by Nene Adams
Chapter Nineteen
Mackenzie staggered backward, unable to tear her horrified gaze from the seven-foot long diamondback rattlesnake uncoiling from its hiding place under a chair. As if satisfied with its deed, the snake stopped rattling, slithered toward the dais and disappeared, leaving her alone in the church with a leg growing rapidly numb.
Frantic, she started for the door, growing clumsier with each step. She reached the doorway and clung to the frame, raising her gaze at a flicker of movement. Near a pair of cherry trees about a hundred yards away stood a lean figure topped by white hair. Wyland.
“Help me!” Mackenzie cried. “I’ve been bit!”
Wyland didn’t move. She felt his eyes on her—watching, judging, deciding—and then he turned around and melted into the woods.
“Son of a bitch,” Mackenzie gritted, doubting he’d gone for help.
She knew she shouldn’t move around too much, but if she wanted to live, she needed to reach her cell phone, which she’d left in the car. She managed four steps outside before her leg buckled. She collapsed on the ground.
Her gaze went to her bitten calf, the area already beginning to bloat and turn blue. The two punctures oozed blood that looked dark in the deepening gloom. The other two strikes were probably scratches, impossible to see now with the swelling.
Her arms and lips were numb. Her tongue tingled. Unable to stand on her swollen leg, she crawled over the ground, grabbing handfuls of dry grass to assist herself along. Two of her fingernails broke painfully near the quick, but those were minor sparks in the bonfire of burning pain consuming her, as if her blood had reached boiling point.
Gasping, sweating heavily, grunting out her effort and her agony, Mackenzie made her way foot by foot on sheer strength of will. The car swam in her vision, sometimes impossibly far way, at other times appearing close enough to touch.
The muscles in her face began twitching. Her saliva tasted metallic. Without warning, a flood of thick vomit poured out of her mouth. She choked and spat to clear her airway. The reek of vomit triggered another spasm. She heaved helplessly. When the retching ceased, she felt weak and light-headed. Small, shuddering spasms wracked her frame.
After crawling away from the stinking mess, Mackenzie rested her head on the grass. Maybe she’d lie here, she thought. Catch her breath. The world receded in a haze. In her peripheral vision, shadows stirred. She closed her eyes.
Just rest a while…
A sharp pain shot through her scalp. Someone had pulled her hair.
“Stop,” she mumbled.
The sadistic bastard yanked on her hair again.
“Ow!” She raised her head. Her gaze met a pair of eyes like black ice staring down at her from the top of a silver-gray column of light shining dazzling bright in the darkness.
Up, Annabel whispered.
Realization burst over her like cold water. Rattlesnake. Car. Cell phone.
Marshaling her strength, Mackenzie continued her painful belly crawl toward the Datsun. Whenever she stopped, Annabel chivvied her with pokes and pinches until she moved on. She cursed the tormenting spirit with every swear word she knew, but kept going over the grass and finally, on her hands and knees, over the pea gravel road.
Gravel dug into her palms, into her bare knees, sometimes cutting her flesh like little teeth. Spots of blood showed dark and wet against the gray dust powdering her skin.
At last, she came to the car. She stopped and leaned her forehead against the cool metal for a moment, panting and trembling. Her heart felt like a stone fist hammering against her ribs. No matter how much air she took in, it wasn’t enough.
In, Annabel ordered, the word whispered right in her ear.
Reaching up to grasp the door handle caused a bright flare of crimson to explode in her vision. Everything went black, like a television signal suddenly cutting off. A vicious pinch on the flesh of her upper arm wrung a yelp from her. Consciousness returned in a rush.
“Damn you, Annabel,” she tried to say, but her lips and tongue wouldn’t work properly. The words came out in a garbled wheeze.
Sheer stubbornness got the car door open. Her searching hand scrabbled over the part of the driver’s seat she could reach. No cell phone. She sobbed in frustration. Goddamn it! She was not going to die here. She was not going to die today.
Summoning the strength to continue from deep inside, Mackenzie reared up on her knees and grabbed hold of the steering wheel with both hands. Her uninjured leg pushed for purchase against the road as she heaved her body into the driver’s seat. Pain flared, turning her muscles to lumps of lava under her skin.
Her vision stuttered, making it hard to see even though the interior light had come on. She made a grab for the cell phone on the passenger seat and jabbed a finger in the direction of speed dial. The phone slipped from her sweaty grasp and fell next to the brake pedal. In the shadows, she saw the phone’s display glowing like an oversized firefly.
Exhausted, Mackenzie pressed her forehead on the steering wheel. From the phone on the floor, she heard Veronica’s voice, faint but distinct.
“Hey, Mac, I’m still at the scene…Mac? Hello? You there?” Veronica sounded harried. “If this is one of those pocket dialing accidents—”
Mackenzie croaked and stretched an arm down, but she couldn’t reach the phone. Her fingers scrabbled uselessly at the plastic case. She attempted a scream. Nausea squeezed her guts into a knot. She retched and retched, only distantly noting the vomit seemed awfully red.
“What’s wrong?” she heard Veronica ask. “Mac…Mackenzie, can you hear me? What’s going on? Are you okay? Answer me!”
Mackenzie slid into the waiting darkness.
She drifted in and out of consciousness, periodically waking to changing scenes like kaleidoscope views. When she slept, in strange, disturbing dreams she saw Annabel Coffin as the young woman had been in life: black hair, black eyes, fair complexion, pretty with a charming smile and a dimple in her cheek. The happy smile faltered when blood suddenly bloomed on the front of her pink skirt, the stain spreading until the fabric was saturated.
Rivulets of blood ran down Annabel’s legs while she wept. More blood welled from her hairline and gushed over her face from brow to chin. Blood dripped from her hands, clung to her saddle shoes, clotted in her hair. Blood rose in a scarlet wave and—
Mackenzie opened her eyes to find a strange bearded man looming over her. The sight of his blue EMS uniform soothed her initial panic. Her gaze traveled to the IV bag he held in his left hand. A plastic tube connected the bag to a needle in her inner elbow.
He noticed her watching him. “You’ll be fine, Ms. Cross,” he said. “Life Line just landed. They’ll be loading you in a minute for transport to Trinity General.”
Life Line. The name didn’t mean anything at first. The answer eventually surfaced from the confused tangle in her head. Emergency medical helicopter. Air ambulance.
She closed her eyes.
The next time she woke, she lay on a gurney surrounded by medical equipment. The fluorescent lights were too bright. Pain throbbed in her arms and legs, especially in her bitten leg, which lay outside the white sheet covering the rest of her body. Even the fingertip heart rate monitor’s pressure hurt.
Veronica stood beside the gurney, her posture belligerent. Some of her hair had escaped the bun at the back of her head, and hung in messy strands around her flushed face. She looked rumpled, worried and downright furious.
“Now you listen to me,” Veronica said in a low growl, surprising Mackenzie with her fierce glower. “She needs to be started on CroFab immediately. If you’d just read Russell’s book, I have a copy right here, he recommends—”
“I beg your pardon,” said the man in the white doctor’s coat, stiffening in offense. “I’m not going to listen to advice given by someone who has no medical training.”
“But—”
“The patient’s vitals are steady. The swelling hasn’t progressed. We’re monitoring
the situation and we’ll give her something for the pain if she needs it. Frankly, I won’t prescribe the antivenin treatment unless her symptoms make it necessary. I think I know more about medicine than you, Deputy.” The emphasis he put on her title made it sound like an insult. “So I’ll thank you to leave, or I’ll have to call security.”
Veronica leaned in, pushing her face close to his. “Apparently, I have more experience with rattlesnakes than you, Doctor, since I can see she’s in trouble. She needs antivenin. If she dies because you’re too arrogant to listen to common sense, I will—”
Mackenzie watched the doctor sneer. “Are you threatening me?”
“No, sir.” Veronica poked a finger at him that didn’t quite connect. Nevertheless, he flinched. In a flicker of a moment, she transformed from a woman with a personal agenda to a law enforcement officer. Her eyes glittered like winter sunlight on broken glass. “I’m informing you that due to your callous disregard for your patient’s life,” she said in her professional voice, “and your self-indulgent attitude, I’m forced to arrest you on suspicion of using or being under the influence of a controlled substance.”
“You can’t do that. You don’t have a warrant.”
“I don’t need an arrest warrant. I have probable cause. Your erratic behavior leads me to suspect that you might be abusing drugs, Dr. Ingram, possibly narcotics, making you a danger to yourself and your patients. It’s not an unknown problem. We won’t know for sure until the results of the blood test come back. That could take a while and you’ll stay in county lockup the entire time.”
“My lawyer will have me out before breakfast!”
“Your attorney may file a motion, sir, and that motion may be granted by a judge. However, if the paperwork’s been misplaced or misfiled, or if a prisoner has been transferred to a maximum security facility like Georgia State Prison in error…” Veronica shrugged. “Jail’s a very unpleasant place full of very unpleasant people, or so I’ve heard. It might take a while before you’re found, Dr. Ingram, because I’m the one who does the paperwork. No telling what might happen while you’re at the mercy of hardened felons. A pity, but the law’s the law and my duty is clear.”
Veronica’s threat was delivered in such a reasonable, conversational, almost gentle way, even Mackenzie was chilled.
Ingram stared at her. Suddenly, he backed off and fumbled his way through the curtains. Veronica watched him until he was gone, and then she turned around to look at the bed. For a second, a shadow crossed her face. Her shoulders slumped.
Mackenzie couldn’t bear to see the defeated expression. She tried to lift her head.
“Hey, Mac, you’re back with us,” Veronica said in a completely different tone of voice: part relief, part concern, part resolve. She smiled. “How do you feel?”
Mackenzie felt Veronica’s fingertips brush her arm. She flopped her hand over, palm up. Veronica took the hint and wrapped warm fingers around her wrist.
Her mouth was too dry to speak, as if she’d been eating sand. Mackenzie couldn’t answer the softly spoken question. She closed her eyes and let go, secure in the knowledge that no matter what, Veronica would be right there, guarding her back and keeping her safe.
Chapter Twenty
Mackenzie woke when someone jostled her gurney.
No, she realized, her bed in a proper hospital room, not the Emergency Room, though the medical equipment seemed similar. At least this place had a window.
Remembering the rattlesnake in the church, she did a mental assessment of her injuries. The IV site in the back of her hand itched. Careful exploration of her body led to the discovery of sensors attached to her skin. Leads fastened to the sensors trailed out from under the sheet to connect to a bedside monitor.
Further investigation showed she also had a catheter, which didn’t exactly hurt, but the weirdness and sensation of pressure down there made her uncomfortable.
She shifted, biting back a gasp when a spike of pain flared in her leg from ankle to thigh. The pain ebbed slightly, but she felt it hovering on the edges like a feral cat, all vicious teeth and red-hot claws waiting to dig into her flesh again if she moved.
Veronica, seated in a visitor’s chair next to the bed, put down the book she’d been reading and focused on her. “You’re in the ICU at Trinity General Hospital.”
Since a response seemed expected, Mackenzie nodded.
“Are you feeling any better?” Despite looking frazzled and as tired as Mackenzie felt, Veronica had never appeared more lovely or more luminous.
“Not really,” Mackenzie wanted to say. She ached everywhere, as if she’d been beaten, but her wooden tongue prevented her from making more than a rasping sound.
“Here, this should help,” Veronica said, taking a cup from the side table.
The ice chip Veronica spooned past her lips tasted like heaven. Mackenzie moaned when a shock of cold and wet filled the inside of her mouth and trickled down her throat. She moaned again, this time in disappointment, when Veronica shook her head.
“That’s all for right now, Mac.” Veronica returned the cup to the table. “You were throwing up a lot at the scene.”
Mackenzie still couldn’t speak. She tried anyway, managing to slur, “S-s-sur…” before she quit in frustration and made an impatient gesture.
Veronica scooted forward until her elbows rested on the edge of the bed. “Your leg is very swollen. The doctor in charge of your case, Dr. Cornsilk, is concerned, but he’s had experience with snakebites and agrees with Russell’s opinion. He ordered antivenin—you’re getting the second vial of CroFab now—and he’s keeping a close eye on you.”
“Good,” Mackenzie forced out. “Russ’l?” Another doctor, she supposed.
“Findlay Russell wrote Venomous Snake Poisoning.” Veronica held up the book she’d been reading so the title was visible. “He’s an expert toxicologist.”
Recalling the confrontation she’d overheard between Veronica and Ingram, Mackenzie wondered what had happened to the ER doctor. “No Ingram?”
Veronica did not look in the least embarrassed. “Ingram’s inexperienced, but snakebite’s pretty rare around here. Fortunately, Dr. Cornsilk stepped in to educate him on when it’s appropriate to administer antivenin. Ingram won’t make that mistake again.”
Her heart warmed by the memory of Veronica’s fierce protectiveness, Mackenzie mouthed, “Thank you.” Thank God Veronica had been there to act as her advocate.
“I notified your mother,” Veronica told her. “She was here earlier and promised she’d come back in the morning with breakfast, if you’re allowed to eat by then.”
Mackenzie rolled her eyes. She knew Sarah Grace loved her as only a mother could love a daughter, but Passion’s Pastime came first. “TV?”
“I’m afraid so.” Veronica patted her hand, careful to avoid the IV needle.
“How…how long?”
“How long have you been in the ICU? They brought you up here the night before last. You’ve been out about thirty-six hours or so, probably because of the morphine.”
Drugs. No wonder I feel like leftover crap, Mackenzie said to herself, briefly horrified at the thought of Veronica seeing her sans makeup, sans hairbrush, and—she sniffed, detecting a sour, bitter aroma under the medicinal smells—sans shower and deodorant.
As if reading her mind, Veronica grinned. “They say after three days camping, nobody stinks. I’m sure the same applies to hospitals.” Her gaze softened, becoming almost unbearably tender. “I’m just glad you’re alive, Mac. I was afraid—”
Veronica stopped speaking when a lean, older Native American man in a doctor’s coat entered the room. His hair hung in fine black strands to the angle of a square jaw. He glanced at Mackenzie over the top of the gold-framed glasses perched on his nose.
“Good evening, Ms. Cross. How are you feeling? Dizzy? Any numbness or tingling anywhere?” When she shook her head, he went on, “How’s your pain level?”
“Hurts,” Mackenzie
replied.
“On a scale from one to ten.”
She held up seven fingers.
Veronica clapped a hand to her mouth, her eyes comically wide. “Oh! You’ve got a morphine drip hooked into your IV line. The button’s right here. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”
Mackenzie mashed the button. After a few moments, the gnawing pain in her leg didn’t so much go away as the rest of her moved to a slight distance from it, making the pain easier to bear. The tension tightening her shoulders relaxed a notch.
Cornsilk put on a pair of disposable, blue nitrile gloves and removed the sheet covering the lower part of her body, shocking her with the sight of her bloated calf which resembled a side of beef that had hung too long and gone off. The puncture wounds were very dark, as if the skin were bruised to the bone.
Veronica didn’t seem fazed and actually craned her neck a little to get a better view of the injury. Mackenzie wasn’t squeamish, but she averted her gaze after a moment, the sight of her swollen leg making her uneasy in the pit of her stomach.
“It’s not quite as bad as it looks,” Cornsilk said, examining her leg. “Every snakebite’s different, but I’d say you received a moderate envenomation.” His touch felt cool on her heated skin. “There’s been no progression since last night. We’ll keep monitoring, but if you continue to improve and there’s no further swelling, we’ll move you out of ICU tomorrow.”
“How long?” Mackenzie asked.
Cornsilk seemed to understand the question without the need for elaboration. “Maybe three or four days,” he said, giving her a sympathetic look. “We’ll see how you do after we administer another vial of CroFab and do some blood work. Lucky for you, we could get antivenin doses delivered from Atlanta. Now you seem to be coming along quite well, but until further notice, I still want you to hold off on food or liquids. Nothing, understand?”
Mackenzie glared.
“Yes, I know your mouth is dry, but we’re keeping you hydrated with the IV.” Cornsilk removed his gloves. Behind the lenses of his glasses, his dark brown eyes were kind. “We’ll revisit the idea of eating and drinking if the swelling continues to go down.”