by Ladew, Lisa
West grimaced and looked down at the patient. Both firefighters had stopped CPR and were staring at her, mouths open. West elbowed the one next to him in the ribs. “CPR,” he hissed and they both started again, stealing accusing glances at Katerina.
“Wait,” Katerina said softly, putting two fingers on the man again. She concentrated hard. Flash.
She fumbled with his tuxedo jacket and pulled out a bottle. She handed it to West, her hand shaking. He looked for a label, and finding none, opened the bottle. He pulled out a small green pill with letters on it that Katerina couldn’t read.
“Amitriptyline,” he whispered, looking at the tube in her hands. “Put that in and push activated charcoal. I’ll give him sodium bicarbonate.
Good plan, Katerina thought. Atropine and epinephrine wouldn’t restart his heart until they dealt with the amitriptyline anyway.
“We should get moving,” West added.
Katerina nodded her head, pushing the tube into the man’s mouth, down to his stomach, then attaching a syringe and drawing out what could only be stomach contents. She knew she was in the right place. Now to give the activated charcoal.
West administered medication directly into the IV line and then turned to Frankie. “Frankie, get the police on their way then bring us the gurney, quickly.”
“Got it,” Frankie said, turning and running out of the room, his voice booming into his handheld radio.
Katerina checked the heart monitor, willing it to change.
Dreadful intuition built in her throat. Whether he lived or died, she never should have touched this man.
Chapter 5
Frankie brought the gurney at a run, and the team of three firefighters and two paramedics worked quickly and efficiently to get the unknown man on top of it. West and Katerina packed all their equipment and started down the hallway, Katerina taking over for the firefighter who was still breathing oxygen into the man. Katerina heard a stray beep from the heart monitor.
“Wait,” she cried. The entire group stopped walking and she motioned to the man who was doing chest compressions to stop. A rhythm marched across the heart monitor, slow and deformed, but there. Katerina felt for a pulse at his neck, then smiled at West and nodded, her eyes shining. West and the firefighters laughed and smiled in triumph and Frankie clapped West on the back.
“Nice job,” he said, grinning at Katerina.
Katerina motioned to everyone to quiet down while she bent over the man’s head, to check his breathing. He still needed some assistance there. The group continued down the hallway, out the front door, not seeing one other person. Sounds of the party continued to drift to them from the back of the house.
They pushed the gurney across the blacktop driveway, but before they reached the ambulance Katerina heard the sound of the front door opening behind her. She looked over her shoulder and saw a tall, older man wearing an expensive suit. He had dark hair with a strategic spray of gray at his temples.
“What is going on here?” he demanded, his voice full of the authority of someone who was used to being in charge. As Katerina watched, another man in a telltale suit stepped out of the door behind him. More security, Katerina thought, although he really looked like the secret service men she had seen in the movies.
Katerina averted her eyes from him. West or one of the firefighters could deal with him. She just wanted to take care of her patient.
Footsteps sounded behind them and West turned to address the man.
“Wait, is that Victor, what happened?” the man said, his voice strained this time. Katerina turned again in spite of herself. He was coming at a run. West stepped forward and caught the man with a hand to his chest.
“He collapsed. His heart stopped beating. We’re taking him to the hospital.”
“Was it a heart attack?” the stately-looking man asked.
Movement caught Katerina’s eye and she turned to see a police car entering the long driveway.
The newcomer’s eyes narrowed. “If it was just a heart attack then why are the police here?”
Behind them, Katerina heard the door open again and she turned to look, wondering what now. A woman came out, about sixty, wearing a black sequined evening gown with a heavily made-up face. Katerina noticed a lock of carefully-colored dark hair had fallen out of the high twist at the back of her head. Her hands fluttered to her mouth and she screamed theatrically. One of the firefighters jumped at the piercing sound.
“Victor! What happened to Victor?” she cried. She rushed over to them, but Frankie caught her, stopping her beeline to the gurney and speaking to her in a low voice.
The police officers got out of the vehicle and started towards them. Katerina motioned to the firefighter at the back of the gurney to push it into the ambulance and she climbed in beside it, as it entered the track bolted to the floor and locked into place.
“You guys need a driver?” the firefighter asked.
Katerina nodded and the firefighter climbed in behind her, walking forward to the front compartment and dropping into the driver’s seat. West appeared at the back of the ambulance, his eyes searching her face.
“Are you good for a few minutes?” West asked her. She nodded, grateful when he tipped her a wink and slammed the door shut. She didn’t want to deal with cops and distraught friends or relatives. She turned her attention to her patient to monitor his vital signs and determine what else she could do for him.
***
West shut the back doors, ensconcing Katerina in the relatively quiet safety of the ambulance. He turned to the police car, trying to figure out what he was going to tell them. The driver got out and West knew he’d seen him before. What was his name? Casey? The passenger, however, was a new guy. A recruit maybe. He was huge, as big as Frankie maybe. Casey nodded at West then looked expectantly at the other officer. Yep, a recruit, West thought.
“What’s going on?” the recruit asked. West looked for the name on his uniform shirt. Wells, it said.
West glanced over at the two civilians who were holding their own whispered conversation. He motioned for the police officers to walk behind the ambulance with him so they could talk in relative privacy.
“The guy in the back of the ambulance? He presented as a heart attack, but we have reason to believe that someone in there,” West inclined his head towards the house, “forced him to take an overdose.”
Even as West was speaking, he knew he was going to have to say more and he wondered how the cops would take it. He knew it would sound crazy to anyone who didn’t know Katerina’s history.
“What’s your reason?” Officer Wells asked, looking at the house.
West sighed. He wasn’t looking forward to this part. “Have you guys heard of the psychic paramedic?”
Officer Casey spoke, a snarling leer on his face. “You mean the nut case who supposedly caught the serial killer brothers?”
West ground his teeth together. “She’s not a nut case. She’s my partner, and if she says it happened, it happened. We found the bottle of pills in his jacket pocket and he responded to the treatment for that drug.”
Casey shrugged. “So he overdosed, so what? That doesn’t mean someone forced him to do it.”
“Someone in there held a gun to his head, my partner saw it.”
The look on Casey’s face told West all he needed to know.
“She saw it with her eyes?” Casey said, contempt in his manner and voice.
“No, she touched him and saw a vision of what he saw when it was happening.”
Casey threw back his head and laughed. West could have cheerfully throttled him where he stood.
“Fuck this. We’re out of here.” Casey motioned to his recruit and walked back to his car.
“Sorry,” Officer Wells said, throwing a dark look at his field training officer, then returning to the police car also.
West watched them go, his frustration mounting. He turned and jumped into the back of the ambulance, considering his options. He gave Marco
a thumbs up, and the ambulance lurched and swayed underneath him as Marco maneuvered it out of the driveway and down the road.
When they arrived at the hospital, West let Katerina give the patient report to the doctor in the emergency room. He stepped outside of the room and called Blaise on his cell phone. Blaise answered on the first ring and West quickly explained what had happened.
“I’ll go in and make a report,” Blaise said.
“You’re not on duty, man? Sorry, I didn’t want you to have to go in,” West said.
“Nah, don’t worry about it. What else am I gonna do?”
West pondered this statement for a second. It didn’t sound like something Blaise would say. “You OK, Blaise?”
“Yeah, good. Never better.”
West was silent for a moment. He could hear bitterness in Blaise’s voice. “What’s going on, man?”
Blaise sighed. “Nothing. Sorry. I’m just irritated because I asked Jordan to go out with me again and she said no - again. I thought you said she liked me.”
“Oh, yeah that’s what Katerina said,” West said, confused. He thought quickly. “So you’re into her now?”
“Yeah, well, she’s just been so sweet with my mom. And she’s so … alive, know what I mean?”
West held back a laugh. He knew exactly what Blaise meant. Jordan was a firecracker all right. “Hey, she’ll come around.”
“Yeah, whatever. I’ll head to the station right now and make a report for you, see what that party was all about and try to figure out who the guy is and where those security guards disappeared to. I’ll let you know when I find something.”
West thanked his friend and hung up, then went back into the emergency room to gather Katerina. Marco was already gone; the fire truck had picked him up almost as soon as they arrived. Katerina and West cleaned up the ambulance, then headed back to base, finally able to sign off for the night. West couldn’t help but think it was about an hour too late. This wasn’t exactly what he had been afraid would happen, but it was close. Next time, he would discourage her from touching anyone with a bare hand. Katerina’s power more fascinated him than disturbed him, but it sure did seem to get them involved in a lot of dangerous business.
Chapter 6
They drove home, Katerina lost in her own thoughts, staring out the window and watching the houses fly by. The day had been great, until that last call. The events of the last hour swirled around in her brain, not letting her rest. It had all been so strange, and the absolute evil of it frightened her. Who could hold a gun to someone’s head and force him to take pills that would kill him? The worst part about what she could do with her hands was being confronted with the evil of men so often. She wished she could just turn the power off with a switch, or abandon it altogether. If she had a choice she would give it up in a second. If she could cut something out of her brain or take a blow to the head, even if it hurt, she would give anything to be a normal person again - to be blissfully free and ignorant of what the person next to her was thinking or had done or was ashamed of.
West pulled into his driveway and they headed up the walkway together, West circling an arm around her shoulders, then kissing her lightly on the forehead before unlocking the door and pushing it open. His phone started ringing almost at once. West pulled it out of his pocket and answered it.
“Hello?” West waited a beat and then said hello again. He looked at the phone then hung it up. “No one was there.” He pressed the power button to turn it off, then tossed it onto the couch as they walked into the living room. “Hopefully no one needs me for the rest of the night because I’m not turning that thing back on until I get eight hours of sleep.”
Katerina retrieved her phone from her pocket and did the same thing. “Good idea,” she said.
Katerina kicked off her shoes and sat down on the couch with a sigh. West dropped down beside her and began to rub her shoulders, evincing a quiet hum of satisfaction from her. Nina meandered in to the living room and jumped onto Katerina’s lap just long enough to receive a bit of attention, then jumped off and wandered into the kitchen, looking for food.
Katerina rolled her neck and sank into West’s strong hands. She let the tension of the day melt off of her, glad that she was with someone who understood, someone who accepted her, someone who would never laugh at her reality or roll his eyes the way that cop had. There were so many things that were bothering her about their last call of the night.
She wondered if they were bothering West too. “So who do you think did it?” she asked.
“Did what, made the guy eat the pills?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t have a clue. Could you see his face?”
Katerina thought about it, recalling what she had seen back into her mind. “Yeah, I did see his face. He was short and dark-complected, with a cruel mouth and a wicked scar slashed across his chin and down his throat.”
West raised his eyebrows. “Well, he shouldn’t be hard to find. I better call Blaise and let him know that. I doubt he’ll be able to arrest the guy based on what you said, but at least he’ll know to be careful of him. He’s obviously dangerous.” West picked his phone up from the couch and turned it back on.
Katerina directed her thoughts inward again, trying to remember anything else that would help Blaise and keep him safe. Her gaze wandered to the back wall of the house as she thought, and something outside the sliding glass door caught her eye. Movement. She squinted, her eyes searching hard now.
Her heart sped up as she thought she saw the outline of a body move on the back porch. “West,” she whispered, “I think there is someone on your back-”
The sliding glass door exploded inward as if a large object had been propelled at it. Two men dressed all in black and with black ski masks over their faces exploded into the room. Katerina’s eyes went to their hands immediately. Both carried large, wicked looking guns, made all the scarier by the long silencers attached to them.
“Drop it! Put your hands in the air!” one of the men yelled, while both pointed their guns at West and Katerina on the couch.
West dropped his phone and did as he was asked. Katerina, her heart slamming in her chest, raised her hands also.
“What did Deputy Director Ronan say to you?” the first man demanded, menace in his voice.
Katerina glanced at West, eyes wide. West stared straight ahead and answered slowly. “Who is Deputy Director Ronan?”
“Don’t play stupid. You picked him up at a house tonight around 11:15.”
“We didn’t know his name,” West said slowly. “He didn’t say anything to us. He was unconscious the whole time.”
The two men exchanged a dangerous look and something in the quick glance scared Katerina very badly.
“Bullshit! I’m going to start shooting off body parts in a second. Tell me exactly what he said!”
West shook his head vehemently. “I swear it! He never gained consciousness! He couldn’t have said a word to us!”
The two men looked at each other again. Katerina bit the inside of her lip and tried to keep her breathing under control. Her body tensed horrifically and she wondered if this was it for them.
The spokesman’s voice rang through the room again. “Then why did you call the police? If he didn’t say-”
The man stopped talking as a banging sound reverberated in from the front door. “West, it’s me, it’s an emergency,” Blaise’s voice called through the door.
The two masked men looked quickly at the door but kept their guns trained on Katerina and West. They seemed completely indecisive. Finally the one who had done all the talking lifted his chin at the other man. “Go take care of him,” he whispered.
Katerina felt herself driven backwards onto the couch. She was disoriented for a moment and she wondered if she had been shot. But there was no pain. Then she realized West had pushed her down to the side and lay on top of her.
“Blaise! Two gunmen! One’s coming to get you! He’s got a gun!” West
shouted as he covered Katerina’s body with his own.
Silence for a moment as both men stopped in mid-stride, frozen, unsure what to do. The door burst open and Blaise, his own gun out in front of him, started screaming orders. “Put your hands up! Drop the gun!”
The two men turned and fled out the wide open door they had come in, their feet crunching on the glass in the carpet. Blaise rushed to West and Katerina, checked them for injuries and then said, “I’m going after them. Call 911 and get me some backup. Make sure they know this is related to the shooting at the hospital tonight.”
West jumped to his feet as Blaise disappeared out the back door.
“Shooting?” West said in a hard and questioning voice. “What in the …” he barked out as he dialed 911 and then tried to make the dispatcher understand what was going on. When he stopped to take a breath he pulled Katerina towards the front door. “Let’s get in the truck. At least we will be mobile if they come back.”
Katerina stopped him. “West, where is Nina?”
West dropped her hand and called the cat. Nina padded in from the kitchen, her eyes blinking sleepily. West gathered her in his arms and kissed her. He looked at his sliding glass door that was now in a million pieces all over his carpet. “She can’t stay here tonight. Neither can we.” He looked at Katerina, misery in his eyes. “Who do you think was shot at the hospital?”
Katerina ventured a shaky guess. “Deputy Director Ronan.”
West nodded, his face contemplative, as the first patrol car pulled up outside, lights and siren flashing. Two police officers stormed into the room. “Officer Cornwall chased the two men out that door,” West told them. The officers disappeared into his dark backyard. Katerina watched them go, her emotions swirling down a dark tunnel where self-pitying phrases bounced off the walls.