Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 71226 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 356(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 237(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71226 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 356(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 237(@300wpm)
“We need a receptionist,” I told Odin.
“Constance is coming in to help around ten once she gets her daughter to school after their breakfast date,” he said. “Know anyone that needs a job?”
I didn’t know anyone in this town other than the Dixie Wardens and their family, which I told him in the next moment.
He groaned. “That’s what everyone keeps telling me. You women are no help.”
I patted him on the back as I passed to unlock the front door. “We’ll figure it out.”
Constance arriving to answer the phone helped immensely.
It allowed me to unchain myself from the desk and actually get some work done.
The files I pulled this morning were a long-ago memory.
By the time our first break in the day rolled around, it was nearly five o’clock.
Luckily, we had no more scheduled patients for the day, meaning I finally got the chance to look at the case files.
For a whole five seconds until the door jingled, announcing another patient had arrived.
All three of us groaned.
Odin placed his hands over his face and cursed softly.
The first few patients of the day weren’t anything special. Just general checkups.
But as the day progressed, the cases were all a bunch of flus and colds, practically drowning us in germs.
The one that’d come through the door as the clock struck five was no different.
Two women had arrived with their son, who was sick and feverish.
“It’s not too late, is it?” the mom asked. “We came from fifty miles away.”
I froze as my entire being went still in shock.
Professor Wood.
I’d know that cranky bitch anywhere.
“The time on the door says five. We walked in at four-fifty-nine,” the woman with Professor Wood said, sounding cantankerous.
I’d bet my left tit she was fun to be around on a constant basis.
I smiled, though it didn’t reach my eyes.
Because my eyes had settled next on the young boy who was with them.
The perfectly aged young boy who looked exactly like his father.
I smiled, though it was fake as shit, and said, “This way. What is going on today?”
Odin and Bernice didn’t follow me into the exam room as I took the boy’s vitals and got all the relevant information.
As I did, I took notice of a few things.
The boy never once spoke.
He had haunted gray eyes that looked so much like his father’s that it physically hurt my heart to look at him.
“What’s your birthday, young man?” I asked the boy.
The boy—Dean—didn’t speak.
It was like he’d been trained not to by his parents.
Professor Wood cleared her throat and gave a birth date that I would know by heart for the rest of my life.
There was no longer any doubt in my mind.
Gentry’s son was alive.
And he was in our exam room.
“I’ll be right back with the doctor.” I smiled at all three of them before I hauled ass out of the room.
Odin got up to follow me back in, but I caught his arm and dragged him into the breakroom and slammed the door closed.
Odin blinked at me as Bernice came off of her seat and looked at me like I was levitating.
I might have been.
“What is it?” she asked.
I swallowed past a lump in my throat and said, “Gentry’s dead son isn’t dead.”
“What did you just say?”
I turned to find that we weren’t completely alone in the breakroom. There was someone else in there, too.
Twenty-Three
Punch today in the dick.
—Text from Sage to Gentry before shift
Gentry
“What did you just say?” I asked again when Sage still said nothing.
She looked sick.
Her mouth opened and closed as she tried and failed to find the words.
“Sage,” Odin said quietly. “We need more information.”
Sage started to cry, then turned to me. “I swear on my life, Gentry. That’s your son.”
I shook my head as anger started to course through me. “My son’s dead.”
“He’s not,” she replied. “I swear to you.”
Since no words were forthcoming from my own lips, Odin took over. “What makes you think it’s his son?”
I closed my eyes as those words washed over me.
Pain was a constant thing when you’d lost your child.
It stayed there, festering and reopening at any slight memory, for you to always feel.
But this? The words that’d come out of Sage’s mouth? It felt like someone had set that wound on fire.
“He’s the same age. Has the same birthday. Has the same name,” she explained, wringing her hands together. “He looks exactly like Gentry.”
Incredulousness shot through me.
“What does their address say?” I asked. “Let me see the chart.”
“We didn’t get that information.” She slapped herself on the forehead.
“Take the paperwork in there and have her fill it out,” I replied forcefully.
Sage left, heading to the front likely to get the paperwork.
Odin stared at me, then gestured toward the door.
I moved, stopping right outside the half-open door as Sage pushed through it with a clipboard filled with paperwork.