by CJ Lyons
She crouched down, the silk ball gown rustling, and stroked his arm, meeting his gaze. “It’s okay, Jerry. We’ll work something out. You can come home to our house.”
He shook his head vehemently. “No. My home.”
The elevator arrived and Lucas pushed Jerry’s wheelchair onto it. Amanda followed with the cane.
“Do you mean your apartment?” Lucas asked as he pressed the button for the eighth floor, where PT was located.
“Yes. My home.”
Lucas and Amanda exchanged glances. Jerry’s apartment was a crime scene—at least it had been.
“It’s all one floor,” Lucas said agreeably. “Small and contained—that should be manageable.”
“But, Lucas—”
“Surely the police would have released it by now. And Gina can have it cleaned, clear out any clutter he might trip over.”
To ask Gina to go back there—to the place where she could have died? Could she even step foot inside, much less stay there?
Jerry seemed to follow Amanda’s thoughts—was that another glimmer of the old Jerry returning? She hoped so. “Gina’s strong.”
The elevator doors opened onto the eighth-floor lobby. Across from them was a large picture window and to the side the doors leading to the pedestrian skywalk that crossed from the main hospital to the research tower. Amanda stared out the window in amazement.
She could see more of the storm from up here with the lights of the skywalk illuminating the evening. The windows rattled—even worse, the skywalk itself was swaying in the wind, snow so thick it resembled shrouds of white.
“Good thing the research tower is closed today,” Lucas said, nodding toward the skywalk that connected the two buildings.
“I thought you were exaggerating about the snow,” Amanda murmured as she gazed out into the maw of the storm. When she’d driven to work at five that morning, almost fourteen hours ago, it had been barely flurrying. The weather had been calling for only a few inches, most of it falling later tonight. But this—
“The storm turned a bit. Picked up speed. Plus the lake effect. Like I said before, it’s a full-blown blizzard now.”
Forget the ball, Amanda realized now. In the four years since she’d left South Carolina to come here to Pittsburgh, she’d never seen snow like this. “We’re not even going home tonight, are we?”
“No, maybe not for a few days. Happy New Year’s.”
Jerry wheeled himself to the window, pressing his nose against the trembling glass. He seemed to be enjoying the chaos outside.
“Lucas, how can you be so calm? Aren’t we supposed to be doing something? Is there a disaster plan?” And here she was parading around in a fancy ball gown. How unprofessional. She should run back down to Jerry’s room and change back into her scrubs.
“We’re at low census. Administration will be taking care of canceling the night shift; the staff already knows they’re in it for the long haul. They’ll be moving patients, consolidating them. There’s nothing for us to do.”
“But—” Amanda waved her hands at the snow hurling itself at the window.
“They’ll call us if they need us. Until then we wait and stay out of their way.” Lucas unlocked the door to the therapy room. “Okay, Jerry, show me what you’ve got.”
LYDIA FINALLY GATHERED ENOUGH ENERGY TO leave the shooting range and trudge out to her SUV. At some point someone—Sandy, no doubt; the ex-SWAT team leader had the instincts of a Jewish grandmother—had cleared her Ford Escape of snow. But she’d sat inside his office long enough that a new coating of snow already covered it.
This snow was different from the snow they’d had a few weeks ago. That snow had been friendly, fluffy. Snow for making snow angels and catching on your tongue. This snow was wicked, flung about with the force of a nail gun fired at her face, sharp and biting.
There’d been only wet flurries and a few inches of slush when she’d arrived at the training center two and a half hours ago. Now standing in the empty parking lot was like being in the center of a white tornado. Snow came up above her boot tops; wind blew her parka hood back, exposing her face; ice crystals stuck to her eyelids. She slushed through the accumulation and awkwardly climbed into the SUV using only her left arm.
Once inside the car, Lydia started the engine and let the defroster do its work. She’d left her sling off to get into her coat and was glad to have both hands free, even if she couldn’t move the right one very well. Technically she shouldn’t even be driving with one hand, but she’d been going crazy trapped at home and couldn’t resist. Of course, that was before she realized this winter storm was far more serious than AccuWeather had predicted.
She cradled her arm in her lap as the windshield wipers scraped the snow, smearing it back and forth across her field of vision. No fair blaming the weather forecast—it was her own decision to come out here, and she’d have to live with it.
Just like her mother had lived with her decisions.
Tears shanghaied her. Lydia swiped them, furious at the way her body betrayed her. This was no time for crying—and what was there to cry about, anyway? Maria had been gone eighteen years. Those tears had been shed long ago.
Nevertheless, she laid her head on the steering wheel and stopped fighting the tears. Her cell phone rang. Trey. He’d hear how upset she was, want to know why—and she just wasn’t strong enough to tell him. She’d call him back once she had her emotions under control. She turned it off and tossed it into the passenger seat.
She’d told Trey everything about her mother. He’d said he understood. Seemed more angry than frightened by the prospect of someone wanting to hurt her. He refused to accept that he could be in danger because she’d decided to stay with him, that just being with her made him a target, too.
Decisions. Consequences.
Now there was so much more at risk than just her life. Lydia squeezed her left arm tighter against her belly, hating the weakness the tears revealed. More than weakness, an old companion: fear. A fear that had lived inside her ever since Maria’s death, curled up in her gut like a serpent waiting to coil itself around her body, stealing her breath, snatching her life.
The fear was back, wide awake, and ready to strike when she was most vulnerable.
Lydia sat up straight, choking down the tears. This was no time for hormones or emotions or whatever was roiling around inside her. She had to get back home, find a way to . . . She faltered. What could she do? She didn’t have the resources of the police. She had no idea what her mother had been hiding from or who was after her.
Maybe all that was left was to run and hide. And take Trey with her.
She put the SUV in gear and hunched over the steering wheel to see through the windshield. Being from California, she wasn’t used to driving in snow, but wasn’t that what SUVs were made for? She wasn’t too worried.
The wipers couldn’t compete with the storm, giving her only a small squiggle of clear vision to navigate by. The all-wheel drive handled the snow—a good ten inches by now, she estimated—without trouble as she pulled out of the parking space and began down the long driveway leading to Lexington Avenue.
As she approached the main road she squinted at what appeared to be a white and ash-streaked mountain of snow at the end of the drive. Almost as high as the SUV’s hood, it blocked the exit. She stopped and considered her options. Obviously the plows had driven past, leaving behind a wall of snow that extended as far as she could see in either direction.
She backed up, revved the engine, and accelerated forward, hoping to burst the dam of snow and emerge on the other side. The tires fought for traction as she sped up. She rammed the snowbank head on.
But instead of driving through a pile of soft, fluffy snow, it was like hitting a brick wall. The impact roared through her arm; her head jerked forward and back, but the seat belt held her tight. She was glad she’d turned the air bags off. Something near the front of the car screeched, tore, then crunched sickeningly. The engine strained,
wheels spinning, the front of the car actually driving up at an impossible angle, leaving the SUV canted at an unnatural angle as it came to a stop. Nowhere near the top and nowhere near through the mountain of snow. In fact, the damn snow pile appeared barely dented by the weight of the vehicle.
A shower of ice and snow rained down on the SUV, laughing at Lydia’s foolhardy attempt to conquer it. The headlights reflected off the glistening whiteness, then slowly dimmed as snow buried them.
Then the engine gave a final whimper and died.
SIX
GINA FOUGHT THE PANIC THAT AMBUSHED HER AT the sight of the flames. She focused on her mother. No. Her patient. Who was still unresponsive—which meant she couldn’t risk moving her.
The flames grew higher, licking paint from the crumpled hood.
She was going to have to take a chance on LaRose’s cervical spine—the definite possibility of being burned alive trumped the remote possibility of an occult spinal injury. She reached over to undo LaRose’s seat belt. It was jammed.
Gina tugged, but the latch wasn’t budging. The fire was hot enough to make the sweat dripping from her neck crackle.
Smoke blinded her as she fought the seat belt. Every inhalation brought with it the rancid smell of burning oil and plastic, gagging her. She angled her body, bracing herself against the jagged edges of a buckled two-by-four protruding from the wall that sandwiched the car, and pulled on the belt.
Nothing. She’d kill for a good set of trauma shears right now. The flames had gotten greedy, reaching out, trying to set the wall—and Gina with it—on fire.
Her vision blurred with tears. She tried one last time to free LaRose.
A whoosh of white foam and powder blew across the windshield.
“Looks like you could use a hand,” Ken Rosen said, hoisting the fire extinguisher and taking another shot at the flames.
Gina sputtered and gagged on the fumes, nodding her thanks as she shifted LaRose’s weight, releasing the pressure on the buckle mechanism, and it finally clicked free. “Help me get her out.”
Ken disappeared then returned, carrying a cervical collar and a short board used to do CPR. “Closest thing to a backboard I could find,” he explained. Then he saw the occupant of the car. “Is that your mother?”
Gina didn’t bother answering, she was too busy applying the c-collar. She stabilized her mother’s neck and spine as Ken slid the CPR board behind LaRose.
“This isn’t going to work,” Gina finally decided. “We’ll never get her through the window.”
Ken left and reappeared with a blanket. “Cover both of you with this.” He raised the metal base of an IV stand and hefted it like an ax in front of the windshield.
“Wait,” Gina called as she covered LaRose with the blanket. “Shouldn’t we wait for fire and rescue?”
“No way they’re gonna get here any time soon, if at all. Have you seen the roads? The city’s shut down. Now get under the blanket.”
She did as she was told and soon heard the crunching of windshield safety glass buckling as his blows echoed through the car. It took him several swings, but a few minutes later he sounded the all clear. In the meantime, Gina continued to assess LaRose. Her pulse was fast but strong and steady, her skin nice and warm. When she removed the blanket, she saw that LaRose’s eyes were fluttering open.
“Wha—happ—” LaRose’s mouth drooped to one side and her words were slurred.
“It’s okay,” Gina tried to reassure her even as her own panic escalated. “You’re at Angels. You’re going to be fine.”
“Had—to—get—you.” LaRose was more alert now, frowning as she fumbled her words, straining to make herself clear.
Typical LaRose. She’d never adjust her carefully laid plans to suit a little thing like a winter storm. The world, including the weather, was meant to revolve around her. “It’s a blizzard out there. You never should have been on the roads.”
“Your—father—sent—me.”
Moses. He’d made no effort to hide the fact that he saw Jerry’s shooting as the perfect opportunity for Gina to disengage from a “relationship with no future.” He assumed that the only reason she’d stayed with Jerry was to spite him.
No doubt he wanted LaRose to fetch their errant daughter back home in time for his big New Year’s Eve charity ball tonight. Had to show off Gina, give everyone a chance to ooh and ahh over his daughter and her accomplishments—which then, of course, he’d take full credit for.
Guess his plan backfired this time. “Moses can go stag,” Gina told LaRose as she secured her to the makeshift backboard with gauze. “We need to take care of you first.”
“Hello, Mrs. Freeman,” Ken called to LaRose. He’d spread a sheet over the car’s hood and climbed on top of it. “Don’t worry, we’re going to get you out of there.”
“Does anything hurt?” Gina asked her.
“My head.”
“Can you squeeze my hands?” Gina grabbed both of LaRose’s. Her right hand lay limply in Gina’s while the left was able to squeeze tight. “No pain here?” She quickly palpated LaRose’s belly.
“No.”
“Okay, let’s get you out. I’m going to slide you sideways onto this sheet.” She reached for the end of the sheet Ken handed her. It was an old nursing trick to move patients by sliding them along a sheet tucked beneath their body. Gina gently rotated LaRose, taking care to keep her spine as straight as possible, and slid her head and torso onto the passenger seat, over the top of the sheet. Her legs came free, the right one dragging behind the left.
“Gina.” Ken reached in to help LaRose’s right leg up onto the sheet.
“I know. Right-side weakness, facial muscles and speech involved as well.” She was avoiding using the word stroke out loud in her mother’s presence. LaRose wouldn’t panic overtly—panic was not in the Freeman family vocabulary—but with her high blood pressure Gina wanted to avoid any further anxiety. “Once we clear her for injuries, we need to rule out a CVA.”
Ken awkwardly folded his body over the steering wheel and gathered the sheet around LaRose’s legs. “Okay, on three. One, two, three.”
Together they lifted LaRose over the dash and through the windshield’s opening onto the hood of the car.
“Thank God she never lets her weight get over one-ten,” Gina joked. She hauled herself through the window she came in by and joined LaRose again, holding her hand as Ken ran for a stretcher.
“Moses—won’t—appreci—like it.” LaRose said with an effort at a smile that made her face appear ancient as her facial muscles drooped.
“Moses can learn to do his own dirty work instead of sending you.” Gina shocked herself with the words, but one look at her mother reinforced her anger.
“Regina!” No surprise that even a stroke couldn’t stop her mother from defending her father.
“Don’t ‘Regina’ me, LaRose. Moses can go to hell.”
AFTER NORA REASSURED MARK THAT THEY WERE going to get him out, she retraced her steps past the triage desk to the ER. It would normally have been faster to go the other way, through the door leading to the security office, but it was blocked by debris.
The nurses’ station—the communication heart of the ER—was in shambles. Smoke stank up the air, the patient tracking board had been impaled by a fallen light fixture, ceiling tiles and debris covered the counters, and the computer monitors were black. Jason’s desk had collapsed under the debris, leaving the area looking like a boat with a gaping hole below the waterline, sinking fast.
Cold air and snow gusted through the hole in the wall around the car. She made a note to call maintenance, get some plywood up ASAP. Ken Rosen was working with Gina inside the wrecked car.
“Do you need help?” she called.
“I think we’re good. Anyone else hurt?”
“Mark Cohen hurt his leg. I’m going to go for more help.”
Ken nodded and turned back to his work extricating the driver. The path in front of the nurses’ stati
on was unnavigable, so Nora jogged around the back of the station and crossed the hall to the trauma rooms. There she grabbed some blankets from the warmer.
As she was leaving, Jim Lazarov came through the doors on the opposite side of the nurses’ station, the ones leading from the main hospital.
“Jason is with Nicky and his mom and the guys from the zoo,” he reported in a rush. He definitely wasn’t bored anymore; his expression was that of a little boy who’d just been told there was a snow day at school and it was time to play. “The nurses are stocking carts with supplies in case we need to move operations.”
Nora shivered and draped one of the warm blankets around her own shoulders. “Good. I need help getting Mark out.”
They headed to the security office. Only one guard was there, talking on the phone. Nora didn’t recognize him; he was one of the new hires, and he seemed both young and enthusiastic, excited about being in on the action. She thought about the shootings that had happened before Christmas and hoped this was the most action they would see tonight.
A shiver shook her as she remembered the panicked feeling of finding Seth almost dead, facing death herself. She tried hard not to dwell on what had happened—everyone had gotten out alive, Seth was going to be okay, she was going to be okay. It was better to focus on work . . . and on building her new life with Seth.
She still had to call him, break the news that she wasn’t coming home anytime soon.
“The fire department says they can’t send a truck,” the guard said, covering the phone receiver with one hand. “They’re fighting two major fires, one on the Hill and one on the North Side. They asked if a rescue vehicle would be okay? They have one nearby, but with the roads, it will take them a while to get here.”
“I think we’re fine,” Nora said. “Tell them we’ll call them back if we need them. And let them know our ER is out of commission. They’ll have to divert any patient traffic and EMS to other hospitals.”