Breath of Scandal(54)

And screamed.

Debra's lips were blue, and she lay very still.

"Oh, God! Oh, Jesus! Debra! Debra!" He threw his leg over her and straddled her thighs. He flattened his ear against her breasts. He sobbed with relief when he heard her heartbeat. But it was faint. She was barely breathing.

Dillon leaped from the bed and pulled on his clothes, fastening none of them. He crammed his bare feet into sneakers. Gathering Debra in his arms, blankets and all, he ran through the dark apartment and burst into the hallway. He descended the stairs at a treacherous pace. Should he summon an ambulance or drive her to the hospital himself? He finally opted for the latter, reasoning that by the time he located the number and, with his limited French, conveyed the urgency of the situation, it might be too late.

"God, no, no." A strong wind tore the words from his



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Sandra Brown



mouth as he raced from the building to his parked car. He deposited Debra in the front seat. She slumped to one side, and again his voice cracked on a rough prayer.

He knew approximately where the nearest hospital was located and sped off in that direction. The tires screeched on the pavement and echoed off silent buildings as the car careened around street comers. He steered with his left hand while massaging Debra's wrist with his right. He kept up a running chatter about how he would never forgive her if she died.

The emergency-room staff instantly discerned the seriousness of her condition and whisked her away on a gumey. Dillon had to run to catch up. At a door marked with words he couldn't read, he was barred entrance by people he couldn't understand. He fought them off and tried to lunge through the doors after the gumey. Eventually he was restrained and bodily removed to the waiting room, where an English-speaking nurse threatened him with expulsion from the hospital if he didn't calm down.

"Calm?" he cried hoarsely. "My wife looks like death, and you expect me to be calm? I want to be with her." She remained firm and finally talked him through the



various forms that had to be filled out for admittance to the hospital. Then, left alone, Dillon paced until he was too weary and distraught to take another step and dropped into a chair.

He hung his head, pressing his thumbs deeply into his eyesockets and praying to a god he wasn't convinced existed but paradoxically mistrusted. What else would this selfish deity claim from him? Hadn't he given up enough? Everyone he had ever loved had been taken away from him: his parents, his granny, the counselor at the reform school who had taken a special interest in him.

He was jinxed. People, beware. Ifyou love Dillon Burke, you die.

"No, no," he groaned. "Not Debra. Please, not Debra. Don't take her, you stingy son of a bitch."

He bargained with the unseen power, vowing to sacrifice anything if Debra could be spared. He promised to live a



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good life, to feed the hungry and clothe the naked. He made an oath never to ask for anything ever again, if this one small favor could be granted-"Let her live.

"Monsieur Burke?"

Dillon's head snapped up. A doctor was standing a few feet from him. "Yes? My wife? is she-"

"She is going to be all right."

"Oh, Christ," Dillon sobbed as his head fell back against the cold tiles of the waiting-room wall. "Oh, God." "She had an allergic reaction to the antibiotic Dr. Gaultier



Prescribed. It is no one's fault," he was quick to add. "We consulted Dr. Gaultier. There was nothin in her medical



9



records sent from the United States to indicate that she had an allergy to this particular-"

"Look, I don't intend to sue anybody," Dillon interrupted him, coming to his feet. "Debra's alive and is going to be okay. That's all I care about.-

Dillon was so relieved, his knees felt robbery. It had all happened so fast. Life was precious. Life was fragile. Here one moment, gone the next. Every second should be milked for all it was worth because you never knew when the bottom was going to drop out. He would have to remember that. He would have to tell Debra about this revelation. They would make it their philosophy, live by it, hand it down to their-

His happy thoughts came to a sudden standstill. "Doctor," he Croaked . He knew before asking what the answer was going to be, but he had to ask. His lips were Parched and his mouth was dry with dread.

"Doctor, you haven't mentioned the baby. Is the baby all right?"

"I am sorry, Monsieur Burke. There was nothing we could do for the child. It was dead when Madame Burke arrived. "

Dillon stared at the doctor without really seeing him. He had bargained for Debra's life, but had left the terms openended. Now he knew what the price had been.



CHAPTER



Ten



Morgantovm, South Carolina, 1977



Dr. Mitchell R. Heaton, Dean of Student Affairs and Financial Aid at Dander College in Morgantown, South Carolina, opened Jade Sperry's application folder and passed her a slip of paper across his cluttered desk. "That's a voucher. Present it at the bursar's office on the day you register. "

Her eyes moved from him to the stiff card he had handed her. Printed across the background etching of the college Is administration building was a check made out to her. She tried to blink the figures into focus, but even that was beyond her.