Chapter One

“Lacy!” Dr. Marlee Presley’s authoritative voice rang out stronger and louder than usual. “Exam Room One. Now!”

“On my way,” Lacy Wright answered from the opposite end of the hall where she’d been restocking the latest shipment of latex gloves. What the free clinic really needed was a few boxes of smalls and mediums, not the large and extra-large sizes do-gooders seemed to donate. Still, beggars couldn’t be choosers. Shoving the half-empty box under the bottom shelf, she scrambled up off her knees to do the physician-on-staff’s bidding.

“Gloves,” Dr. Presley ordered, not bothering to look up from her blood-spattered patient. “Take hold of his right bicep. I’m not seeing a knife wound, but I need you to logroll him just enough for me to get a backboard under him.”

Lacy gulped. This was Jamaal, one of the two USMC veterans living on the streets of gritty Anacostia, the southwest section of Washington D.C. Judging by his face and hands, he’d lost a fight. A bad one. Blood dripped from an open gash over his left eyebrow and from both sets of knuckles. Good. He’d fought back. Air wheezed between his swollen, split lips. Not good. Broken ribs meant a possible punctured lung. Maybe worse. Marlee was obviously worried about a possible spinal injury.

Obediently, Lacy pushed her fingers into latex protection before she clasped the unconscious man’s upper arm, easing his chest toward her. All Marlee needed was inches, but moving dead weight required a firmer grip. Lacy counterbalanced his slack muscles by gripping his hipbone. He felt hot to the touch.

“Take it easy, Jamaal. I’ve got you, buddy,” she soothed, just in case he could hear her at some deep dark level.

Jamaal McCune was a regular visitor to the Good Samaritan Free Clinic on Good Hope Road, Anacostia. He wasn’t a bad guy, but his big mouth got him into plenty of trouble. It was worse when he talked someone dumber than he was into buying a bottle of hooch for him. The crazy muscle-bound jarhead. What’d he think? That people would take his crap just because he’d served?

Lacy knew better. She’d served too and was damned proud of it, but most folks didn’t care, and they sure didn’t want to hear about God, flag, and country from some belligerent lowlife on the street. Civilians were like that. The war didn’t touch them, so the warriors were just another set of welfare applicants as far as most of them were concerned. The whole mindset of the average American was so wrong, but especially when it came to remembering who’d served.

Scarred and bedraggled, Jamaal was a lot worse than the first time she’d seen him. That was three years earlier, the day she’d run away and off the grid. After all, who’d think to look for the fair-skinned, strawberry-blond daughter of East Coast royalty at a free-clinic in down and out Anacostia? Apparently, no one.

It might have been a drastic decision, but a Marine did what needed to be done to survive. Besides, she’d had no choice, and all that helpless-little-white-girl persona was bullshit. She had a license to carry, and she damned well knew how to use the nine-millimeter hardware in her backpack.

Rowdy Stokes found that out the hard way. A local tavern owner, he’d no more than put his hand on her knee when she’d had the business end of her weapon pointed nice and low, right at the bottom end of his zipper. Rowdy wasn’t bad. He just thought he’d seen an opportunity and took it. Well, he’d thought wrong.

One look down at his family jewels and all he’d stood to lose, and he had moved his hand into a smirky salute and a quick, “Yes, ma’am.” They’d gotten along fine since, and oddly enough, he was one of her silent protectors. Like Jamaal and his buddy Jake. Speaking of which, where the hell is Jake?

The man was a mystery and as noticeable a standout as she was in ninety-nine percent African American Anacostia. He and Jamaal made quite the odd couple: one white guy and one black; one ripped enough to look like he worked out, the other not so much. According to Marlee, Jamaal’s clinic visits had noticeably dropped since Jake came to town.

When Jamaal did come in, it was for stitches or maybe a fever, and he didn’t come alone anymore. Jake brought him these days. And flu shots. Who would’ve thought two bums would show up for something as ordinary as flu shots in the fall? But they did. Every October. As regular as clockwork. Judging by the belly on the guy, Jamaal was eating better, too. That also had to be due to Jake. Jamaal certainly wouldn’t think about it. He was too busy planning on his next bottle.

Street life was tough. The scruffy beard covering Jamal’s plump lower face also covered scars, blemishes, and boils. His breath smelled of tooth decay, maybe something else. She wasn’t a doctor, but Lacy knew enough about smells. The sickly scent of infection mingled with alcohol wafted up from his wide-open mouth to her nostrils. Strep maybe?

Where’s Jake? He should be standing with his buddy, shifting in his boots like he had somewhere else to be. That was Jake for you, uncomfortable in close spaces and around people.

Marlee positioned the board quickly. “Let him down,” she said brusquely as she peeled out of her gloves and grabbed another pair. Her pinkie finger bled even as she rolled the fresh pair on. “I should’ve known better, damn it. The big oaf had a broken bottle in his back pocket again. When’s he going to learn to set his booze aside before he brawls? Sliced me a good one when I transferred him from the cab to the gurney. Where is his twin? I thought he and Jake were joined at the hip?”

They are. That raised Lacy’s brows. “Who brought him in then?”

“Believe it or not, a cabbie. That doesn’t happen very often, does it?” Marlee’s spiked eyebrow belied her shock. Good Samaritans were few and far between on these rough streets.

“Jamaal has got to learn to stay away from the bottle,” Lacy said to no one in particular, her mind on Jake. Had he been in the same fight as Jamaal? Was he too hurt to take care of his friend? That would be like him, defend Jamaal even if it cost him dearly.

Marlee was already inserting a trach tube down Jamaal’s windpipe, intubating him to help him breathe easier while Lacy cut his shirt and pants away, instantly revealing the rest of the story. He’d been beaten all right. A mass of black and purple bruises started at the top of his breastbone and covered his ribcage all the way to his right side. She let the dirty clothes drop to the floor. The clinic kept a supply of new sweatshirts and pants for just this kind of occasion. There’d better be a triple X pair in that closet, maybe some men’s underwear. Socks and new boots would be nice, too.

“I don’t like what I’m seeing,” Marlee murmured, peering down his semi-illuminated windpipe with her scope. “This man’s a walking contagion. Hand me a swab. Let’s see what we come up with.”

Lacy reached for the requested sterile cotton swab, unwrapping it from its plastic wrap before she handed it over. Grimacing, Marlee stuck the swab into the back of Jamaal’s throat, collected the sample and returned it to Lacy, who swabbed the culture plate, sealed and labeled it.

“This man can’t wait for the results. I’m starting him on a strong antibiotic now. Do we know if he has any allergies?”

Lacy scanned the chart resting on the counter. Jamaal McCune. Six feet, four inches. Two hundred and eighty-one pounds. Blood Pressure. Temp. Wow. One hundred and three? No wonder he felt warm. No allergies were listed.

“He’s good,” she answered. “Let him have it.”

“Look at that bruising,” Marlee said quietly, her angst under control now that her patient was breathing easier. She administered one hypo into Jamaal’s thick bicep, covering the tiny puncture hole with a plastic Mickey Mouse bandage. He’d like that when he came to. Her skilled fingers proceeded over his throat and along his neck and collarbone, then down over his ribs and abdomen as she diagnosed and discovered. “It almost looks like a car hit him.”

“No, ma’am,” Lacy replied while she fastened the straps, immobilizing his legs, waist, and shoulders to the backboard. He might not like it when he woke up, but it would save his life if he’d suffered neck or spinal damage. “Look at his hands. Jamaal’s been in a fistfight. Looks like he gave as good as he got, too.” Way to go, buddy.

Another spiked brow. “What did I tell you about all that ‘ma’am’ crap, Miss Wright?”

“Sorry. Force of habit.”

“Well, stop it, Lacy. I’m no better than you are. Besides, it makes me feel old.” Marlee pressed three fingers into his side. “His spleen is swollen. I’ll suture first, but prep him for an x-ray. When Hershel comes in, I want an MRI to check brain and abdominal.”

“You’re thinking head injury?”

“Anything’s possible, but yes. He’s got a hematoma the size of a grapefruit back here. I want to check for bleeding in his brain,” Marlee said, her fingers gently skimming her patient’s hard head. “What’s wrong with these guys? Do they think they have to fight the world?”

“Yes,” Lacy answered quickly. “They do. They’re Marines.”

“No, they’re not,” Marlee said gently. “They’re veterans, Lacy. Their war is over. They need to let it go and get on with their lives.”

Lacy bit her lip. Civilians didn’t understand. She knew from personal experience that every guy and gal who’d survived twenty-four-seven combat still thought they were fighting the world. The war didn’t end just because a guy came home. Jake and Jamaal would never again fit into mainstream America, not if they tried for a million years. She hadn’t, at least not until she’d left her parent’s home, got her CNA certificate, and joined the clinic. Of all the hideouts in the world, it was another kind of warzone that had finally given her a sense of security, as well as purpose. Yes, she might just be as crazy as some people thought she was. Once a Marine always a Marine. But what she did mattered.

“Take it easy, Lacy,” Marlee said softly. “I know these guys are your buddies, but you also know they’re on self-destruct, don’t you? Make no mistake about it, at the rate they’re going, it’s a matter of when they show up dead on our doorstep, not if.”

Lacy nodded. She disagreed with Marlee’s opinion of Jake. Of the two vagrants, he seemed the most stable, but one of these days, she knew she wouldn’t be calling the ambulance to run Jamaal across the bridge for treatment or emergency surgery at the nearest hospital. She’d be calling the police. And they’d be calling the District’s Medical Examiner.

“Set up a surgical tray for me?” Marlee asked, her voice softened with understanding. “Let’s get him cleaned up and stitched while we’re waiting for Hershel. We can do an EKG while we wait, too.”

“Yes. Okay,” Lacy answered, holding back the perfunctory salutation of respect. At least Marlee was the physician on duty instead of dickhead, Dr. Anderson. He handled the free clinic patients like they were vermin instead of people down on their luck. His nose tended to flare when he was forced to touch the mostly impoverished clientele, more so if they were bleeding or vomiting. Even the babies. The jerk.

Too many times, Lacy had watched his brusque detachment send a frightened sick child into screaming fits. Kids were smart—like dogs. They instinctively knew when someone didn’t like them, or didn’t care to touch them. Karma needed to pay Anderson a visit, big time. She only wished she’d be there to see the day his snooty butt got its comeuppance.

With Jamaal out cold like he was, it was easy for Marlee to stitch him up, run an EKG, and take x-rays. Lacy assisted every step of the way, thankful when the x-ray panels showed nothing broken. Hershel only worked part-time, but when he finally showed, the MRI prognosis was as good as the EKG. Jamaal’s skull was fine, or at least as fine as a Marine’s hard head could be. No bleeding in the cranial cavity. Not clots or hydrocephaly either.

Marlee was right in saying that these two guys were Lacy’s buddies. She’d never served with them, but she’d recognized exactly who they were the very first day on staff. Jake had dragged Jamaal in for stitches. That time, he’d sliced his backside on another broken bottle in his rear pocket, and he was roaring drunk, but she’d recognize that cocky Devil Dog swagger anywhere. Even down on their luck, Jake and Jamaal were Marines. Who could’ve missed the super polite posture and promptly provided answers from Jake? Somewhere beneath all that scruff and shaggy hair, an honorable jarhead still served.

Of the two, Jake was probably better off because he still had friends who kept track of him. She’d seen him with another big guy in a Porsche, but Jamaal didn’t seem to have anyone but Jake. Lacy shuddered to think what could happen to a man stuck in the downward spiral Jamaal seemed to be on. He needed a break. Don’t we all?

“He can’t stay here,” Marlee interrupted Lacy’s thinking. “Call the ambulance. Let’s get him into a clean hospital bed for a change.”

Lacy didn’t answer. Marlee meant well, but she was one of those follow-the-rules people. She went by the book, followed procedure, and just plain didn’t always see the real person under her professional care. For her, life was one big emergency room of curtained cubicles where a busy doctor dealt with difficult problems, made snappy judgments because she didn’t have time for anything else, peeled her soiled surgical gloves off, and moved onto the next cubicle without a backward glance.

Lacy didn’t blame her. Work at the free clinic never slowed down. It was a tough place to work most days, more so when folks received their welfare or social security debit cards and decided to spend it on booze or drugs. The problem? Jamaal would freak when he opened his eyes and found himself in a clean hospital bed in a strange hospital without his buddy. He was a round kind of problem that didn’t fit a square hole. Still, where else could he go?

She paused with her hand on the phone with every intention of fulfilling at least two of Marlee’s directives. Jamaal couldn’t stay there at the clinic, but he did need a clean bed.

“I’ll take care of it,” she answered promptly, leaving the handset in its cradle.

Dr. Presley would never know. She’d never check. Once her critical patients were sent off to the county hospital, she moved on. Just like now. She’d already turned her expert attention to poor Mother Washington, the seventy-three-year old grandmother of little Dwight Digman.

Twisted and stooped with rheumatoid arthritis, Dwight’s grandmother was a study in sheer perseverance. Not only did she take especially good care of her grandson and ensured he was headed to West Point instead of Folsom, but she did it on a widow’s mite and never once complained.

“Elizabeth,” Dr. Presley exclaimed kindly as she entered Exam Room Two. “How is that strapping young grandson of yours these days?”

Mother Washington’s dark eyes lit up in her wrinkled face. Dr. Presley pulled the examination room door closed behind her, and Lacy moved fast. She rolled Jamaal’s gurney to the back exit where an actual ambulance would park to transfer a patient. Except for today.