The Lady Who Lived Again. Thomasine Rappold
ushered out. He wouldn’t make such a mistake as this, and you’ll not tell me otherwise. Not in my house.” She rose from the table with a swiftness he hadn’t thought she could muster. She returned with the coffee pot and refilled her cup. “Doctor Filmore was as stunned by her resurrection as the rest of us.”
“Resurrec—” Jace stopped himself before his angry disbelief got the better of him. “Is that really what Doctor Filmore called it?”
Mrs. Tremont shrugged. “That’s what everyone called it. At first.”
“What do you mean?”
She picked up her fork and poked at the bits of meat on her plate. “Her leg was so badly broken Doctor Filmore said she’d never walk properly again. Doctor Reed from over in Stephentown agreed. No one saw her for months after the accident. Not even the doctor, since she refused any more treatment from him. Then one day, she comes parading into church, fit as a fiddle.”
“She recovered?” Jace’s surprise faded as he gathered where this line of argument was leading. “And?”
Releasing a huff of impatience, Mrs. Tremont clarified what her guest was obviously too thick to comprehend.
“Lightning doesn’t strike twice, Doctor Merrick. Neither do miracles.” She gestured with the fork. “There’s something plain unnatural about the whole thing. Pastor Hogle even said as much when the girl first came back to service. The Lord may work in mysterious ways, he told us. But so too, does the Devil.”
* * * *
Jace was still furious when he returned home hours later. After asking around, he’d discovered the entire town shared Mrs. Tremont’s opinion of Madeline Sutter. And to think that Misty Lake’s esteemed pastor had encouraged the slander! The rumors of Madeline’s odd recovery were poisonous enough without Hogle’s interference. Adding religion to the mix simply polished the whole mess to a high sheen.
The pastor’s only child was one of the girls who’d been killed in the accident—but grief was poor justification for Hogle’s actions. How could a man of faith feed his devoted flock such nonsense? Jace shook his head. If the people of Misty Lake revered Hogle half as much as they had trusted Doctor Filmore, they’d blindly opened their mouths like a nest full of baby sparrows and gulped the venom right down.
Jace unlocked the door to the house that served as a physician’s office in the front parlor rooms and a dwelling for the live-in physician in the back. Ben Filmore had relinquished the house to Jace after he and his wife moved their belongings to the hotel. The space would be more than adequate, once everything was set to rights. Currently, however, the place was a mess.
On Jace’s first night in Misty Lake, a tree limb had crashed through the roof of his new parlor during a nasty storm, delaying the opening of his practice indefinitely. Furniture was piled in the corner. The musty rug still hadn’t dried completely from the rain that had poured into the room, and he’d be sweeping up acorns for weeks.
Thanks to his neighbor, Henry Whalen, repairs were almost complete, but the clutter would take many long days to organize. If Jace were half as superstitious as Mrs. Tremont and the others, he’d have taken the unfortunate incident as a sign of ugly things to come.
Jace sidled between the crates and other debris and made his way into his office. A tall cabinet housed drawers full of files on everyone Ben had treated, which Jace assumed included every resident in town. He directed his search to Madeline Sutter’s file. Upon retrieving it, he fingered through the contents, bypassing her early history, childhood illnesses and the like, until he found the documents relating to the accident.
Madeline Sutter, age twenty-one, deceased.
That was it? Jace shuffled through the file, searching for more, but no other details followed that final notation. He leaned back, running a hand through his hair. Mrs. Tremont had said Madeline suffered a badly broken leg in the accident, but the file contained no report of that injury either. Jace would have to go to the source. He needed an explanation, a sound voice of reason after all the rubbish he’d heard today, and he needed it now.
Doctor Filmore was still in town but not for long. He’d informed Jace last week that upon finishing up some loose ends with the various committees with which he was involved, he’d be joining his wife in Boston, where their adult children now lived, and his train to the city was departing today. Checking his watch, Jace realized he had only hours to catch Filmore before the old man left town for good.
Jace hurried from the office and walked the short distance to the Lakeview Hotel. The smell of lemon oil and freshly polished furniture greeted him as he walked through the door. The mid-May weather had been particularly mild, and the hotel’s staff was busy preparing for the early influx of summer residents.
According to the hiring committee that selected Jace as the town’s physician, Misty Lake had recently become a popular retreat destination for affluent urban families. Boating, swimming, and other outdoor recreations tempted droves of city dwellers seeking country amusements. A boon for local business. Prospective patients for Jace.
Jace offered greetings as he breezed through the wood-paneled lobby. Hanging floral arrangements wafted on the crisp breeze sailing in from the row of open windows facing the lake. He made his way upstairs to the doctor’s room, then knocked on the door.
“Tell me about Madeline Sutter,” he demanded as he stepped into the room.
Doctor Filmore froze. He stared at the open door, looking ready to bolt. “She hasn’t been my patient in years,” he said, closing the door. “After the accident, she refused my treatment.”
“Is it any wonder?”
The insult seemed to spur more shame than anger as Doctor Filmore stared at Jace like a guilty child.
“Mistakes happen, Ben, I understand that,” Jace said. “The shock and disbelief over the dead girls, the collective hysteria. The confusion. She was insentient; her pulse was weak. But when she regained consciousness after all those hours, you had to have known she’d been comatose and not dead.”
Doctor Filmore averted his eyes.
Jace had received some strange responses to his queries about the accident, but he hadn’t expected one from Ben—a physician. Jace suddenly realized he was no longer looking at a doctor. He was looking at a man. A man afflicted with the same grief and misery that plagued the others.
Yet as tragic as this accident was, it was no excuse for what followed. Ben hadn’t offered any explanation for Madeline’s stunning recovery, so people let their pain form one. The result was cruel and depraved. And despite his oath as a physician, despite his morals as a human being, the good doctor had done nothing to stop it.
“The girl needed your help, Ben.” With each silent moment, Jace grew angrier. Denial was the coward’s way out, and it was a path for which Jace had no tolerance. He may as well have been speaking to the wall—or his father. “Say something, Goddamn it, Ben.”
“I have a train to catch.”
Jace shook his head in disgust. “You son of a bitch.” He turned on his heel and walked out the door.
Chapter 3
Grandfather called out again, prompting Maddie to quicken her pace down the stairs.
“We have a guest,” he announced from the parlor.
The news stopped her in her tracks. They never had guests. She resumed walking toward the sound of voices echoing through the foyer. She entered the parlor to see Jace Merrick standing by the fireplace, his brawny form a stark contrast to Grandfather’s frail figure beside him. She stood motionless in the arched doorway as his presence sank in.
“It’s a pleasure to see you again, Miss Sutter,” Jace said.
His polished appearance caught her off guard. Dressed in a dark coat and trousers, he looked even more impressive than he had four days before. His thick hair was brushed back from his