Prologue
~ ~ Dr Chris Chambers ~ ~
Eleven Years Prior
“Earth to Chris!?” snarked my eldest brother, Cal. “You listening to me?” He eased up on the gas pedal of his police cruiser and shot me one of his infamous looks that always somehow made me feel two feet tall.
My lips twitched. “What? Pfft. Yeah, of course.”
"And...” he prompted.
And what? “Okay.” I held up a hand, smirking. “No, I wasn’t listening.”
Cal muttered something under his breath.
My brother lived in Big Springs, Howard County and I was visiting from Michigan where I was currently working. I flew down whenever I had time off or I headed to Colorado where my parents had relocated since my dad retired due to his ill health.
Cal had graduated with his associate’s degree and joined the police force and moved to Texas because April, his wife whom he met in college had grown up here.
I was hoping to be moving on from Michigan. Adam my best friend, had given me the heads up to a position at the world-renowned Mercy Heights. He’d been there a while and it was where he met his wife, Emma. She was head of the Cardiothoracic Department. Not to mention she was as beautiful as she was brilliant. He was a lucky sonofabitch.
And I hoped with my stellar recommendations and Adam’s good word that I had a shoe in to securing the position.
Time would tell I guess.
Cal cleared his throat. “I asked, why don’t you come with me and April? You got the week off, yeah? We’re planning on flying up to see Jamie.”
Jamie was three years older than me and the middle child in our family. Only eighteen months separated him and Cal.
“You know him and Claire just had their first kid, right?”
Oh, I knew all about their kid. My parent's first grandchild was a huge deal. However, it was the last thing I wanted to talk about, fuck, think about.
But from the set of my brother’s jaw, he wasn’t gonna let this drop and heat crept up the back of my neck as Cal held a grenade to my tightly wound emotions in his hand.
Don’t do it, Cal. Don’t pull that pin.
“C’mon, Chris. It’s family. Your nephew. You want to meet him, right?”
And there it was, the explosion inside my chest. Shrapnel taking a chunk of my lungs with it.
My grin gone. “Family Cal?” I seethed. “Are you kidding me?” My voice sounded shrill to my ears, a weird pitch sound that was nothing like me. “Why the hell would I want to do that—meet their kid?” The explosion opened up a can of worms as more unwelcome feelings came thick and fast.
But Cal wasn’t done. Hell, no. He had a rack of grenades lined up.
“Don’t you think it’s time you forgave them? Moved on Chris? You’re almost twenty-eight. What’s it been? Nine years?”
My jaw twitched, glaring at his side profile. What the hell did it matter how long it had been?
There was a part of me that wanted to laugh. I could feel it bubbling up inside me, threatening to spill out.
“Talk to me, Chris. You never talk about it.”
Yeah, and I still didn’t, but now he’d blown that hole wide open... “Can I ask you a question, Cal?”
“Shoot,” he said with a little too much enthusiasm for my liking.
“Would you have ever done that...to me?”
His silence spoke volumes as he breathed out heavily through his nose.
“You know that saying, bloods thicker than water?” I watched his fingers tighten on the steering wheel. “Simple question, Cal. Yes or no.”
I heard him mutter a few curses.
“No,” he finally replied.
“Well, why do you think that I’ll ever forget what they did?”
“I’m not saying what they did was right. But—”
I interrupted, saying, “The fuck, it wasn’t right.” It still burned. Hurt. Even after all these years.
But he didn’t quit, taking a hammer to my heart. “They fell in love, Chris.”
“Yeah,” I scoffed. “They did.”
And just like that, my mind was back on her. Claire. And it never failed to stir emotions better left untouched because every time I opened the lid on that box, I saw the girl I grew up with. The girl next door. Her pretty brown eyes, long dark hair and sweet smile.
She said she loved me.
Even accepted my fucking ring just before I left for college. She was my everything well, as much as anyone could be at eighteen, I guess.
Claire had been my first for so many things. And yeah, as cliche as it was, we saved ourselves for prom night—and sadly, for me, it still ranked up there as one of the best nights of my life.
Pathetic, I know.
And coming home after my first semester, nothing had changed for me.
But shit. Things had changed for Claire.
And with a quivering lip and fake-ass tears, she told me she’d fallen in love with Jamie, my brother.
They said they were sorry.
They said it just happened.
She chose him.
And the kicker in the nuts. She told me she still loved me—like a friend.
Friends? Hah. She’d just euthanized my heart, put it down like a fucking dog and she wanted to be my friend!?
So I did the only thing that would stop me from spiralling and I’m sure everyone around me thought I was being melodramatic when I cut them loose. Refused to speak to them. Pretended they never existed.
Why could none of them see, that for me? It was the worst kind of betrayal.
I’d always been the closest to Jamie. I looked up to him. He was a football star. A legend. My fucking hero and he knew what she meant to me.
Was it because at eighteen, they thought I should have been able to just get over it? Move on?
I could never—would never have screwed him over like that, because blood meant something to me.
“They’d like you to come.”
“Yeah,” I gritted out. “Well, I’d like to meet Elvis. But it just ain’t on the cards.” Call me bitter, but it was something I just couldn’t get past.
“Mom and Dad want you there. We all want you there, Chris.”
“Sheesh, Cal. Quit it with the guilt trip, will you?” Shaking my head. “I don’t think anyone will miss me.”
“Shit. Christ,” he snapped. “Of course they—” His police radio cut short his incoming rant.
"We’re getting a report of a disturbance at 3334 Evergreen. Domestic related,” a crackling voice announced.
“You okay to tag along?” he asked me.
“Sure.” Hell, anything to distract me from the past and his verbal grilling.
Cal hit the sirens and roughly six minutes later we pulled out front of the address given. We were the first ones to arrive.
Looking around, it seemed like a quiet neighbourhood, not one you might associate with trouble. Well looked after properties with tidy yards. A few with the American flag flying proudly.
But what did I know?
“Shit!” said Cal, unclipping his belt. I followed his eyes as he got out of the car and, at the same time, he unsnapped his holster.
There, stood in a darkened open doorway, was a girl. She wasn’t alone. Wrapped around her was a younger kid—a boy? I couldn’t be sure, but their shoulders moved as if they were crying.
From where I was sitting, I couldn’t get a good look at her face, but it was clear to see what she was holding in her shaking hand.
A gun.
Jesus-H-Christ.
Cal announced who he was and asked her to drop the weapon and go toward him.
She stayed rooted to the spot and then looked over her shoulder back inside the house.
“Look at me. This way,” my brother encouraged.
Her head flipped back around and her feet moved slowly, fetching them into the light of the front porch.
It gave me a better view as I leaned forward.
“I’m gonna need you to drop that gun,” he instructed for the second time.
It fell from her hands and I took my first full breath.
“Good. That’s good. Now come toward me. I’m gonna help you.” He softened his tone. “You’re gonna be okay.”
She took one step and then another, wrapping both arms around the child she was holding whose sobs I could now hear clearly.
As I tried to get a read on her expression. She was a pretty little thing. Couldn’t have been more than what? Ten?
“That’s it. You doing great, honey,” I heard the hitch in Cal’s words, trying to soothe her. “Keep coming toward me.” He angled his gun down a little and used his other hand to beckon her to come closer.
She took a few more hesitant steps.
In the distance, I heard more sirens heading our way. Through the rearview mirror, I saw their flashing lights. Red. Blues.
Eyes back on the girl, she started stepping backwards, her eyes darting around her front yard.
My brother got on the radio and asked for ETA on the EMTs.
I heard dispatch tell him they were already en route, but there was some sort of delay.
Cal cursed.
The two squad cars now pulling alongside my brother’s car cut their engines. The officers got out, four in total, readying their weapons. One with their eyes on my brother, and the others watching the two young kids.
“Look at me. Eyes on me. No one here is going to hurt you,” my brother tried to reassure her.
The other officers moved around Cal’s car and one of them asked the girl if anyone was inside the house. She nodded her head.
They signalled to my brother, who flicked his chin up and they took point and kept to the edge of the perimeter as they moved in, readying to go inside the house.
I was still watching the girl clasping tightly onto the younger child. She was quite small herself, and I wasn’t sure how she was carrying him.
“Chris,” my brother shouted out over his shoulder. “I need your help here.”
What the hell? Did he want my help?
Unclipping my belt, I opened the door and climbed out, leaving the door open. Concern was written all over Cal’s face. My brother loved kids and I knew how much he hated it when he attended calls to find them caught up in the middle of shitty situations.
And this one looked bad even without knowing the facts of what happened here tonight.
“Can you check them over for me? EMTs are due on the scene, but I want you to take a look.”
With a thunderous beating heart, I flicked up my chin and started toward the kids, keeping my steps slow as I held up my hands. So they could see I wasn’t a threat to them.
As I got closer. Piercing blue eyes filled with terror climbed up to lock onto mine.
My lungs expelled air as I found myself struggling to breathe. I didn’t understand it. Life and death situations weren’t something new to me but the desperation in her face snapped something inside me.
This close, I could see a cut above her right eye. There was some bruising to her left cheek and speckles of what looked like blood on the left side of her jaw. Nothing that would leave scars... on the surface anyway.
She was shaking so hard as she gripped onto the little boy, who, if I was a betting man would put my money on him being her brother.
I smiled and spoke softly. “Hey, sweetheart. I’m a doctor.” It seemed important to get that out there just in case she was afraid of cops. “Can I come closer and take a look at you and your brother?”
Her eyes flared wide as her bottom lip wobbled.
My heart was in my throat trying to escape. “I promise I won’t hurt you—either of you.”
What the hell had happened inside that house?
She nodded but masked a cry. I could almost hear the pounding of her heart slamming against her tiny ribcage.
I did a quick visual assessment of the rest of her, now less than two feet away. Barefooted, she was wearing pink pyjamas. They looked a little grubby and perhaps a size too small, but what was clear, she needed a bath and a good meal.
“Hey,” My smile stayed fixed in place. “You’re doing great, sweetheart.”
Holy-shit.
Her chest deflated and her eyes rolled back, and she dropped like an anchor and I barely caught them both before she hit the grass.
Their combined weight was heavier than I expected as I struggled to maintain my balance but somehow managed to lower us all to the ground. Keeping a firm grip, I imagined all the scenarios these two kids might have witnessed or endured tonight or even for years.
Looking down at them in my arms, the little boy’s head lifted and watery blue eyes the same colour as the young girls peeked up at me.
“Hey, buddy.”
His skin was so pale even with the red blotches splashed across his cheeks. His lips were slightly blue and his chocolate hair the same colour as his sisters looked just as much in need of a good wash.
He couldn’t be more than what? Four or five.
Again, I visually assessed, but asked. “Can you tell me if you’re hurt anywhere?” From what I could see, there seemed to be no immediate physical injuries.
He shook his head.
“Is this your sister?”
He nodded, sniffling. “Beffanie,” he said.
“Beffanie?” I repeated, and then it clicked. “Bethany, Beth? Your sister’s name is Bethany?”
His small head bobbed. “And what’s your name, buddy?”
“Beck,” he said, more clearly this time.
“Hi, Beck. I’m Chris. Can you sit next to me so I can check over Bethany? Make sure she’s good?”
I lowered Beth to the lie flat and Beck unwound his arms from around her neck and let me lift him to sit alongside me. Ruffling his hair. “Good. You just sit there for me, okay?”
My attention spilled onto his sister, checking over her immediate stats. My initial thoughts were she had passed out with situational syncope; her small body overreacting to emotional distress, but I would mention it to the EMTs to get them to check her over for cardiac syncope just to be sure.
Feeling slightly more at ease, I felt Beck’s small hand resting on my arm. My head swung his way. “Yeah, Beck?”
He looked down at his sister. “Beffanie, she okay?” he sniffled, wiping his other hand across his nose.
“Sure, buddy. She’s just sleeping.” My head lifted at the sound of sirens. The EMTs were close.
I looked back at Beck. “I’m gonna take you and your sister somewhere safe, okay?” I didn’t have a clue why I said that, but more promises spilt out of my mouth. “Where no one can hurt you.”
His bottom lip jutted out, but he nodded again.
“It’s gonna be fine,” I promised again.
And I knew right there at that moment. No matter what. I would make sure these two kids would be okay. Safe.
He nodded but didn’t smile. He most likely didn’t believe a word I was saying to him, but in my peripheral vision, I saw one police officer who had gone inside the house come back out. They called out to Cal, informing him that the threat had been neutralized, and he holstered his gun.
I wasn’t sure what he meant, but from the look he was wearing. What they found inside wasn’t good.
Cal put his gun away and made his way toward us just as the EMTs pulled up. “Thanks, Chris,” he said to me, but his eyes rested on the kids. He crouched down, looking at Bethany and then Beck, and smiled.
“I’m gonna ride with them. To the hospital.”
Cal’s mouth parted in surprise, squinting, not quite understanding. “What? You want to?”
I looked down at Bethany. “Yeah.”
