Available on Compatible NOOK devices, the free NOOK App and in My Digital Library.
Related collections and offers
Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781490768397 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Trafford Publishing |
| Publication date: | 12/22/2015 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 290 |
| File size: | 293 KB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Through the Fire
By Raj Lowenstein
Trafford Publishing
Copyright © 2016 Rachel Lowenstein-JanacekAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4907-6838-0
CHAPTER 1
Dr. David Hartman stood at the nurse's station outside room 613. He had told Dr. Collin Smith, the ER attending the night before, he had wanted Michael to have a private room. He would see that the costs were taken care of. Michael was not only an employee of his medical practice but a close friend. David had already called Michael's brother, Sean, to let him know the situation. David had assured Sean Michael would be okay and there was no need for him to fly in from Seattle to Houston. He had promised once Michael was settled and a few days had passed, David would make sure Michael called and checked in.
He scanned the chart. Whoever had attacked Michael had been angry. The police officers had said they see this kind of violence when it is personal, a crime of passion. Michael's hair had been chopped off with some kind of shears, then later, had been shaved in the ER so the crescent-shaped laceration on the left side of Michael's head could be sutured together.
Some sort of chemical spray had been sprayed into Michael's face, into the eyes. The ophthalmologist on staff didn't think there would be any lasting damage, but those beautiful eyes would have to be irrigated every few hours and kept covered for the next week.
What had shocked David the most was the report of the scars on Michael's back, from shoulders to buttocks. Most were old wounds, Smith had said, most likely from a cane or whip of some type. There were a few newer lacerations, but they were on top of the older ones.
It had occurred to David that even though they lived in the hot humidity of Houston, Texas, he had never once seen Michael without a shirt in the full light of day. Even when they had put each other to bed after a night of heavy college drinking, Michael had seen David naked, but it occurred to him, he had never seen Michael's back when there would have been enough light to have noticed the heavy scarring. He had known Michael for almost twelve years and had no idea Michael had been abused in such a sick manner.
In addition to the lacerations, there was a broken nose, busted lip, and bruises that started at Michael's shins and traveled up to beneath the ears. The broken nose and lacerations had been tended to by the plastic surgeon on staff; everything else would need time to heal.
David took a deep breath and opened the door to the private room. Like most of the private rooms, it was furnished with a sofa bed, table, and chairs arranged in a sitting room. In the center of the room against the wall was a cleverly disguised hospital bed, and on the bed was Michael.
David glanced at his Rolex; it was ten in the morning. Michael had been admitted at eleven the night before, so David was confident that Michael was not asleep. The movement of the gauze-covered head proved David correct.
"You could have asked me for a week off if you needed to have a vacation." The sound of his rich voice was hollow even to his ears. This was why doctors didn't treat family, and Michael was family. There was not a sound from the bed.
"They want to keep you for observation, so you have to stay another night or two," he started. "Shit," he said out loud. This wasn't going to be easy.
David moved to the bed and, after informing Michael he was going to sit down, gently lowered his six-foot-two-inch frame onto the bed next to Michael. He gently took Michael in his arms and softly touched his lips to the bruised cheek.
"Sweetheart, I'm afraid there's more bad news," David began. "The asshole who did this to you also burned your house down. At least, that's what the police believe."
David felt Michael inhale sharply and then begin to tremble violently. He pulled Michael closer. "I'm sorry, baby," David said, trying to console his friend.
The hospital room door whooshed open, and David looked up. The man who seemed to blow into the room was short, about five eight. Where David was tall, with olive complexion and thick ebony hair, the man who had burst into the room was the opposite; his ruddy complexion clashed with the carrot-red of his hair. He was stocky where David was lean and toned. David was handsome while he was strikingly plain.
"Well, I knew it!" the man said in mock horror as he moved around the bed to where David was sitting. "I leave you two alone for a minute, and you have a torrid affair. Hate to tell you this, Michael, but he's married with triplets."
Michael reached out, and the man grasped the proffered hand. David watched as tears rolled down the man's freckled face. With his free hand, the man reached over and took David's.
David smiled at the man who then leaned up on his toes to kiss him gently on the lips. "Good morning, Kelly," he whispered into the kiss.
"Hello," Kelly replied, the sadness on his face not showing in his voice. "Michael, I am here to keep you out of trouble, and I see I wasn't a moment too soon. I love you, but really, this handsome doctor is mine."
There had not been a sound or movement from Michael, and David made no comments.
"I'll come back later and check on you," David told Michael and then turned to Kelly. "Where are the kids?" he asked his husband of ten years.
"I have them at the synagogue. It's Mother's day out today, so I have a sitter until two this afternoon. Then Maria will pick them up and take them home. I'll get home about four. When will you be home?" Kelly informed and asked David.
"About six."
"Okay, go do your doctor things, and I'll take care of our Miss Thing here."
David kissed Kelly again and then gently kissed Michael's exposed cheek before leaving.
As soon as the door closed, Kelly took the place on the bed that David had vacated. "He told you?" Kelly asked, letting the misery in his heart finally show in his voice.
He watched as Michael's bandaged head nodded.
"Well, it's a setback, but I have it all covered. You don't need to worry. You didn't touch your breakfast," Kelly diverted before continuing. "You remember the 'brownstone' in Montrose on Stanford Street?" Kelly didn't wait for an answer. "Well, David's brother, Daniel, lives there now. He rents it, and he gets a great deal, I might add. It's three bedrooms, and he only uses the first two floors. The master suite's upstairs on the third floor, he doesn't use it at all. The cleaning lady told me he hardly ever goes up there."
Kelly spooned some applesauce and instructed Michael to take a bite. Satisfied after Michael had had three spoonfuls of sauce, Kelly continued, "You're going to stay there until you are better and you can get the legal shit with the insurance taken care of and can get you a new place to live. I'll come in the morning to help you bathe and tend to your wound care. I am a registered nurse, you know." Kelly added, knowing full well that Michael knew he was. "Also Mrs. Goldman lives next door. She's retired and has agreed to come in after lunch and check up on you. And she is only a minute away at night if you need her. This is all subject to change. I might come at night, and Mrs. Goldberg comes in the morning, but one of us will be there for you."
Not stopping to give Michael a chance to argue, Kelly went on, "Daniel is never home. His job keeps him away, and he really can't say anything because he pays nearly nothing for that house. Besides, I keep his refrigerator stocked and his house clean. Without me, he would starve and live in a pigsty."
Before Kelly could say anything else, the day-shift nurse came in to check Michael's stats, signaling Kelly to say good-bye. With as much flourish as she had entered the room, Kelly promised to return later and left.
Daniel glared at his serviceable wristwatch as he opened the door that led from the garage to the kitchen. It was two in the morning. He was exhausted; he hadn't showered or shaved in two days. He glanced at the answering machine on the wall, twelve messages. He was too damned tired to give a shit who had called. What he wanted now was a beer, a shower, then bed. He took off his watch and placed it in the basket on the granite countertop next to the garage door. Then he added his keys and cell phone, noticing it too had messages he hadn't bothered to check before setting the alarm.
The house smelled clean. Mrs. Martinez, the housekeeper, came every Friday. Even at two on a Sunday morning, the house still smelled clean. He enjoyed coming home to a clean house. He didn't pay Mrs. Martinez; his brother and Kelly did. Also, when Dan opened the refrigerator, he found it stocked with fresh food and a six-pack of beer. "Kelly," Dan said to the contents of the refrigerator, "if you weren't already taken and a guy, I'd marry you."
Taking two beers out of the refrigerator, Dan went through the open floor plan of the first floor and took the stairs to the second floor.
The second floor had two bedrooms and two bathrooms. The third floor had the master suite, with its overlarge bedroom, bathroom, and sitting room. It was nice, but when David and Kelly had moved out, Dan had left the furniture and decorations as they had been. So now, the bedroom was used when their parents came from DC to visit the grandkids. The rest of the house had had a neutral masculinity to it, so Dan kept to the bottom two floors.
He took a moment to lock away his gun and badge before he began to strip, leaving a trail of clothes as he went from the bedroom door to the bathroom. He set his beers on the back of the toilet, and after turning on the water and adjusting the multiple showerheads to massage his aching body, he opened a bottle and, in several long pulls, emptied it.
The heat and pulsating spray of the shower, along with the beer, began to ease Dan's tension. He soaped up and rinsed two days of sweat down the drain. He had been on "loan" to the Galveston County Sheriff's Department. As soon as he walked in to the precinct headquarters that Friday morning, they had shipped him off to Galveston. He was somewhat of an "expert" in communication. Actually, his first language had been ASL, American Sign Language, and to the law enforcement agencies in the Greater Houston Metropolitan area, having a detective who was also a certified interpreter made him somewhat of a valuable commodity.
Dan didn't feel like one; he was too tired to think about something that came naturally for him. Both his parents and both sets of grandparents were deaf; they also were teachers at the university level. They had expected hard work and good professions from their sons. David was a general practitioner who employed a signing staff and whose clientele were, in large part, from the deaf community. Likewise, Dan had finished Harvard Law School but had changed his mind, much to his family's dismay, after passing the bar and had gone into law enforcement instead. He had moved to Houston to be near his brother. Naturally his parents had been upset, but Dan still worked in and with the deaf community. Making sure they were treated with as much respect and understanding as their hearing contemporaries were treated had appeased them.
Fifteen minutes later, Dan stepped out of the shower. He dried off and opened his second beer. He took his time savoring the taste before finishing. Then he brushed his teeth and crawled into bed.
He lay there for a moment, testing the air. Mrs. Martinez must have used a new carpet freshener or a different furniture polish. The air had a fresh floral scent to it. It was nice, Dan thought to himself. He didn't have to be at work until ten Monday morning, so he was going to enjoy a full day of sleep, football, and beer.
The first-class lounge at Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport was sparsely populated with travelers at this early hour of a Sunday morning. The ridiculously tall and perfectly coiffed hostess glided across the plush room and cleared her throat. "Excuse me," she purred in her East Texas twang.
Catfish looked up from his coffee and New York Times and smiled up at the woman. He had watched her since he had arrived at five fifteen and knew her type. She could sniff out a successful, moneyed man from across a room, and she had.
In an equally strong but different Southern accent, Catfish inquired, "Yes, ma'am?"
"You had asked me to inform you when it was six thirty, sir," she said.
"Thank you. My plane leaves in forty-five minutes. If you could come back in ten minutes, I would really appreciate it."
"Certainly, sir," Ramona Hicks, as her name tag informed all those who cared to look, said as she returned to her post.
Catfish had remained in Houston, taking care of business both personal and professional. He was a man of details and understood that his reasons for being in Houston had to be legitimate. Each night, as he always did, he had called his wife and children. He had kept the meetings his secretary had scheduled for him over the previous months. But now Catfish needed to return home for a few days.
Ten minutes later, Ms. Hicks returned, placing her manicured hands neatly over the back of the luxurious winged-back chair opposite where Catfish sat. He knew her game; she wanted to let him know, by the ringlessness of her fingers, that perhaps, if the enticements were right, she could be had. What I would do to you, you would never survive! Catfish thought to himself as he thanked her and began gathering his things.
As he headed for the heavy wood doors that led out into the concourse, she asked, "Mr. Morris, did you enjoy your stay in our lovely city?"
At her words, Catfish turned to face her, "Sweetheart," he answered giving her one of his special smiles, "I did!"
She watched as the man left the lounge. She had thought him nice and, although not handsome in anyway, at least interesting looking. But as she lowered herself to one of the many chairs throughout the lounge, she realized she was shaking. The smile, the smile that had been on his face just before he had left the lounge was that of a monster. She prayed she would never see him or that smile again.
CHAPTER 2It was the smell of coffee brewing that initially woke Dan. With one eye, he glimpsed the clock on the nightstand and groaned when the number displayed 6:43 a.m. If this was some twisted scheme of Kelly's, Dan was going to kill him. Yet something hadn't seemed right when he had lain down last night, and something didn't seem right now. The atmosphere of the condo had changed, and Dan couldn't put his finger on it. Not just yet!
If it was Saturday, Dan could have understood someone setting the coffee to begin brewing early, but it was Sunday. He was sure he had set the alarm so if someone had gotten into the house via the main floor doors or windows, he would have known, unless it was his brother or Kelly. Despite all this nagging at him, Dan's sleep-fogged brain couldn't seem to worry about the coffeepot or even the security alarm.
He went back to sleep.
The sounds of something breaking and water running shot Dan out of bed. He reached for and hurriedly unlocked the lockbox with his gun on the floor next to the bed. He also, as an afterthought, quietly pulled a pair of boxers out of the dresser, stopping in the center of the bedroom, hurriedly pulled on the boxers and listened.
The noise had come from the third floor. The water sounded like the shower. Carefully, Dan headed up the stairs. As he topped the stairs, he could see that the bed had been slept in. A pair of sweatpants, his sweatpants, lay on the floor.
He wondered if David and Kelly had had an argument and one of them had come and spent the night. It had never happened before. His brother and Kelly were truly happy. In fact, Dan didn't know a couple, straight or gay, who had as good a relationship as they had.
Slowly, Dan moved toward the bathroom. The door was open, and he could hear the water as it poured out of the bath faucet. Cautiously, Dan looked around the doorjamb and into the bathroom.
He straightened and stared into the large room. A coffee mug had been dropped, shattering and spilling coffee on the marble floor. A woman, naked, stood frozen between the tub/shower and the sink, the broken mug and coffee pooled at her feet.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Through the Fire by Raj Lowenstein. Copyright © 2016 Rachel Lowenstein-Janacek. Excerpted by permission of Trafford Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.