Dying For Revenge (The Lady Doc Murders Book 1)
Page 31
He dropped my hand with a smile. “Good to see you back with us.”
Yes, indeed, it was. Very nice. I nodded in agreement. “What happened?”
“You know you were shot, yes?”
“Yes.” I paused. “What did it hit?” I could ask with some confidence, given the fact that I was alive to talk about it. In my world, that alone meant I was pretty well off. As, in fact, I was.
“Odd trajectory,” he said, lapsing into medical-ese, undoubtedly having been filled in by someone — my guess was Ben — about who I am. “Downward path. Small caliber, not sure what, .22 maybe. Not my area of expertise, I left that to your staff. They haven’t gotten back to me.”
He motioned me to lean forward, listening for my breath sounds with a stethoscope he had recently retrieved from a freezer.
It certainly was, I thought. Even as I emerged from the cloud of the last few days, I knew my shooting was related to the rest. Though given that the gun that killed Kessler was locked up in the San Miguel County Sheriff's evidence locker, I knew it couldn’t be the same one. I wondered who shot it. Come to think of it, if Connor was right, how did I know that gun was even locked up? I wondered how many medical examiners investigated their own shootings. As many as survived them, I guessed, then wondered what sort of exclusive club that might be. I had every intention of starting that investigation. Just not today.
The surgeon moved the flat, round head of the scope around my back, obliged me to cough and breathe deeply, then, satisfied, snapped the earpieces out, draped it around his neck and continued, arms folded across his chest.
“Entry at the upper, outer quadrant of your right breast--just. It nicked your right lung, carved a pretty good furrow, actually, that dropped your right lung right away and took us a while to fix. But we got to try out our VATS on a gunshot wound; you were our inaugural patient. And all things considered, there was remarkably little damage. Your lung came right up, not much drainage. You’re a remarkable patient.”
I remembered reading that the hospital had recently acquired video-assisted technology for surgery. Who knew I’d get to try it out? I wiggled my shoulders and chest a bit. It was uncomfortable, but nothing like the old intercostal incision would have been. Hooray for robots.
Dr. Butcher smiled broadly, the smile of a surgeon satisfied with a good case and a new toy, an expression I had seen on John’s face many times.
“That — and the fact that you took a pretty good knock on your head when you fell through the door — probably explains why you were unconscious so soon. They put a tube in you before transporting, you had a chest full of blood, and they tell me you left a good bit on the floor where they found you. It took a couple of units to get you back where you belonged.”
He paused, pointing to his own right side as he continued, “The bullet tracked along the back of your chest right along a rib. It didn’t hit anything major, liver, big vessels, none of that. Just sort of ran out of speed because of the rib it connected with and finally ended up just under the skin of your back, waiting for us to come and get it. We did. It looked in pretty good shape, by the way.”
He made a few notes on the chart, then resumed his narrative.
“I had to put you in ICU for a day, because you kept trying to pull out your tube and IV. We just shut you down for your own good. I moved you to the floor just this morning, you’re doing so well.” He paused. “You were lucky. Most of the time a .22 wreaks utter havoc. Remarkable.”
How well I knew and knew why. I sent up a prayer of thanks to my guardian angel and to John.
“When can I go home?”
“I want to pull your chest tube, and we’ll see. Maybe tomorrow.”
Suddenly, I wanted desperately to be away from the hospital, surrounded by my children and my dogs and cats. In familiar surroundings. In my own bed. In the chaos of my own life. My life. The one I was lucky to have, even without John by my side. Just as suddenly, I never wanted to see the house again and wanted my children anywhere but Telluride. “How about you pull the tube and if I’m okay in a few hours, you send me home with a 24/7 nurse and my vigilant family.”
I’d figure out somewhere other than home to go, but Dr. Butcher didn’t need to know that. He furrowed his forehead and shook his head. “I don’t know...” he began. “You’re looking pretty good, but I’d rather....”
I didn’t let him finish. “What do you expect to happen to me tomorrow?” I pushed, trying to back him into a corner.
“Nothing much. I just want to watch you.”
“Nothing much can happen at home as well as here. Isn’t your fancy new VATS supposed to get me home sooner?”
“Not that soon. What if you collapse a lung again? Too risky.”
“I could always sign out against advice.”
Dr. Butcher smiled, showing the gold edge of a bridge on the left side of his mouth.
“Mr. Connor told me to watch out for you. ‘Stubborn as a setter,’ he said. I’d have said mule, but I got his meaning. Let me check your wound, and we’ll see.”
He pulled back the covers and lifted my gown to look at the bandage. Then he called for the nurse, and between them, with scrubbed and gloved hands, they changed my bandage, and eased the tube out of my right chest.
Remind me to testify that that isn’t a walk in the park, either. I gasped as it finally snaked out, then took a tentative deep breath. Everything moved as it should. There was enough discomfort to offer up, but not much more, and my headache was receding. I was elated and laid back on the bed, smoothing the dreadful gown and the rumpled sheets. I smiled as sweetly as I could, and was surprised at how weak the smile was and how grateful.
“Can you find Mr. Connor for me?”
**********
Connor arrived a few minutes later without my boys in tow.
“The lads went for a bite of lunch,” he explained. “They won’t be long.”
I struggled to sit upright for a moment before Connor stepped to the bedside and adjusted the head of the bed, smiling.
“Not much of a patient, I see,” he said.
Embarrassed at such a silly lapse on my part, I cast him a sharp look.
“Doctors usually aren’t,” was all I said. My side hurt where the tube had been pulled, and I found I was hungry myself. I took a breath, winced at the pain again, and continued. “I need a favor, Eoin. A big one.” I consciously used his first name; it was less forced than I expected.
One wiry brow lifted in surprise, but he said nothing. Instead, he turned aside just long enough to pull up a chair and settle himself with an expectant look on his face, still silent. Damn the man, he was going to make me work for it. I decided on the direct approach.
“It wasn’t me the shooter was aiming for.”
The words lay between us for a long moment before Connor’s expression changed from expectation to puzzlement.
“You were the only one there. You’re trying to solve the murders. Seems reasonable you’d be a target.”
“I was a substitute. It’s Ben he was after. I know it.”
Connor leaned forward, hands folded, elbows on the side of the bed. He stroked his upper lip with his thumbs, then rested his chin on them before he spoke.
“Ben’s a trusty. He’s one of the marked.” Tears welled up. It was so much worse to hear someone else say it than to hear it in the recesses of my own mind. I nodded, cleared my throat and continued.
“Ben takes his lunch on the roof nearly every day. The shooter would have no idea that I’d be there. He wanted Ben. He wanted my boy.”
I paused, my constricting throat making it impossible to continue. I would not cry. I would not.
Connor shifted a bit but remained quiet, giving me time. I felt the time tick by inside me until the tightness receded and I dared my voice again.
“The boys can’t go back to town. They can’t be there, not even for a minute. I can’t lose Ben, any of my boys. I...” my voice trailed off, tears threatening again.
“I’ll have them come with me,” he said. “I’ve plenty of room.” Then his placid features split in a wicked grin. “Of course, you’ll be coming, too. You know they won’t abandon you.”
He paused a moment, clearly relishing the prospect and giving it time to sink into my own horrified mind.
I flushed as I realized he was right, which produced a laugh, then a pat on my hand, more kindly than I expected. When he spoke, he trotted out his brogue for effect, underlining that I had been outmaneuvered. “You poor wee thing,” was all he said, but I saw his smile and heard him chuckle as he went out the door in search of my boys.
*********
It took most of the day to make the arrangements, but Ben finally lined up a private duty nurse with the help of a buddy from the Medical Center. Dr. Butcher insisted on ambulance transport, just in case, and wouldn’t let me move until the nurse called from the house to let him know that she had arrived with the necessary back-up IV bags and tubing, with the doctors and paramedics at the Medical Center on alert to put in a chest tube if my lung collapsed again, just in case. I rode in the back of the ambulance, annoyed and restless that I couldn't see the passing scenery. I made the fresh-faced EMT provide me running commentary as we passed along the valley to Ridgeway, across the Dallas Divide, and wound up the twisting valley toward Eoin Connor’s place in Mountain Village.
The ambulance made its slow and deliberate way to a back drive, near a service door. It appeared I would be brought in like yesterday’s laundry. I was gratified that the drive was underground and surrounded by high, stone walls. I never wanted to be out in the open again, even here, where no murders — except for Houston’s — had occurred. I considered that ill-fitting fact again for several minutes in spite of myself as they bundled me out the back — out of commission but not off-duty. It spared me worrying about more present concerns, like the safety of my sons.
Ben walked by my side and held my hand as the attendants bumped me up a few steps and rattled me into a service elevator, where they punched the buttons for the top floor. Fine digs, I thought to myself. Writing must pay pretty well.
We made our way through a laundry area smelling of bleach and pine, around several corners and down a back hall, the unseen vitals of the luxury building. Eventually, we emerged into a posh hall, all log and leather. I passed under an elk-antler chandelier and counted the lights for amusement. Fifteen, before I was turned down another hall and lost sight of it.
Connor opened the door before we even arrived. The gurney rolled into a spacious room with a cathedral ceiling, all logs and antlers, like the hall. Logs, antlers, and my brood. My whole household.
I was immediately surrounded by a noisy, relentless, loving crowd. Straps finally loosened, I sat up and swung my legs around, pausing to let myself equilibrate before trying to stand, overwhelmed at the sight. The room was crowded with people. Three of my four strong boys, Ben at the fore, offering me his arm with the advice to “Take it easy, Mom. We’ve got you set up in the study.”
Adam and Luke, now freshly showered in chinos and a blue polo, stepped respectfully back to let him take his rightful place. I noticed as I passed that Adam’s close-cropped hair had a few threads of silver in it. He’d gotten at least a few of my genes, it appeared.
Behind the boys was Isa, with Pablo in hand, Mariela and Ignacio standing shyly beside Lupe. If my nose was any judge, Pilar was at work in the kitchen. Father Matt, looking on, quiet and thoughtful, still wearing those unfamiliar jeans. A competent-looking middle-aged nurse in blue scrubs and white clogs stood by. I looked around as Ben’s strong arm guided me to an easy chair across from a bank of windows that looked out over the mountains now awash in alpenglow. A cherry desk with a computer and towering stacks of paper was in the corner next to a matching filing cabinet with one drawer partially open and a file protruding from it at an angle. Photographs were strewn in a semi-circle to the right of a comfortable-looking Scandinavian desk chair upholstered in trade-blanket wool.
Apparently I was invading Connor’s writer’s sanctum, and he felt no compulsion to tidy it up. That small fact somehow made me feel better, safer, more ordinary. I looked around to thank him, but he had disappeared.
Ben settled me in a chair and propped my feet up on the ottoman. Caroline, the nurse, shooed everyone out, then checked me over, pronounced me well and dashed my hopes of a good dinner by reminding me that I was still on clear liquids for another day. It was pure anguish to eat green Jell-O and tepid chicken bouillon while the rest of them crowded into the study, plates on their laps, enjoying tamales and chiles rellenos, talking over each other in English and Spanish, to ask me questions or to catch me up on what had been happening. Pure, unadulterated, wonderful, healing anguish.
It was two hours later when the last of the dishes had been cleared, Father Matt had made his excuses, the women had disappeared with children in tow, and Ben, Adam, Luke and I were left alone in the study as the shadows outside deepened. We made small talk, carefully avoiding both the subject of their father’s death and my own close call. Ben caught the boys up on the trustafarian murders, unaware, I hoped, that my close call was really his.
The hoopla that had accompanied the swift departure from this mortal coil of Mitch Houston elicited great interest from Adam, who then regaled us with stories of Alaska. Luke, ever the quiet one, mostly listened, interjecting his approval now and again, or asking the odd detail about one of his brothers’ elaborate yarns. I sat aside, there but so very separate, watching with great satisfaction as his brothers teased out of him where he was working (a new condo complex in Newport) and what he was doing (learning to play the banjo, dating a nice girl named Ella who worked in a dairy making artisan goat cheeses).
I shifted in my seat, still a little uncomfortable on my right side, but contented in a way that I hadn't experienced for a long time, the tiniest warmth beginning in the very center of my being. I was happy just to be the observer in this family tableau. An observer, but an engaged one, a living one.
There was a lull in the conversation as Caroline came in to check me out again. She had just pocketed her stethoscope when I heard footsteps behind me. I tried to crane my neck to see who was approaching, but my side still hurt too much.
“You have company, Mom.”
Ben motioned to his brothers, nodding his head in the direction of the front hall, and they got up to leave, each giving me half a hug and a kiss on the cheek as they left. Ben was the last, his kiss on the top of my disheveled hair, the same kind of goodnight kiss I used to give him as a boy. Caroline pocketed the thermometer and stood up as Eoin Connor materialized in the corners of my vision.
I gave a quick prayer of thanks for whoever invented the digital thermometer. With any luck, Caroline would take the hint and be out of my hair in a minute. She was, with a reminder to Connor that I needed rest and to call her when I was ready to make my way to the bedroom. I might need rest, I thought, but just now, the last thing in the world I wanted to do was get to sleep. I tried to rise, but Connor put a restraining hand on my shoulder.
“Are you daft? You wouldn’t stand for me when you were well, what makes you think you need to now that you’ re only half a furlong from death’s door itself?”
His teasing words were a welcome sign of normalcy. He winked and went immediately to the sideboard where a bottle of scotch — no decanter for him — beckoned, pouring two fingers neat before turning back around to me.
“I’ve time for a wee dram,” he said as he settled onto the couch opposite me, smiling broadly now, and motioning to the glass of half flat ginger ale at my elbow. “I see you’re well-supplied yourself.”
I made a face. “What I wouldn’t give for a drop of that,” I said, then sighed. Deep breaths still hurt.
“True enough. Nothi
ng like a bit of holy water to mend one’s innards. Sláinte.”
He sipped, looked at the glass, put it down and turned his attention to me.
Fully, completely, utterly to me. The room was suddenly very close and far too warm, and I had to suppress the urge to run — not that I had the ability. Time ticked by in silence as we exchanged glances, my face flushing deeper by the minute as I considered his kind eyes and patient look. I lost the battle.
“You never did tell me how you managed to convince the nurses to let you into my room,” I said, breaking my gaze and feeling my face flush even more deeply as I reached for the ginger ale, hoping to maintain a bit of dignity.
I felt like a schoolgirl sitting across from the new boy in class, hoping he’d not find me completely hideous. I felt just as I had that first day in medical school when I went into my anatomy lab and met the handsome, interesting intern who’d been assigned to help us learn the mysteries of the human body. The handsome intern who’d laughed when I couldn’t make that first cut into the skin of my cadaver, who had taken my hand in his and demonstrated the force it took to get through the skin.
“Like this,” he had said. “Press down, let your finger guide the rest of your hand as you make the cut. It takes more than you think to get past someone’s skin.”
The intern who’d stolen my heart and fathered my children.
“Oh that.”
Connor’s words interrupted my thoughts, brought me back into time.
“You’d be surprised what a small lie — abetted by your son — will do. As far as Dr. Butcher knows, I’m your cousin, just here from the Auld Sod itself.”
There was that Irish manipulation again, broad accent showing forth as he recounted his tale to me, no doubt in the very words and accent he’d used to charm Dr. Butcher, “…at my wit’s end because my dearest cousin who lived next door and the only one that’s left besides meself — has just been gunned down in cold blood in this wicked excuse for a country.” He smiled again and lifted his glass.