Winner The Crystal Awards 2016, Best Multimedia Story (3d Place).
A spinster doctor rents her spare room to a brain-damaged patient who doesn't know he is a former undercover agent targeted for execution by a powerful criminal.
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Chapter 18 recounted the rescue raid on Averell's compound, which ended with Jean unconscious on Carinne's bedroom floor. Here are the closing words of Chapter 18, leading up to today's installment.
Enjoy Chapter 19-A of DUBY'S DOCTOR -- "SUBSTITUTION."
(from Chapter 18-B -- RESCUE)
The two women were able, with Jean's minimal help, to get him from the floor to the nearby bed, where they laid him atop the duvet. Trish, lying unconscious at the far side of the huge bed, remained undisturbed. If Carinne was concerned about Jean's blood staining her elegant bed linens, she gave no indication.
"I need some ice," Mitchell said when they had him settled. "Can you call nine-one-one?"
"Already done," Carinne said. "We had a, sort of, situation downstairs, so the EMTs are on the way." She pointed toward another part of the suite. "You'll find ice and towels under the bar in the TV room."
Mitchell took half a step away then paused. She looked from Carinne to Jean and back again. Jean seemed to be asleep or unconscious.
"I'll stay with him," Carinne said.
Mitchell nodded, gaveJean a long look, then absently picked up the gun from the floor and walkedtoward the other room with Stone's old pistol hanging, forgotten, from her hand
CHAPTER 19-A -- SUBSTITUTION
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Mitchell had barely walked out of the room when Frank Stone appeared in the doorway and looked warily at his niece and four prone bodies. He lifted an eyebrow at Carinne.
"They're alive," she answered his unspoken question.
He sighed. "Good. Looks like only one fatality, so far at least. That'll make the paperwork a helluva lot easier. How's Duby?"
Carinne was still sitting on the bed beside Jean. She took his hand in one of hers, using her free hand to gently brush his hair back from his blood-streaked face. "Doctor Oberon went to get some ice for the knee. We should get him to the hospital."
"No prob," her uncle said. "EMT's are downstairs. I'll go tell 'em to get up here with a gurney ASAP." He turned as if to leave, but stopped and looked back at her. "You okay with all this? It's a lot, losin' your dad and all."
Carinne looked up from studying Duby's face. "I don't think of it as losing a father; I think of it as gaining my freedom plus my own business." She had never looked more like the Stone side of her family than she did at that moment.
Frank nodded and left the room.
Carinne turned her attention back to Duby's unconscious form. "Thank you, my friend," she whispered, and she leaned down to press a kiss to his lips.
