The Whole Truth (A. Shaw 1)

“I don’t see it that way.”

“But I do.” He pulled out his shirttail and lifted up the front, exposing the sutured tracks of the scar on his right side. “I do.”

Katie looked at the mark and then over at Leona and frowned. “Did you do that to him?”

Leona wet her lips. “I don’t have a surgery here, Shaw. No instruments.”

“Dublin’s a big town. I’m sure you can find what you need.”

“It’ll take a bit of time.”

“This afternoon,” he shot back, a tinge of menace in his voice.

“I can’t. I have to go to Malahide.”

“This afternoon.”

“All right. I’ll call you.”

Shaw rose to leave and Katie quickly stood too.

“I don’t have the means to put you completely under,” Leona said. “Just a local. There’ll be pain.”

He tucked his shirt back in. “There’s always pain, Leona.”

Outside, Katie said, “Okay, who the hell was that, Dr. Frankenstein’s wife? And what is going on?”

“It’s better that you don’t know, Katie. Trust me.”

“Trust you? What about trusting me like we talked about?”

“I said I was going to work on it. I didn’t say I was there yet.”

CHAPTER 74

THE RAIN HAD PASSED and it was a lovely day in Dublin. Skittish birds flitted from tree to tree; colorful flowers in neat beds waved in the slight breeze; people walked and chatted, drank coffee at street cafés; cars drifted down wide streets.

Inside the small, antiseptic room Shaw gritted his teeth and crushed the arm of the chair he was in. Leona, gloved, masked, and dressed in surgical scrubs, had pulled out several of the metal staples holding his ripped skin together while Katie gripped his other arm with her gloved hands.

“That was the easy part,” Leona said pleasantly as she dropped the last of the three staples she’d removed into a pan. There were four left in his arm.

“Glad to hear it,” muttered Shaw.

“Still want to go through with it? It’s going to set back the healing process.”

“Just do it, Leona.”

She used a slender instrument that looked like a miniature crowbar to pry open the wound and blood started to trickle out. Droplets of sweat popped up on Shaw’s brow. Katie tightened her grip on his arm. Leona had given him local anesthesia all around the wound but warned him again there would be pain. And the lady hadn’t been mistaken.

She’d wrapped the small metal device in a layer of sterilized mesh surgical wrap. “You can’t keep this in there long,” she said. “I’ve sterilized it, but there will eventually be infection. It’s unavoidable.”

“Funny, you didn’t say that the last time.”

“The last time was different.”

“Not for me it wasn’t.” He touched his side. “You never said me having this thing in me long-term was a problem.”

“Apples and oranges,” she snapped. “That device is like a pacemaker, designed for long-term use inside the body. But not this thing. So, as a doctor, I am giving you that warning. There will be infection here.”