Page 41 of Collateral Claim

Is she talking about the undercover cop Mary mentioned? I can’t ask or tell. “Maybe he didn’t mean to work here.”

She gives me a confused look. “He applied for the job.”

“If he doesn’t like sailor mouth, he should’ve picked a town that isn’t close to the harbor, where he’s less likely to work with the descendants of sailors.”

She looks me up and down. “Who told you I’m not a sailor myself?”

“Are you?”

“No.” Brenda smiles. “Just teasing you. Welcome to Couldermouth.”

Obviously, this woman thinks I’m going to work at the clinic. She’s mistaken me for another doctor. Declan jumped the gun when he volunteered me to oversee Marquis’s recovery, or else there is a gross misunderstanding.

Brenda enters a room with a different patient, and I head out. A tall, blond man with beautiful blue eyes intercepts me. He holds out a cup of coffee with cream. I take it and taste. Sweet.

“Good morning,” he says. “I’m Rie, like the bread but spelled with an i. I man the desk and keep the bitches in line.” He bites his lips. “How do you feel about cursing?”

“I feel good when I do it,” I say.

Rie laughs. He seems friendly, like Brenda, but neither of them assisted me last night. I would have remembered his striking blue eyes.

“Do you have a phone I could use?” I ask as innocently as possible. This is a test. If they’re Endo’s people, they won’t let me near the phone. They’ll have orders from him, they’ll know who I am, and they’ll have been told that I’m to be kept away from communication devices.

Rie steps aside. “On my desk.”

Since his desk is out front, I go there and emerge into a waiting room full of patients. Silence falls. Hopeful faces stare up at me. I count at least twenty people inside. Three families, the rest couples, and some singles. More people are smoking and drinking coffee outside. It’s clear as day that someone (we all know who) broadcast the reopening of the clinic. The nurse said they’d been expecting me, so I assume they’ve been expecting a physician who is not me. Now they believe she’s arrived a week earlier because she’s eager to work.

Does this mean another doctor will arrive for her post next week, at which point I’ll be released from duty? Or is the story made-up? Regardless, patients need to be seen. I imagine some have waited months for the reopening instead of going intotown. Some of these people might not even have the means to leave the small town.

These are rural communities. Fishermen, farmers, and mine workers who are providing for their families. I don’t have a duty to anyone, but my humanity has not left me. And it damn well never will.

“Good morning, everyone.” I manage a soft smile. It’s not these people’s fault they’re living in a town run by a manipulative psycho. “I’ll just be a minute.” I pick up the office phone, which wasn’t on the desk when I walked in last night, and poise my finger to dial, but stop because I don’t know Endo’s phone number.

“I need Endo’s number,” I say.

“Endo’s?” Rie repeats, sounding surprised.

The silence in the office is deafening. I feel like I named the bogeyman. “Do you happen to have his number?” I look around. “Anyone have Endo Macarley’s number?”

Rie tilts his head. “Everyone has his number. On speed dial. The only people who don’t have it are those who aren’t supposed to have it.”

Ah. The outsiders. The strangers.

The phone rings, and both Rie and I jump away from it.

When it rings again, I look at him. “Aren’t you going to pick it up?”

“You pick it up.”

“Why me?”

Riiiing.They’re using one of those old ground lines with an even older, scratched, matte cream-colored phone, and I bet it’s because these phones can’t be tapped by new equipment. I’m not a criminal expert, so I have no idea, but my guess is as good as any.

“Dad, can I answer?” a boy asks from the waiting room.

Fine. I grip the receiver and bring it to my ear. “Hello?”

“Good morning, luv,” Endo’s smooth, flirty voice drifts over the line.