Title: Do You Solemnly Swear? A Nation of Law, The Dark Side
Author: Lin Wilder
Genre: Medical Mystery, Courtroom Thriller, Suspense
Book Blurb:
What if your former girlfriend decides to use her 6-year-old daughter to punish you for breaking up with her? How do you prove that you are innocent of the worst case of sexual perversion against a child? Is it possible to refute the lies of a beautiful, seemingly innocent, little girl?
When Gabe McAllister decorated former Marine and respected Texas State Trooper, walked out of his condo in west Houston on a Tuesday morning to head to a meeting of the newly formed task force of the DEA, Texas State Police, and Border Patrol, he found five Houston cops waiting to collar him for the rape of 6-year-old Annie Bridges.
His next several days and weeks are a blur as he realizes belatedly that he has no chance against his diminutive accuser, his implicit trust in the fairness of the justice system shattered, McAllister lands in the Huntsville prison, sentenced to 3 counts of 20 to life sentences.
Excerpt:
Prologue
August 9, 2013 Huntsville Prison, Huntsville Texas
The more laws, the less justice. ~ Cicero
CHAPTER ONE
The grin on Dr. Lindsey McCall’s face was so wide that it nearly split her face in two as she gazed around the Huntsville Prison Emergency Treatment Center with an unusual sense of pride.
She who had taken no satisfaction from her creation of a drug which had revolutionized the treatment of heart failure felt an irrepressible joy every time she glanced through the huge plate glass windows of her office at the gleaming technology arrayed in the diagnostic room on her left and the state of the art eight bed patient care area which dominated the Center.
The place had been completely transformed from the infirmary she had worked in as an inmate. The peeling and dingy walls, the 1950 style open patient care area and the warren of small and fairly useless offices had been gutted and in their stead was a level one trauma and emergency treatment center rivaled only by those of the Texas Medical Center, sixty miles south of the prison. Seventy miles north of Houston on Interstate 45 is Huntsville, Texas.
Also called Prison City, Huntsville is home to seven prisons boasting about seventy-five thousand prisoners. Long known for its tough stance on crime, the state of Texas proudly lays claim to a criminal justice system second to none.
With a total of 122 prisons and accommodations for close to 168,000 prisoners, Texas ranks first in the United States and second only to Russia in its capacity for prisoners.
Lindsey had only one demand upon assuming the position of Medical Director at the Huntsville Prison System: A total renovation of the infirmary serving the over ten thousand prisoners in the seven facilities comprising the system.
Governor Greg Bell had laughed as he signed the executive order granting Dr. Lindsey McCall permission to renovate the infirmary. “I’d have to be a damn fool to refuse you, Dr. McCall”, dark brown eyes dancing and eyebrow raised,” I wonder how many other Governors ever had the chance to grant a five million dollar renovation for which the state would pay nothing.”
Winking at the cameras covering the ceremony, Bell answered his question by circling his thumb and forefinger, ”Nada, not a one, I can guarantee you that.”
Because of the family inheritance she had received upon the deaths of her mother and sister, Lindsey McCall had been a wealthy woman but with the proceeds rolling in from the sale of Digipro, Lindsey had become a millionaire many times over and could easily afford the now five million dollar renovation from the trust fund she had established with the help of Hank Reardon, CEO of Andrews, Sacks and Levine, the pharmaceutical company which had funded her research and now manufactured the drug.
Lindsey had spared no expense during the renovation. She had prevailed on the wisdom of former colleagues, trauma surgeons at the Houston Medical Center where she had been one of the leading Cardiologists in the country and had followed their advice, expensive though it had been; she regretted not one cent.
Taking a huge, shaky breath which caught in her throat and feeling the tell- tale sting in her eyes, Lindsey whispered, “Thank You, thank You thank You” in awe, wonder and gratitude at the happiness she had never before known was possible and wondered if her Dad could look down from the heavens he had once soared in to see his smiling daughter and know the totality of her joy. She hoped so.
Shaking her head in exasperation at this unfamiliar incarnation of herself, Lindsey laughed softly, checked her watch and muttered, “Give it up, McCall, you’ve run out of time.”
Realizing that the stacks of forms, paperwork and charts awaiting her review would require a couple of hours to complete, Lindsey calculated that she’d have just enough time to go home, take Max for a quick run and then shower and change.
Today was her first wedding anniversary and her husband and boss, Rich Jansen, Chief Warden at the Huntsville Prison, had made reservations at one of the finer restaurants in Houston, Perry’s, to celebrate; but as Lindsey was packing her brief case to leave, she heard Monica, the chief emergency center nurse and now one of her best friends, yelling for her.
Lindsey raced down the hall separating the administrative offices from the main clinic in time to see Monica and Luke Preston, her favorite guard at the prison transferring a severely injured man to one of the beds in the monitored section of the clinic.
Monica did not stop her systematic emergency procedures to look at Lindsey but the nurse was muttering under her breath with a most unpleasant scowl on her face. If this were any of the other nurses, Lindsey might have figured that she was simply angry at the late interruption of a quiet Friday afternoon but Lindsey knew better. Something was bugging Monica big time but they had no time to talk, this guy was unconscious, most likely in shock either from the extensive trauma or internal bleeding and looked as if he was barely moving his chest to breathe.
While Monica applied electrodes so that they could monitor his cardiac rhythm, oxygen saturation, blood pressure and respiratory rate, Lindsey tried to find a vein to start an intravenous drip. Failing, she grabbed the cut-down set the ever efficient Monica had placed on a tray beside Lindsey, tore it open and quickly made a small incision on his forearm; within seconds, she had threaded a large bore catheter into his brachial vein and started a drip of dextrose and saline.
The man’s face was unrecognizable; he had been beaten so badly that all Lindsey could make out were the vague outlines of mouth, nose and eyes. McCall’s gaze rapidly traversed the man as her hands gently palpated his abdomen and chest, looking for abdominal injuries, bleeding or broken ribs. He was in shock-the reason she had not been able to start an intravenous line; the question was why.
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Open internationally
Runs July 1 – 31
Author Biography:
Lin Weeks Wilder holds a Doctorate in Public Health from The University of Texas School of Public Health at Houston and has over thirty-five years of experience in academic health centers. During those years, Wilder published extensively in fields like cardiac physiology, institutional ethics, and hospital management. After ten years of running an online marketing business, and publishing four self-help books, Wilder switched from writing non-fiction to fiction.
The Fragrance Shed By A Violet: Murder in the Medical Center, Do You Solemnly Swear? A Price for Genius and Malthus Revisited: The Cup of Wrath comprise the Dr. Lindsey McCall medical thrillers with many references to the Texas Medical Center where Wilder worked for 23 years. Finding the Narrow Path is an unplanned surprise return to non-fiction. Her latest novel is I, Claudia: A Novel of the Ancient World.
Lin is the recipient of numerous awards for her work, including a Feathered Quill, two NABE Pinnacle Awards, and two IAN Best Books awards.
She is married to a former Marine and psychologist with 25 years of experience counseling ex-combat veterans. They reside in northern Nevada with their two dogs.
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