Well, he hadn’t expected that. “Bobby? He’s never been in any trouble before. I won’t say the man is a joy to be around, but what makes you think he’s hurting Carrie?”

“Her medical records. Did you know she’s been in five times in the last four years for broken bones or sprained ankles?”

He didn’t like the sound of that, but the Petrie family was a bit of a mystery to him and always had been. “She lives out on the island. They do a lot of manual labor out there. It’s not an easy life. How many times has Bobby come in?”

That seemed to make her stop. “I didn’t check.”

He would bet Bobby had a few broken bones in his file, too. He had to take a cautious approach to any kind of accusation like this one. “What does Carrie say?”

“She says what they all say. She says she fell.”

He knew why she was doing this. Her friend had gone through this, had lost her life because of a bad relationship, and now she saw it everywhere. It was a normal reaction to have. “Then maybe she fell. Like I said, it’s a hard life out there. They’re off the grid. They don’t have city services. They’re on their own and isolated. They can’t even get into town without a boat.”