The Edge of Death: (Sequel to ADRENALINE)

by John Benedict

  “Huh?”

  “Heather. I saw you talking to her.”

  “I was just asking her about her patient—you know, the Mueller special in thirty-seven.”

  “I saw the way you were staring at her.” Kristin pushed off the rail and walked over to stand beside him.

  “Come on,” Chip drawled, forcing out a laugh even as he felt his face heat. He turned back to his monitors and pointed at the red star. “What do you think of that guy? Think he’ll make it?”

  “Don’t try to change the subject, Allison. I mean, I can’t blame you—she is hot. But she’s kinda out of your league, don’t you think?”

  Chip glanced back at her. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, she’s got her sights set on Doctor Donahue. You know, cardiology fellow, MD after his name.”

  “Don’t remind me.”

  “Have you seen him, by the way?”

  “Oh no, you too?” Chip shook his head. “And to think I gotta take this abuse on my birthday.”

  “I need to ask him about a portable chest x-ray.”

  “Right. He’s in the call room.”

  “Life sucks, huh?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Look on the bright side. I hear she’s a royal bitch.” With that, Kristin pirouetted and walked away, leaving him to digest her words of wisdom.

  C H A P T E R 6

  Wednesday, 9:30 p.m.

  “Finally, he’s asleep,” Doug Landry said as he walked into the family room. “I had to read him three books.”

  “I wondered what was taking so long,” Laura said, smiling. She was seated on the couch, dividing her attention between her laptop and the TV. “Anthony loves when you read to him.”

  “We finished with Two Bad Ants—I like that one,” Doug said.

  “Yeah, me too.”

  “Teddy is still up, working on his English paper.”

  “He knows not to stay up past ten-thirty, right?”

  “I told him,” Doug said. “Do you want anything while I’m up?”

  “No, I’m good.” Laura threw a finger up before adding, “Actually, could you bring me an iced tea?”

  “Sure.”

  Doug fetched an iced tea from the fridge before mixing a vodka tonic for himself, heavy on the Grey Goose. He balanced both drinks and his notebook as he returned to the family room.

  Laura folded up her laptop and patted the seat next to her. “So, you all ready for tomorrow?” she asked.

  “Yep. I have my slides all set.” Doug handed her the tea and set his own drink down on the end table before settling next to her. “The lecture starts at nine, but I want to show up early to make sure everything works. It’ll still seem like sleeping in, compared to going in to Mercy.”

  “What’s your talk about?”

  “Airway management in off-site locations,” he said as he opened his notebook. He caught Laura’s blank look. “You know, in places outside of the typical OR setting. Like the ER or CT scanner or MRI suite. I’m talking to some med students, respiratory therapists and x-ray techs.”

  “Oh. Okay.” She gently patted his knee. “I think this whole thing is a good idea, Doug.”

  “Yeah, me too. I’m looking forward to a break from Mercy.”

  “You deserve it.” She popped the tab and took a drink from her iced tea. “Hmmm, Professor Landry—it has a nice ring to it. Do you ever think of going to the med center to work full time? You’d be good at it.”

  “No. A six month sabbatical will be just what I need.” He sipped his own drink, savoring the bitter taste of the alcohol.

  Laura fiddled with putting her laptop away in its leather bag. “Maybe you’ll sleep better, too.”

  “Right.” He looked away.

  She studied him. “Mike was a good friend. Grief is a slow business.”

  “Laura, he’s been dead for over three years. How long does it take?” The ice clinked against the glass as he gulped a mouthful of vodka.

  She set the computer bag down on the floor and grasped his hand. “Things will get better, Doug. I know they will.”

  “I’ll be okay.”

  “Maybe you can try to make new friends; join a club or something.”

  He nodded. “Yeah, I will.”

  They sat for a while, not saying anything, listening to the TV. Laura was watching a Dateline special about teens and alcohol. Doug finished off his drink.

  During a commercial break, Doug spoke up, forcing himself to sound more upbeat. “We can go for some bike rides, now that I’ll have more free time.”

  “That’d be nice.” She smiled and squeezed his thigh. “Maybe more time for ourselves, too.”

  “Sure.” Doug closed his notebook and set it on the floor. He leaned over and nestled his head in her lap, looking up at her. “Do you mind?”

  “No, not at all.” She repositioned herself on the couch and began to stroke his hair. They sat that way for about twenty minutes, then Doug rose and retrieved his empty glass from the end table.

  “Heading up?” she asked.

  “Yeah.”

  She eyed the empty tumbler in his hand, worry clouding her features. “Didn’t you have wine with dinner?”

  “Yes.”

  She frowned.

  “It helps me sleep, Laura.”

  “I know. It’s just—I don’t think it’s the best example for the boys. Teddy will be driving next year and—”

  “All right,” he said, holding up a hand. “I get the message.” He crossed to the stairs. “Night.”

  “Night,” she replied.

  “Love you.”

  “Love you, too,” she said, but the worried look had not left her face.

  Doug felt the familiar fear gnawing at him as he trudged up the stairs to the bedroom. Not good—tomorrow was a big day and he needed to sleep. His backpack was in the bedroom, where he’d left it. He pulled a small bottle of pills from an inner zippered pocket—his little secret, he thought as he swallowed one quickly. But he suffered the usual tangle of thoughts: sleeping pills on top of alcohol—you didn’t need a medical degree to know that was a bad idea. Dangerous, even. Just ask Whitney Houston.

  No, no, he was the expert in these matters—no dosage regimen too complex. Ironic, that one who spent his life putting others to sleep would have trouble putting himself to sleep. And strange, he had to admit, for the “Iceman” to be scared of something so intangible as sleep. Doug climbed into bed and tried hard to ignore the twinge of guilt he also felt; Laura definitely wouldn’t approve of the pills, and she’d be right, as usual.

  He wondered if Mike Carlucci, his former best friend and colleague, deceased three years now, had tried sleeping pills before getting hooked on drugs. And speaking of guilt, this always brought the same nagging questions to mind: Would Mike be alive today, if Doug had turned him in for his drug use, as Laura had told him to do? How had he missed the warning signs? Did it have anything to do with his preoccupation with a certain SICU nurse named Jenny Stuart? He welcomed the sensation as the sleeping pill took hold, pulling him down into oblivion.

  Doug woke with a start, his heart pounding. Another damn nightmare. But it wasn’t of the variety that had pockmarked his sleep for the last couple of years. There was no Mike getting pulled from the twisted wreck of his Suburban after the fiery crash on the interstate. Or the other deaths that had taken place at Our Lady of Mercy Hospital three years ago, when all the bad shit had gone down.

  He sensed this nightmare was different, but the details had flown out of his brain so quickly, he’d been unable to snare them with his conscious mind. Something to do with Laura . . . Its very vagueness left him feeling unsettled, gripping his heart with a deep sense of foreboding.

  C H A P T E R 7

  Wednesday, 10:30 p.m.

  The alarm beeped shrilly and Heather Lindstrom glanced up from her magazine at the big flat-screen monitor suspended over her patient’s bed. His blood pressure was drifting downward, triggering the alarm. BP fr
om the arterial line trace read out as 85/63, a little below what it had been ten minutes ago. Damn! she thought. So that was how it was going to be. She hadn’t been on the shift an hour and alarms were already going off. She sighed. Looked like it was going to be a busy night.

  She reminded herself that nights in the ICU were like that—unpredictable. Sometimes slow as a graveyard; other times, complete mayhem. And she knew she thrived on the action in the ICU and, of course, working side by side with the residents. But tonight, she really wasn’t into it. Maybe it was the late night last night . . . or too many mojitos.

  Besides, she had other matters to attend to—like continuing her pursuit of Rich Donahue, senior cardiology fellow. Getting his full attention last night at the bar was the reason for those mojitos, and she’d been successful, but she needed to keep the pressure up—not give him a chance of wriggling off the hook. She was determined to reel this bad boy in.

  Rich was definitely a looker, but Heather wouldn’t deny that his financial future—he was less than a year or so from the big bucks—had something to do with the allure. Okay, maybe a lot. Rich had just agreed to meet her again tonight, this time at her apartment, where she would seal the deal. Heather smiled. Poor Richard doesn’t stand a chance.

  She jumped as the intercom came to life. “Heather, do you see the change in his complex?”

  Her head snapped back up to the monitor. Shit! Could those freakin’ QRS complexes get any wider? She looked out the doorway and saw the monitor tech, Chip or Chuck or whatever his name was, staring at her while pointing at his screen.

  “Yes, of course I do,” she said, not bothering to camouflage her annoyance. Although vaguely flattered that this guy was hitting on her, she certainly didn’t need any more distractions or interference from him; he was always gawking at her. She recognized that was the price for being gorgeous, and even though he was cute in a nerdy sort of way, he had loser written all over him. Who flunks out of med school, anyway? Once a loser, always a loser.

  Which brought her around full circle to her patient tonight. Why did she have to get stuck with this patient? She knew why, and it kinda burned her up. Her coworkers, her supervisor Bonnie in particular, had purposely dumped this one on her. She knew they didn’t like her. Well, okay, hate was probably a better word. They were always jealous of her “luck” with the cute male residents. Could she help it if she was beautiful and had a killer bod, to boot? She did work out, after all, six or seven times a week at the University Fitness Center. And she was actually careful about her diet. Some of these lazy bitches—her esteemed coworkers—didn’t bother. Hard to score with the McDreamys, if your butt was the size of Texas.

  Heather cursed under her breath, set her magazine down and got out of her chair. She leaned over and inspected the art-line insertion site in her patient’s wrist. No kinks or air bubbles in the tubing. She checked the waveform to make sure it wasn’t dampened for some reason. It looked nice and crisp. Guess the lower pressure’s for real. She silenced the squawking monitor and reset the BP alarm parameters.

  Normally, Heather might have been more concerned about her patient’s falling blood pressure or change in cardiac rhythm. But tonight, she knew her patient was terminal. In report, they said he might not make it through the shift. So a dwindling BP was not unusual—in fact, it was to be expected. He was a no-code anyway, so they wouldn’t even try to resuscitate him. Still, she didn’t want him dying on her watch—that never looked good.

  Heather quickly reviewed her orders for her patient, trying to find some options to improve his blood pressure. She knew he was on a propofol drip to sedate him and she had standing orders to add Zemuron, a muscle relaxant, if he began fighting the ventilator. The propofol was already set low, because the guy didn’t have much cardiac reserve and his liver and kidneys were shot as well. She decided to decrease the propofol even further, in an effort to boost her patient’s BP. If he got too light and started to buck the vent, she would paralyze his ass.

  She keyed in the appropriate changes on the IVAC pump. There, that should do it. She moved back and sat down and resumed reading about the latest, behind the scenes bickering of the judges on American Idol.

  C H A P T E R 8

  Wednesday, 10:45 p.m.

  Chandler smiled to himself. She has no clue. When his nurse had adjusted his propofol drip, he had gotten a whiff of her perfume. Very nice. He also had gotten a clear glimpse into her mind. Heather Lindstrom believed he was terminal and that the propofol was lowering his blood pressure. Neither was true. His vital organs—heart, kidneys, and liver—were now better than fifty percent functional and improving hourly. His BP was falling as a direct response to him vasodilating his arterial system and decreasing his heart’s contractility and rate. A simple ruse. He had to be careful not to buck on the tube or she would “paralyze his ass,” a complication he didn’t care for at the moment.

  Chandler next increased his liver blood flow three hundred percent, mindful of shunting blood away from the more damaged, less functional areas, to aid in metabolizing the propofol. That would allow him to act and think more clearly. He then increased the blood flow to his right arm musculature by five hundred percent and prepared his adrenals to release epinephrine. Not yet, or she would see his BP and pulse skyrocket. Timing was critical. He just needed to get her close to him one more time. He flexed his wrist slightly to kink the art-line catheter, creating an artifact in the trace.

  He smiled again as the alarm sounded.

  C H A P T E R 9

  Wednesday, 10:45 p.m.

  “Hey Allison,” Kristin said, giggling, “I have something for you.” She pulled her arm from behind her back, presenting a Snickers bar on a small paper plate. There was a match clumsily taped to one side of the candy bar. “Happy birthday.” She set the makeshift birthday cake on the countertop in front of him, her grin stretching wide.

  “Wow, that’s a surprise,” Chip said.

  “You said it was your birthday and I felt kind of sorry for you, working and all.” She lit the match and several other ICU nurses materialized, although Heather was a no-show. Chip glanced over and saw her in Room 237, sitting in her chair, reading her magazine.

  The nurses sang a butchered version of “Happy Birthday” and he felt his throat tighten with emotion.

  “Make a wish,” Kristin said, obviously enjoying herself. She pulled out a fancy camera and aimed it at him.

  “Okay, got one,” Chip said and blew out the match just as the bright flash of Kristin’s camera lit up the room.

  “Will you take one with my cell phone, too?” he asked. “You know—for Facebook.”

  “Sure.” Kristin snapped one with his phone.

  The small group quickly dispersed, leaving him alone with Kristin.

  “Thanks,” he said. “You didn’t have to do that.”

  “It was fun,” she said.

  “A little embarrassing, too.” He unwrapped one end of the Snickers bar.

  “Sorry about that,” she replied. “You can get me back—my birthday’s coming up in a couple of weeks.”

  He smiled at her. “I’ll remember that.”

  “So, what’d you wish for?”

  “You don’t want to know,” Chip said, looking down.

  “I’m sure I can guess,” she said, her tone souring. “Hey, listen—if it makes you feel any better, Heather lent me the pack of matches for your birthday cake.”

  “Right. I feel much better.”

  An awkward silence followed while Kristin fiddled with her camera and Chip took a bite of the candy bar.

  “Nice camera,” he said. “What kind is it?”

  “A Nikon. My dad got it for me for my birthday last year.”

  “Sweet. How many megapixels is it?”

  “None,” she said proudly. “It takes 35 millimeter film.”

  “You don’t say,” he said, genuinely surprised. “I have an old Minolta X-700 that uses film, too. I take pictures through my telescope.”
He didn’t bother to add that his telescope was collecting dust in his closet and hadn’t seen any use in over a year.

  “Cool. Like wildlife or birds?”

  “No. The stars and planets. Sometimes even comets.”

  “That’s really cool,” she said.

  “Do you want a piece?” He offered her the Snickers.

  “No thanks.”

  “What do you take pictures of?”

  “Lots of stuff,” she said, looking away.

  “That’s helpful. No, really—I’m curious.”

  Kristin’s cheeks flushed. “You’ll think I’m strange.”

  “Well, no real danger there.” Chip softened that with a smile.

  “Ha-ha,” she retorted.

  “No, seriously, what do you shoot?”

  “My plants,” she said matter-of-factly.

  “What?”

  “You heard me. My plants.” Kristin turned to leave and her ponytail swished through a wide arc. “I told you you wouldn’t understand,” she said over her shoulder.

  “Wait. You mean like macros of flowers?”

  “No.” She paused, apparently weighing a decision. She turned to face him, took a step closer, and asked, “Have you ever heard of Kirlian photography?”

  Chip searched his memory. “You mean like ghosts? You take pictures of ghosts?”

  “No.”

  “What, then?”

  “All right, Allison—”

  “Call me Chip.”

  “All right, Chip, you asked for it.” Up close, he noticed what a pretty shade of light blue her eyes were and how they lit up as she spoke. “Every living creature gives off a life force that is visible as an aura on film, with special techniques.”

  “Even plants?” he asked.

  “Yep. And I can tell how my plants are feeling from their auras.”

  “Feeling?” Uh-oh, Chip thought. Major Earthgirl alert.

  “Happy. Content. Angry. Sad. Whatever.”

  “That is different.”