by Laura Iding
"Why in the hell is Roth's surgery over already? How's Sullivan doing?" The captain paced back and forth in the small space of the waiting room, one hand absently rubbing the center of his chest as his jaw clenched hard on the wad of gum still in his teeth.
Serena noticed his gesture, wondering if the grouchy captain had a history of heart problems or if he just suffered from chronic heartburn. She sympathized with his frustration, but could only shake her head. "I don't know, we haven't heard anything about Detective Sullivan yet."
"Dammit, I don't like this. I don't like it at all."
Serena nodded. She didn't much like the situation either. Time seemed to stand still as Grant's life hung in the balance. She glanced around the room full of police officers and another thought struck her. "Have you been in contact with Detective Sullivan's family? He has a sister, Cheryl, who lives in Denver."
The captain nodded and smoothed a hand over his bald spot. If he wondered how Serena knew about Grant's sister, he didn't let on. "Yeah, she's on her way. I'd like to give her good news when she gets here."
Serena silently agreed. Cops stood by each other in times like this, a true brotherhood. But Grant and Cheryl were close, too, despite the miles between them. Their parents had died in a car crash a few years previously, and they only had each other now. Cheryl must be a basket case, wondering what she'd find when she finally arrived. "Will you call me when she gets here?"
Captain Reichert frowned and nodded. Serena returned to the ICU, glancing at her watch to note she still had a good four hours until the end of her shift.
She passed the time helping to get Jason settled in after his surgery. Serena was dismayed to find out that he was barely fifteen. She felt sick at the thought of a teenager running around the streets with a gun. He'd suffered a gunshot wound to his chest, presumably put there by Grant. Jason was lucky. Youth was on his side. He'd most likely recover without any problems.
A police officer from the waiting room took up residence as a guard outside the doorway to Jason's room.
One of the operating room aides approached Serena after she came out of Jason's room. He thrust two plastic bags of blood-soaked clothing at Serena. "We took these off the two trauma victims. This bag is from the suspect, Jason Roth. The cops were looking for his things to keep as evidence. This other one belongs to the cop. He has a wallet in there so you'd better call Security to have it locked up in the safe."
Serena accepted the burden with a grimace. "Thanks. I'll take care of them."
She set Grant's things at his empty bedside and took the bag containing Jason's bloody clothes to the captain in the waiting room. He was thrilled with her dubious gift, immediately sending one of his men back down to the station with the evidence. When Serena returned to the unit, she did as suggested and called Security to pick up Grant's wallet.
The guard arrived a few minutes later. Serena opened Grant's wallet to count the money with the security guard as a witness. Together they counted out the cash and placed the money in an envelope before sealing it shut. As she closed his wallet, Serena's gaze noted a seemingly new picture of a beautiful brunette laughing into the camera.
A shaft of jealousy pierced her heart. Snapping the wallet closed, she handed it over to the security guard along with the cash. The bloodied and ripped clothing she saved for the police, figuring they might need them for evidence as well.
The image of the pretty brunette wouldn't go away. Grant's personal life was none of her business. She knew herself well enough to know that she couldn't handle the risks of his career. Not after the way she'd lost her brother. So she'd returned Grant's ring, ending their relationship. She hadn't seen him in eighteen months. If he'd replaced her with the brunette, more power to him. He deserved to be happy.
Cool logic, though, didn't ease the knot of resentment in her stomach. Why hadn't Grant loved her enough to quit? Or at least to transfer into something that might not be as dangerous. Serena put a hand over her lower abdomen, as if to ease the ache there.
She wondered if the brunette would show up at the hospital once she heard the news of Grant's injury. Serena didn't know if she could tolerate chatting with her replacement face to face, comparing notes. Maybe she'd give Grant to another nurse.
Or, then again, maybe not. Her shift was almost over. She wanted to see this thing through. Another painstaking hour passed before they heard word about Grant. Finally the OR nurse called into the unit to announce that their patient would be out of surgery in fifteen minutes.
Serena used that time to make sure everything was ready in his room, then informed the captain of the news. Cheryl still hadn't arrived yet, but the captain was temporarily satisfied to hear that his detective had survived the surgery.
Grant's arrival from the operating room was accomplished with fanfare. Clearly, his condition was far less stable than Jason Roth's. Serena barely had time to catch her breath. The room was packed with a variety of medical personnel, many of whom shouted orders.
She and the other nurses quickly connected the monitoring equipment. Both the cardiothoracic surgeon and the anesthesiologist remained at the bedside for a long time, making sure their patient wouldn't require another trip to the operating room. Serena didn't care if she bordered on breaking ethical rules by keeping Grant as her patient. What was the harm? They weren't engaged any more. And no one would care about him more than she would. She simply couldn't walk away.
The OR staff had cleaned away the worst of the blood. One large gauze dressing covered half his chest and another encircled his thigh. His familiar, finely sculpted body lay completely still underneath the various tubes and machinery. At least his vital signs were stable. At this point Serena wouldn't ask for anything more than that.
"Does this guy have family here?'' The cardiothoracic surgeon commanded Serena's attention. "I'm not talking to that horde of cops out there."
Serena didn't bother to point out that those cops probably meant more to Grant than anyone else. Certainly, they'd meant more to him than she had. "He has a sister on her way from Denver. Why don't you fill me in on what you did during surgery so I can pass that information along to her? All the cops need to know is that he's stable. I can always page you when his sister arrives."
"Fine." He proceeded to do just that and Serena tried not to show any reaction as he described in detail just how tenuous the surgical procedure had been. Apparently they had come close to losing Grant on the table, needing to give him large doses of medication and blood products to bring him back. Grant had lost an entire lobe of his lung as well as tearing the muscle and nicking the artery in his right thigh.
Serena knew that Grant was lucky to have escaped with his life, but she wondered how he'd react to the extent of his injuries. Would the limitations from the gunshot wounds prevent him from remaining a cop? She despised herself for the surge of hope. With a shake of her head, she reminded herself that there was already a woman in his life. Even if Serena had wanted to give their relationship another try, which she didn't, the love they'd once shared was gone. Truthfully, Serena didn't think she'd ever risk loving anyone again. Besides, Grant's determination was legendary. If there was a way to get back on the job, he'd find it.
Serena was too busy to leave Grant's bedside, so she had one of the other nurses call Captain Reichert in from the waiting room. Keeping a close eye on Grant's pulse and blood pressure, she finished up the rest of her paperwork.
"Ma'am?" Captain Reichert stood outside the doorway of Grant's room, looking distinctly uncomfortable in the face of medical high technology. Sweat beaded his brow, and his ruddy complexion deepened.
"Hello." Serena gave him an encouraging smile. "Well, so far, so good. The surgery took longer than anticipated, but his vital signs are stable. In fact, I'm easing off on some of the medication they had him on during the operation."
Captain Reichert bravely took a few steps into the room, scowling as he looked at the prone figure in the bed. "Will he wake up?"
"I'm sure he will once the anesthesia wears off. His body needs time to recover from the dual assaults of the trauma and subsequent surgery." Serena did her best to reassure him. "The next twenty-four hours are critical, but so far he's holding his own. Has Cheryl arrived yet?''
The captain chewed his gum hard, with a grinding motion of his jaw. "She called from the airport, some delay with her connecting flight. I told her he's out of surgery."
"Good. The surgeon, Dr. Hardy, will want to know when she's here."
"I remember." Captain Reichert's bloodshot gaze narrowed and he shifted the wad of gum to the other side of his mouth. "I'd like to see him, too. I have an officer standing by to take the evidence down to the station."
Serena raised an eyebrow. "Evidence?"
"The bullet they dug out of Sullivan's chest." He glanced towards the room next to Grant, where one of his men sat in a chair, guarding Jason. "We need it to prove that Roth shot and killed one officer and mortally wounded another." The captain sounded particularly pleased by the notion of charging Jason Roth for murder.
Not that she could blame him. The thought of locking up Grant's assailant gave her satisfaction, too. The captain stayed for a few minutes, then returned to the waiting room.
Serena brought her gaze back to Grant, lying motionless beneath the monitoring equipment. She spoke to him, like she did all her patients.
"Grant? It's me, Serena. You're in the ICU but you're doing fine. Just relax and let us take care of you." She laid her hand on his forehead, resisting the ridiculous urge to lean down and press her lips there. Once she'd known every dimple, every inch of Grant's body better than her own. Her fingertips tingled from the memory of his touch. She wondered how much he'd changed in the months since they'd parted ways.
He wasn't hers to care about on a personal level. Serena stepped back from the bedside to give the next two cops that hovered outside the doorway room to enter. They spoke briefly to the guard outside Jason's room, and she overheard them say something about making sure the DA tried the kid as an adult.
She frowned. They probably had saved Jason's life, only to have him tried for murder. As a nurse she should remain nonjudgmental, yet she silently sided with the captain on this one. In her opinion, Grant should have been taken into surgery first.
Fatigue overpowered the leftover adrenaline rush. The clock told her she had barely an hour of her shift yet to go. Serena pried her eyes open, hoping she'd stay awake that long.
She kept herself busy in the time remaining, but just as she was about to leave the unit she searched for Tess, the charge nurse. After a few moments reviewing the schedule, Serena signed up to work both Saturday and Sunday night shifts, covering the rest of the weekend. She didn't let on that her only reason for doing so was to keep a close eye on Grant. Serena told herself that this wasn't anything personal, she'd care about her other friends the same way.
But deep down she suspected the real reason was much more complicated than that.
A sweetly reassuring voice pulled him from the deep recesses of consciousness. But then pain hit. Mind-numbing, exploding pain covering every inch of his body. He savored the cool, gentle touch of a hand on his forehead for bare seconds before the cresting pain took control. Unable to fight, he slipped back into blessed oblivion.
* * *
Bone weary, Serena squinted through the bright morning sunlight that shone through the windows as she trudged upstairs to the second floor of her apartment building. Working the graveyard shift was tough. Luckily, the early summer day was cool, so she'd have no problem sleeping in her non-air-conditioned apartment. She couldn't wait to reach her bed. But a flash of a young boy dashing past the stairs startled her.
"Rico?" Going on instinct, she took the stairs two at a time. She had just enough time to see the twelve-year-old dark-haired boy slipping into the apartment directly across from hers.
She marched up to the Gonzales apartment and banged her fist on his door. "Rico, open up. It's me, Serena."
After a prolonged pause the door opened a crack, although he didn't remove the safety chain. She hunkered down so she could peer through the slit to look directly into Rico's wide, wary eyes.
"Did you just get home?'' It was barely eight on a Saturday morning.
He shrugged, eyes downcast.
"Is Marta at work?"
This time he slowly nodded.
"You're supposed to stay inside when your sister is working, aren't you?"
He nodded again, but the way he avoided her gaze told her he hadn't followed the rules. Again. She sighed. The boy was home alone after school and all day on the weekends while Marta worked two jobs in an effort to put food on the table. Seven years younger than Serena, Marta was only twenty-one, young to be cast in the role as Rico's guardian. Serena had always considered Rico to be a fairly responsible kid. Now she wasn't so sure.
"Rico." She tried again to reach him. He wasn't exactly her problem but over the past year she'd gotten to know Rico and Marta fairly well. Where had he been? Surely he couldn't have been out all night? "Would you like to come over to my place for a while? Keep me company?"
The seconds stretched. She held her breath. In the end he wordlessly shook his head again and quietly shut the door between them.
CHAPTER THREE
Serena awoke momentarily disoriented by the late evening light slanting through her bedroom window. After a few minutes, the events from last night came .flooding back.
Grant had been shot. Twice. In the line of duty.
Serena peered at the clock, pushing a hand through her mass of tangled hair. In five hours she needed to be back at Trinity for her next shift. How had Grant fared during the past ten hours? Had his condition stabilized?
Trudging to the bathroom, Serena had to fight the urge to call the unit to check up on him. She didn't need to get emotionally involved, especially when he'd clearly moved on to someone else. Still, her chest ached as if he'd held her close just yesterday, rather than eighteen months ago.
Breaking their engagement had been the right thing to do. If they'd have stayed together, Serena was sure she'd have made Grant's life miserable, worrying over every moment he was out on the street. Grant needed someone to support him, not someone who would fall apart at every domestic abuse call broadcast over the scanner.
Many spouses listened to the police scanner while their loved ones were working. Serena simply couldn't understand it. Why would you want to hear the bad news over the radio? Maybe her career in the trauma room had trained her to always think the worst, because her imagination was way too vivid to calmly listen to each succinct detail about the types of calls the cops responded to.
As she dressed in a clean pair of scrubs, Serena overheard a commotion outside her door. Remembering her altercation with Rico that morning, she poked her head outside.
"Marta?"
The pretty young Hispanic woman from across the hall banged her fist against the wall in frustration.
"What is it? Where's Rico?"
"That's just it. Dios, I don't know where he's gone." The younger woman's eyes filled with tears. "He's been leaving without telling me where he's going. I don't know what to do any more, Serena."
A chill slithered down her spine as Serena recalled the boy's antics earlier that morning. "Calm down. Is he hanging around with his school friends?"
Marta shook her head. "No, no. I've already called. No one admits to seeing him."
Serena's stomach sank quicker than lead. "OK, then maybe we should call the police. He's a minor. They'll look for him and bring him home." Even as she voiced the words, Marta's big brown eyes widened in horror.
"No. Esta loco? They'll call Social Services and take him away from me. No police. I will find him."
Serena glanced at her watch with a sigh. She only had a few hours before she needed to report in. "We'll both go and search for him. But we'll meet back here in two hours, because I have to work tonight."
With a relieved smile,
Marta nodded. "Okay."
While valiant, their efforts proved to be useless. She and Marta split up the search area to cover more ground. But although Serena drove slowly through the winding streets around Rico's school, the park where most of the kids hung out and all the territory in between, she came up empty.
Come on, Rico. Where are you?
She returned to the apartment building at the designated time. Marta arrived a few minutes later. When she saw that Serena's car was empty, her features clouded over again.
Serena steeled herself against a flash of sympathy. "Call the police, Marta. Please."
Stubbornly, the young woman shook her head. Serena didn't want to force the issue, but she worried that if Marta didn't make the call first, the police would be contacting her instead. Neither option boded well for the young woman desperate to provide a home for her young brother.
When the time came that she needed to leave for work, Serena hated the thought of leaving Marta alone. She convinced Marta to call her at Trinity the moment she'd heard from Rico. The fate of the young boy gnawed at her during the short drive in to the hospital.
Once in the unit, she headed straight to the assignment board to write her name next to Grant's. Her co-workers didn't argue since they knew she'd admitted him the night before. If they remembered that she had once been engaged to a cop named Grant Sullivan, they didn't mention it.
Except for her close friend, Dana. Chronically late, Dana Whitney had arrived long after the assignments had been doled out. Serena dodged the questioning looks Dana repeatedly sent in her direction. Luckily, the busyness of their respective patients prevented any small talk.
Serena took a report from the second shift nurse, a petite little blonde named Emma. They both entered Grant's room to look over his chart. Serena listened to Emma with one ear, but was troubled by the fact that Grant showed no sign of waking up. The effects of the anesthesia should, have worn off by now.
After a few minutes, she thought Grant's eyelids fluttered, as if he might be regaining consciousness.