Code Blues

by Melissa Yi

  Why did she need to be left alone?

  She was confronting the killer. Imminently.

  Where?

  Much Music could have been playing anywhere, but I bet they wanted somewhere quiet. Neutral ground, but out of the way.

  If Mireille was smart, she wouldn't agree to anywhere too isolated.

  The residents' room.

  Chapter 25

  I ran just as fast as I had for the Code Blue. Faster, because this time I knew I could save a life.

  I nearly collided with Jade Watterson, the ICU resident, on the stairs. She held her giant plastic coffee mug above her head. "Whoa!"

  I snapped over my shoulder, "I think Mireille's in trouble. Get help! Residents' room."

  I slammed open the doors at the top of the stairs, skidded around the corner on the freshly-waxed floors, and punched the code. I turned the knob, but the lock didn't open. Damn! I punched the code again. This time, the door swung open half an inch before crashing into a barrier. I spotted someone's arm in a white coat in the far corner of the room, against the wall.

  "Mireille!" I hollered. "Mireille!"

  I rapped on the door.

  Someone grunted and I heard and felt a thump through the wood as something crashed against it, sealing it shut again.

  "I can hear you!" I shouted. "Let me in!"

  I banged with one hand while I punched the code in with the other. The door handle turned, but banged into something again.

  I started bashing the door against the barrier. I'd break it if I had to. If nothing else, I'd provide a distraction.

  Slam.

  SLAM!

  The barrier held, but I'd gotten another half inch.

  I slammed the door, yelling and cursing until my throat grew raw. The door moved another inch.

  I screamed in victory. Then I realized that the door was moving more easily, and someone was talking. A male voice was saying, "Just a second."

  The door swung open. At last, the dark blond figure in the white coat advanced on the door. A protuberant blue eye peered at me through the opening slit. "Oh. Hello, Hope."

  I heard some thumping and the sprong of a chair removed from under the doorknob. He drew open the door and started to block it with his body.

  I squeezed by him. "Where is she? What did you do with her?"

  Robin surveyed me mildly. "Who?"

  I cast about the room. Fridge, two couches against two walls, TV, table with cafeteria trays, desk with computer, phone, ficus tree. Where was she? I ran to the computer and threw the chair away from the desk, but there was no Mireille. Just a filing cabinet under the desk with some blue boxes filled with juice bottles and crumpled paper. The desk chair rolled to the middle of the room and stopped. Where was she?

  I turned on him. He stood on the other side of the roller chair, his head tipped to one side like I was a particularly interesting specimen. I said, "Robin. I know it was you. You're here to meet her. What did you do with her?"

  He raised his taffy-coloured eyebrows. "Who?"

  "Mireille. Mireille Laroque! Who else do you think?"

  "Why would I do that?" He smoothed down the front of his white coat. The pockets seemed to be empty. He wasn't wearing a tie today, just a cream dress shirt buttoned all the way to the collar and some '70s brown dress pants. He looked perfectly presentable. An A+ student murderer.

  "Because you killed Kurt and she figured it out!"

  "I did?" His brow furrowed, turning his eyebrows into a single furry caterpillar. He looked so normal. But I realized he had placed himself between me and the door.

  I started walking toward the exit. "Yeah. You did. Pretty smart, Robin. I have to congratulate you." I skirted between the round table and the wall with the ficus tree.

  He took a step toward me. "Why do you think that?"

  I circled away from him, keeping it casual, keeping the five-foot diameter table between us. Now I was between the table and the computer desk. If he kept following me, he'd end up between the table and the wall, and I could make a break for it. "Well, I think it must have started with your wife."

  "What about her?" But his eyes widened a millimetre before he forced a laugh.

  I kept my tone light. "I guess you don't know what's going on with her, huh? Did she leave you?"

  "She never left me!" He grabbed the table and flipped it at me.

  The fake wood-grain tabletop tumbled toward me. I screamed and threw myself under the computer desk, between the filing cabinet and the blue boxes. Then I realized it was exactly the wrong place to be. The overturned table blocked off my route. I was caught between the table, the wall, and Robin's legs.

  I was breathing hard. Almost panting. My life could not end this way. It could not.

  But I couldn't think of a good way out. I stared at Robin's neatly polished brown dress shoes. He even double-knotted his laces.

  "You bitch," he said. "You had nothing to do with this. Why couldn't you just leave it alone?" As his pale hands reached for me, he said, "This is all your fault."

  My first instinct was to block his hands. Instead, I screamed and dove for his ankles. I wanted to topple him, pull his feet out from under him, throw him to the ground and run past him.

  Instead, he shook off my grip and kicked me under the chin, snapping my head back.

  Pain. Searing through my head, tearing down my neck.

  For a second, I couldn't focus.

  I felt something warm drip down my face, toward my mouth. Smelled iron. Blood.

  He kicked me in the chest. The new pain exploded in spirals, but it gave me something to bite down on. No. I would not die like this. I huddled in genuine agony, but as he paused to smile, his glasses still in place, his chest barely heaving, I grabbed a recycling bin and launched myself at him.

  Instinctively, he shied away.

  I tripped on a table leg. Paper went airborne. A bottle crashed to the floor but didn't break. I landed on my knees, hitting the bin lid with my chest.

  I saw his hands flash. I whimpered, but he was grabbing the bottle.

  "Okay. That's enough, Hope," he said, returning to that eerily calm voice.

  I heard a smash just as I flipped myself over and scrambled to my feet, grabbing the blue box like a clumsy shield.

  Robin held the jagged remnant of the bottle up to my face. His hair was damp with sweat. His mouth made a straight line. "I didn't want to do this."

  I brought the box up from underneath, striking his arms upward. The glass soared and shattered behind me.

  I snarled in triumph, but he smashed the box out of my hands. It crashed to the floor. Before I could dive for it, his hands closed around my throat.

  Suffocating me.

  I tried to tear his hands away. He was fiendishly strong. His face was flushed. Dimly, I remembered an Akido move Ginger had showed me, and shoved my arms between his, trying to break his hold.

  He squeezed tighter.

  I reared back and kicked him.

  He grunted, twisting his hips away. My foot made solid contact with his thigh.

  He gripped only tightened.

  The room was ringed with darkness. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't breathe! I made one last, desperate swipe at his head.

  And the world went black.

  Chapter 26

  Carpet. Flat grey carpet, nubby under my hands. A woman's voice, screechy with panic.

  Blackness.

  A long face. Long nose. Round glasses. Green eyes. Thin mouth, starting to smile.

  Dr. Dupuis.

  I sagged into the—mattress?—clutching at the white sheet lying over me. The ceiling was covered in white acoustic tile. A clear plastic mask sat on my face, augmenting the sound of my every breath. A heart monitor beeped in my ears. Stickers on my chest. Wires all around. Something around my left arm. A soft gray plastic probe on my right index finger. My bed was surrounded by metal railing on three sides.

  I was in resus. It was like being in an adult-sized crib in a very scary
nursery.

  I lifted my right hand, stared at the IV embedded on the back of it, attached to clear plastic tubing.

  "You have good veins," said Dr. Dupuis.

  It was uncomfortable to bend my wrist. It made the catheter shift a little, even though it I had what felt like an entire roll of tape on my arm, securing it. I let my hand fall back on to the stretcher.

  "You're okay," Dr. Dupuis said. "I'm going to check on Mireille."

  I fought to sit upright. My monitor started beeping, but I ignored it. My voice rasped, "How—?" I had to grab my throat. It hurt too much.

  "She's okay. Dr. Trigiani's looking after her in A," he said. His eyes darkened. "I guess Robin was in the middle of attacking her when you came around. He dumped her behind the couch, tied up and gagged."

  I gasped, my eyes darting around the resus room. My monitor beeped at high pitch, at the same tempo as my heart.

  Dr. Dupuis grasped the left bed rail and leaned toward me. "It's okay, Hope. Robin's not here. The police took him away."

  I shuddered. Then I couldn't seem to stop shaking. My arms and legs trembled. My teeth chattered loud enough for him to hear them rattle, but I couldn't control it. My body jerked under the white blanket like I was having mini-seizures.

  Dr. Dupuis called, "Andrea? Could you bring her some warm blankets?"

  A nurse in pink scrubs, with a neat brown bob, draped two blankets over me. They were pre-warmed and felt like heaven. I tried to croak my thanks.

  Dr. Dupuis put his hand on my arm. "Don't talk. Your throat is too sore."

  Well, I knew that! My trembling slowed and almost stopped.

  He laughed. Andrea handed me a pen and a clipboard, the same kind we used for patient charts, but with a blank sheet of paper and pen. I smiled at her and wrote THANK YOU.

  "You're welcome," Dr. Dupuis said promptly. "Just doing our job. You're going to be fine, Hope. We'll observe you for a few hours. I think your airway will be fine, just some soft tissue damage, but this way, we'll all feel better."

  Andrea patted my shoulder.

  I smiled at her, but as my relief wore off, another feeling built and accelerated under my breastbone. Rage. My fingers tightened around my pen. I wrote, carving into the page, "I HATE HIM."

  Dr. Dupuis and Andrea exchanged a look. He said, "It's understandable. Do you want to get some rest?"

  I shook my head and wrote, "I want him dead."

  Dr. Dupuis smiled crookedly. "Well, we don't have the death penalty in Canada, but if it's any comfort, they'll probably put him away for a long time. Jade and the guards caught him choking you—"

  My eyes widened.

  He said, "You didn't know that, huh? Jade said she ran into you on the stairs before you went to play Call of Duty. She listened at the door before sprinting for security. It took two guys to pull him off you."

  I sagged into my pillow. Thank God I'd done what I told Mireille to do, call for backup. Thank God I'd called someone who listened.

  "While we brought you in here, your pager started going off. Tori was worried about you, too."

  Tears leaked from the corners of my eyes. I was too tired to fight them off. Andrea stroked my non-IV hand. I looked at her, mute with gratitude.

  "I'm going to let you rest," said Dr. Dupuis. "You did a good job." He started out, then stopped.

  Jade hovered in the doorway. She shoved her hands in the pockets of her white coat, her dark eyes darting between me and Dr. Dupuis. "Just wanted to make sure you were okay."

  "She wanted to do a CT of your neck," said Dr. Dupuis, with a smile. "But I wanted to keep you in resus. If we have to tube either of one of you, I'd rather do it here than in the CT suite."

  I held out my hand toward Jade. She walked to my right side. While Andrea lowered the bedrail, I grabbed Jade's hand. Clumsily, with my left hand, I circled the THANK YOU on my board several times.

  She laughed, trying to tug her hands away. "I just did what you asked me to."

  I wrote, "You saved my life." My eyes were leaking again. Jade squeezed my hand, her own eyes downcast.

  Dr. Dupuis said, "You saved Mireille's life. It all works out. Now, I want you to rest."

  I was still clutching Jade's hand. Now I knew how my elderly patients felt when they wouldn't release me; they didn't know how to properly express their gratitude. I felt the same. But her fingers wiggled uncomfortably and I let her go.

  Jade leaned over and whispered in my ear, "You're bad luck for me when I'm on call."

  I giggled almost soundlessly, my breath rattling in my throat. I wrote, "You're good luck for me. All of you."

  "Now we're getting sappy," said Dr. Dupuis. "All in a day's work. Get some rest. Dr. Trigiani will check on you in a bit." He saluted me.

  I touched my neck. It felt okay. More swelling than usual, but I could still make out the base of my trachea and, to a lesser extent, my thyroid cartilage. I listened to my own quiet breath whoosh in and out. No stridor.

  Dr. Dupuis smiled, reading my mind. "Like I said, we'll observe you, but you'll probably be fine. We can take off the oxygen."

  I pulled off the mask with relief. While Andrea shut off the oxygen, I lifted my pen at Dr. Dupuis to indicate I still had something to say. He stopped at the foot of my bed. I wrote, "I don't want to go home tonight."

  He nodded. "You don't have to."

  Tears sprang to my eyes. Relief, I guess. The last thing I needed to do was head home at 3 a.m. and lie awake in my black bedroom, with only Henry for protection. I pointed to the resus room floor. I wanted to stay here, not go to a creepy call room by myself.

  Dr. Dupuis shook his head and grinned. "You're a glutton for punishment. Okay, we'll find you a room at the inn."

  I tapped the "THANK YOU."

  He thumped the mattress below my feet. "You're welcome. Now get some sleep." He marched out of the room, his shoulders shifting under the stiff fabric of his greens.

  Jade hesitated. Her brown face was uncertain. "Call me."

  I nodded. I'd text her in the morning.

  Andrea offered me a throat lozenge. I unwrapped the clear, crinkly plastic. The lemon flavor burst into my mouth. I closed my eyes, savoring it.

  I was alive.

  A woman's voice called from the nursing station, "Andrea. Phone call."

  She tucked the blankets around my neck. "I'll be back in a minute."

  I closed my eyes. It was heaven to relax again, an almost physical weight lifting from my lungs.

  Andrea reappeared, perturbed. She was holding her hand over the mouthpiece of the black cordless patients' phone. "I know you can't talk, but Dr. Alex Dyck is very insistent."

  I bounced up, my muscles tense, my heart monitor beeping frantically again. She reached for me. "Whoa, whoa, whoa. I'll tell him you'll talk to him tomorrow."

  I shook my head frantically. I wanted to hear from him.

  She hesitated, her eyes moving to the doorway. I knew she wanted to talk to Dr. Dupuis or Trigiani. I held my hands out, imploring.

  She sighed. "Just for a minute." She repeated it, sternly, to Alex, and handed me the phone.

  I cupped it to my ear. Tried to say his name. Couldn't make it past the first syllable.

  "Hope." His voice broke. "I am so sorry."

  I made a sound low in my throat.

  "That's all I wanted to say. I'm so, so sorry." His breath hitched. "It's all my fault."

  I tried to speak, but Andrea grabbed the phone. "You said you weren't going to upset her! That's enough, Alex!" She marched out of the room, still telling him off.

  When she returned, she pulled the blankets above my neck, her movements brisk. "I knew I shouldn't have let him."

  I reached up from under the covers, grabbed her hand. I let her know with my eyes it was okay. I took responsibility, even if his words swirled through my head. Sorry? For what? Why was it his fault?

  She softened. "You should rest." The lines around her mouth faded. She made sure the call bell was still clipped to t
he bed rail. "We're here if you need us."

  She turned off the fluorescent lights. There was only the faint glow from the streetlamps through the window and my monitor's gleam. I heard her footsteps recede.

  Robin's hands seemed to lace around my neck. I bit back a scream. No. He wasn't here. I forced myself to feel the blanket lying over me, listen to the murmur of voices from the nursing station, watch the pale glow of the pockmarked tile above my head, taste the faint lemon residue in the corners of my mouth.

  I was alive.

  Chapter 27

  Tucker pointed out the bright side when he and Tori dropped by my apartment the next day. "At least you get to skip your weekend night shifts."

  I nodded agreement. I wrote "Mireille?" on my notepad.

  "He bashed her on the head, tied her up and used his tie to gag her," said Tucker. "But she's okay. Better than you, I think." His brown eyes flickered. He stared at my pine headboard. "I could kill him."

  I nodded. With every twinge in my neck, I hated Robin.

  Tucker looked at my face. The muscles around his eyes tightened. His hand stirred, but he let it fall back on my fuzzy yellow blanket. He took a deep breath.

  Tori cleared her throat. She was standing at the head of my bed while Tucker sat at the edge of my mattress. "Robin's in police custody. You don't have to worry about him anymore."

  Yeah. Only in the way I jumped every time the phone rang, even if it was in the next apartment. Only in the way I woke up with my heart pounding, a scream locked in my throat. Only in the white plastic bottle of Ativan which lay on my night table, untouched. For now.

  Tori pointed to the bouquet of daisies beside the pill bottle. I hadn't unpacked any vases, so the flowers stood in a white plastic juice container. The petals bent under her finger. "I hope you like them."

  I did. I liked their get well card, too. It was a cream-coloured card, with a heavy border and a tiny drawing of a daisy in the corner. Still, I wished Alex had come instead.

  Tucker tried to smile. "I have to hand it to you. Mireille said she heard about Robin stalking his wife by talking to some guys at the Jewish. But we're still not sure how you figured it out." His eyes rested on my bruised and reddened throat. "I know you're just pretending you can't talk so you can keep us in suspense."