Critical Condition

by CJ Lyons

  He relayed her message and hung up the phone. “Anything I can do to help?”

  “Yeah, we could use another pair of hands. Come with me.”

  They circled back past the wrecked car. Jim stopped and stared.

  “Are you coming?” Nora asked.

  Jim nodded, his gaze fixated on the activity around the car. Ken had just maneuvered the driver onto the hood of the car. “Is that Gina’s mother in there?”

  Nora looked more closely. It was. Jeez, like Gina needed any more family drama in her life right now.

  Ken Rosen crossed their path, pushing a stretcher. “Looks like she had a stroke,” he said, indicating LaRose. “Go take care of Mark; we’ve got this covered.”

  Nora led her small band of rescuers back down the hall, stopping at the trauma bay to grab another stretcher, a backboard, a c-collar, and splinting supplies. By the time they arrived back in the waiting room, they found that Mark had managed to clear most of the smaller debris away from his head and torso, leaving just his leg pinned under the supporting wall of the activity station.

  “Maybe it’s only my knee,” he said, teeth chattering. Nora draped a blanket around his head and shoulders. The wind had swept a lot of the paper debris out the gaping hole in the window, replacing it with several inches of snow, drifting around their feet.

  “We’ll have you out in a second,” the guard said, squatting to lift the piece of metal and particle board while Jim and Nora slid Mark free.

  Together they splinted his leg and got him on the backboard, then lifted him onto the stretcher. “Let’s get you someplace warm.”

  As they pushed him out into the main ER, Mark gasped, pushing himself up on his elbows to get a good look at the debris. “What the hell happened to my ER?”

  SHADOW-ETCHED SNOW FILLED LYDIA’S VISION IN every direction. She sure as hell had something to cry about now. Her seat belt dug into her shoulder, holding her into the seat as the Escape sat tilted to the right and rear. Like a kicking bronco frozen halfway through bucking its rider off.

  She tried the ignition again. The battery still worked—the radio came on—but the engine wouldn’t catch. She turned off everything that might drain the battery and tried again. No joy.

  Should she walk back to the training center? Shelter there until the storm passed? No, the door had locked behind her and she didn’t have a key. As much as she hated to do it, she had no choice but to call Trey and ask for help.

  She flicked on the interior light and searched for her cell. She had to unstrap herself from her seat belt and crawl downhill to the passenger seat until she found it wedged in the space between the seat and the door. Tugging her glove off with her teeth, she hit the buttons.

  “Trey Garrison.” His voice was distant and she knew he must be out in a vehicle, using the hands-free.

  “It’s me. I need a favor.”

  “Hang on a second.” She heard the grating sound of a truck pulling off the side of a road. “Sure, what do you need?”

  “Do you have any trucks out near Lexington? Or even a snowplow I could hitch a ride with?”

  “What happened?”

  She quickly explained about her mishap with the snowbank. To her relief he didn’t laugh—at least not too loudly. “Surfer girl, aren’t you supposed to be home resting your broken arm? What are you doing out there anyway?”

  Here came the bad part. “Sandy loaned me one of his guns and we met out here to practice, so I’d feel comfortable with it.”

  There was silence for a long moment and she was afraid the connection had gone dead. “Trey?”

  “I’m on my way.” He didn’t break the connection even though he usually never drove and talked on the phone at the same time—especially not if he was in one of the city vehicles. Trey always played it safe. “You know you’re not even supposed to be driving—I should have taken the car keys, should have known you’d—”

  “I’d what? Make a decision to protect myself? Seems like a good idea, given that a hit man came looking for me and that there may be more on the way.” She didn’t understand Trey’s hatred of guns. After all, his father and brothers and a sister were all law enforcement officers; he’d grown up surrounded by guns. “I can’t sit around and do nothing.”

  “No. You can’t. Instead you have to go blundering around in the middle of a blizzard with one arm out of commission.”

  “The weather said—”

  “The weather was wrong. And you don’t have any experience driving in snow—”

  “This was when Sandy had the time—” Their words were overlapping so that anyone else would hear only gibberish, but they understood each other. As well as the anger that underlay their words.

  “Why can’t you let the police do their jobs? We could get out of town for a few weeks—”

  “Because I want it over! I can’t stand this. Waiting and worrying. Afraid every time you leave the house that I’ll never see you again. It’s killing me, Trey.”

  Her words knifed through the silence in the SUV. Even the wind howling outside held its breath, waiting for Trey’s response.

  The past few weeks, it felt like all they did was argue. He’d tried to coddle her, and she’d bitten his head off, protesting that she wasn’t an invalid. He’d tried to comfort her, invited her to join him and his family for Christmas Eve services, and she’d ranted on about the meaningless-ness of a holiday based on promises of peace and goodwill that would be broken and forgotten by the time the Mass let out.

  He’d tried to make love to her, and all she’d felt was terror that she’d made a terrible, awful mistake staying, that because of her, he would get hurt.

  “If you can’t talk to me about it, maybe you should talk to someone,” he finally replied, his words quiet, his tone carefully neutral. As if she were a strung-out meth-head or the like. “Someone professional. Like a counselor.”

  Since he couldn’t see her, Lydia indulged herself and rolled her eyes. Why was it that Trey thought talking could solve everything? “I’m fine. I don’t need to talk to anyone.”

  “No. You’re not fine. You’re angry all the time—angry at me, angry at my folks, angry at Gina and Nora when they call, even angry at God. It’s poisoning you, Lydia.”

  “God? Maria died in a church, for chrissake! Of course I’m furious with God. Where was he when she needed him? Why wasn’t he around to answer her prayers that day?” Her voice was a thunderclap inside the SUV, shaking snow free from the windows, competing with the wind outside. Venting should have made her feel better, but instead it made her feel small and vulnerable. Alone.

  If they’d been face-to-face, he’d be holding her hands in his, sharing his warmth. She’d also never be able to say half these things, show such vulnerability, not in person, not even to Trey. But now she was shivering and all alone. Just like she’d been eighteen years ago, hiding in a church confessional, watching her mother get beaten to death.

  “God was there, Lydia. Don’t you see? He’s always been there. He was answering Maria’s prayers to keep you safe. It was a miracle you weren’t also killed.”

  “Right.” She couldn’t erase the bitterness from her tone. “Just like it was a miracle that the hit man found Gina and shot Jerry when he was looking for me? I doubt either of them would see it that way.”

  “I do. You could have been killed that night. I thank God every day that you weren’t.”

  Trey talked as if he and God were on a first-name basis, could order for each other at Starbucks, carpooled together. Until Lydia had moved to Pittsburgh and met Trey, she’d given up on God, considering him just a wistful idea conjured by humans tired of feeling alone and powerless in the universe. Now Trey had her thinking there might be something—someone—out there.

  The thought of a God gave Trey comfort, kept him calm when things got bad. Where was her comfort? Why was it that all she felt when she thought of God was anger? Anger and fear that if he was out there, then he might not keep the people she loved
safe—just like he’d failed Maria.

  A short burst from a siren jolted her from her thoughts.

  “I’m here,” Trey said over the phone. “Just give me a minute to clear a path.”

  She hung up and waited to be rescued—the first time she’d ever in her life let someone else save her.

  Don’t count on it ever happening again, she decided as she sat in the dark and the cold, her teeth c hattering and pain throbbing through her arm. Trey might trust in God, but Lydia trusted in herself.

  SEVEN

  AMANDA WATCHED LUCAS PUT JERRY THROUGH A grueling set of testing—both physical and cognitive—that left Jerry sweating, exhausted, straining to keep his eyes open. Finally Lucas let him return to his wheelchair, and Amanda helped him from the parallel bars into the chair. Jerry didn’t even protest, his body trembling with the strain of remaining upright. She got him settled, made sure he had his cane and his gun.

  “It’ll be okay,” she reassured him. Jerry said nothing, just looked at her as if he knew she was lying. She hoped she wasn’t. “Let me talk with Lucas for a minute. You rest here.”

  She joined Lucas at the desk in the opposite corner where he was writing notes. “You see what I mean now, right? He did awful—his balance is off, his hand-eye coordination is gone, and his memory and language skills—”

  Lucas nodded, finishing his note before turning to her. “This is the difference between pediatrics and neurology, I think. I see progress—remarkable progress, in fact. You see possibilities—you see what he was and want him to get back there, become the same person he was. That’s not going to happen, Amanda.”

  She felt her entire face wrinkle with a frown. Not one of petulance; one of anger. She hated it when Lucas went all I’m-a-genius-and-you’re-not superior, but the fact that he was doing it now when they were talking about the future of one of their best friends? If he wasn’t careful, she’d be giving him more than a frown. She’d be giving him a fight that he’d never forget, fiancé or no fiancé.

  “You’re not going to contest the insurance company? Get him into rehab?”

  He didn’t seem to notice either her scowl or her tone. “How can I? From a neurologic point of view, he’s doing fantastic. How can I justify taking up a bed in a rehab facility that could be better used for someone who needs intensive intervention—someone like a soldier returning home after a traumatic brain injury?”

  Low blow. He knew darn well that half of Amanda’s family had served with the Marines. “But Jerry would get better faster in rehab. You can’t deny that.”

  “Of course not. But it’s a question of degrees—”

  “I don’t care!” Her shout rattled her—and him.

  Lucas faced her head-on, arms crossed over his chest, and stared at her. In any other man, she’d take the silence and posture for anger or arrogance, but she knew better with Lucas. He had his hands hidden inside the sleeves of his lab jacket to keep himself from touching her—from touching anything that could potentially contaminate him or hurt him; his face had become an expressionless mask and his foot was tapping a strange cadence, counting out one of the obscure mathematical progressions he used to calm himself when his anxieties were suddenly flushed out into the open.

  What in other men would be a show of arrogance, in Lucas was a sign that he was deeply conflicted, torn so much that he’d retreated, a turtle in his shell, unable to speak until he mastered his emotions.

  Amanda took in a deep breath, working hard to control her own emotions. “It’s not your fault,” she conceded. “I understand. It’s just that—” She had to look away, couldn’t face Lucas—not after he’d worked so hard to save Jerry, worked miracles, in fact. “I want everything back the way it was.”

  Lucas slowly thawed. He nodded and wrapped his arms around her—an extraordinarily rare display of public affection considering that Jerry sat watching across the room. He said nothing at first, just held her tight. Then he whispered, “I know.”

  They parted as Jerry approached in his wheelchair. “Can we talk?” he asked, nodding to Amanda.

  Lucas sat back down and returned to his paperwork while Amanda and Jerry moved across the room to the chairs so that she could sit and face him at eye level.

  “He can’t send you to rehab,” Amanda said, thinking that was what he wanted to talk about.

  But Jerry merely shrugged. “Don’t want to go.” Then he further surprised her by reaching across the space between them to touch her arm. “Thanks.”

  She stared at him. What was wrong with everyone today? “What do you mean, you don’t want to go? Don’t you want to get better?”

  As soon as the words were out, she regretted them. They were so harsh—and they unveiled a truth that she didn’t want to see. That Jerry might never gain back what he’d lost.

  “I want to go home.” He was pounding his fist against his thigh in rhythm with his words but Amanda doubted he even knew it, he was concentrating so hard on getting the words out the right way. His eyes squinted with effort. “I am better.”

  Amanda knew that many patients with traumatic brain injuries had no perception of their limitations—their damaged brains couldn’t acknowledge the reality of what had been lost; they would delude themselves that they were fine, able to care for themselves, return to their old life. The ultimate power of denial.

  She was so frustrated and angry that she wanted to cry—it was the same feeling that overwhelmed her whenever she was faced with a seriously ill pediatric patient, this need to defend and protect and fight.

  But how could she fight Jerry’s own delusions without hurting him as well?

  Shoulders slumped with the weight of her emotions, she rested her forehead in her palm.

  Jerry patted her shoulder. “It’s okay,” he said in a singsong voice as if she were the patient, the one facing the devastation of life as she knew it. “Everything’s gonna be okay.”

  Amanda didn’t have the heart to tell him how very wrong he was.

  TOGETHER, GINA AND KEN WHEELED LAROSE INTO an exam room at the far end of the hall where the temperature hadn’t yet dropped into the arctic realms. Still damn cold, though. Melissa, one of the nurses, came in to help.

  They quickly cleared LaRose, ruling out any injuries from the car accident, got her on a monitor, started an IV, and began to bring down her blood pressure, which was an alarming 210/144. Then, just as Ken was on the phone arranging for a head CT, the lights went out.

  Gina couldn’t even find the energy to curse as they sat in darkness for three seconds before the emergency generator kicked in.

  “What’s wrong?” LaRose asked, clutching Gina’s hand.

  “Nothing. Just relax.”

  “Did the car accident cause that?”

  “I’ll go check,” Melissa said.

  Ken was redialing radiology, who seemed to be giving him grief about the CT. “I know you’re short-staffed for the holiday, everyone is. . . . What do you mean, the radiologist doesn’t have time to read it? He’s not even here. He works from home reading everything on his computer. . . . I don’t care. I’m coming down with my patient in ten minutes—did I mention she’s the wife of Moses Freeman, the state’s largest malpractice attorney? . . . Oh, you’ll be ready and waiting for us? Thanks, I thought so.”

  He hung up with a bang. “Never thought I’d be using your father’s name like that.”

  Gina would have laughed if LaRose hadn’t been there watching. Ken Rosen and her father Moses were the modern equivalent of mortal enemies. Moses had once sued a group of doctors that included Ken, which had meant that Ken had to stay in Pittsburgh dealing with the suit while his wife and daughter went on vacation to Disney World. Unfortunately, both of them had died in a car crash while in Orlando and Ken blamed himself for not being there—blamed Moses, too, but not as much as Gina had once she learned the truth: that Moses had known all along that Ken was innocent, and had included him in the suit only as part of a gambit to force a settlement.

/>   “It’s the least Moses can do for you,” she said. As soon as she knew for sure what was going on with LaRose, she’d call her father. She was dreading it; conversations with Moses had a way of erupting into ballistic warfare.

  LaRose began to shiver, and Gina got another blanket for her. Just as she was tucking the blanket around her mother’s model-thin frame, Melissa returned.

  “The power’s out all over the city,” she announced. “They’re closing down the ER and diverting all EMS calls. Everyone’s moving to the auditorium.”

  “Then I guess we’d better get over to radiology before they go AWOL,” Ken said. He and Melissa steered the stretcher through the door, Gina following behind.

  She really wanted to get back to Jerry, make sure he was okay, but she needed to take care of LaRose first. At least she could check to see if Janet had any news about Harris.

  “I’ll catch up,” she told Ken as she pulled her cell phone out and dialed Janet.

  This time it was the third ring before Janet picked up. “What?”

  “Just wondering what the guys in L.A. said about Harris.”

  “I’m waiting for them to get back to me. In case you haven’t noticed, we just lost power, so things are a bit nuts around here.”

  “It’s crazy here, too.”

  “I’ll call L.A. back, see if I can talk to a supervisor. Unfortunately, the DEA doesn’t really answer to me, and they won’t give me any info on one of their agents or a case without going through channels.”

  “Did you warn Lydia, just in case?”

  “I tried; she’s not answering. I can’t get anyone out to Angels until the weather clears—even our SUVs have been grounded. I’m going to keep trying, but I can’t stop Harris from asking questions. Who knows, maybe he’s got a lead on who sent the hit man and needs Lydia to help him piece things together.”

  “But what if he’s not legit? He’s got a gun, Janet.” Panic filtered into Gina’s words as she remembered the damage one man with a gun had done three weeks ago.