Vital Signs

by Bobby Hutchinson

  “Okay, Marty, I’ll get on this right away.”

  “Thanks, Roy.” Marty added with gallows humor, “Have a good evening.”

  Roy glanced at his watch. Jennifer had said the birthday dinner was at seven-thirty. If he got out of here in five minutes, and if Nicole was ready when he got to her place—a big if, since his sister wasn’t often on time—he could just about manage a quick stop at St. Joe’s to see the boy. It was on the way to Jennifer’s house, anyway, he rationalized.

  Well, almost. Ten minutes out of the way, give or take.

  He shrugged into his jacket, ran a brush through his hair—he was two weeks past a date with his barber—and was out the door with a minute to spare.

  Things seemed to be going well for a change, because there was a parking spot right in front of Nicole’s condo. Roy swung his aging blue Toyota into it and sprinted to the entrance. He punched in her code number and waited impatiently until she buzzed the door open.

  Nicole was standing at the door to her condo. She tipped her lovely face up so he could kiss her cheek.

  “Hey, handsome, love your suit. Is it new?”

  “Vintage. Just had it dry-cleaned. Those guys do wonders.” It was an old joke. She’d seen the suit many times before. Nicole was a clothes freak, and she liked to tease him about his total lack of interest in his wardrobe.

  “You look as gorgeous as ever,” he complimented her. He studied her and hazarded a pretty safe guess. “New dress?”

  She nodded. “First time out. I’m testing it on you guys and then I’m going to wear it when that hunk of an airline pilot takes me to dinner on Saturday. Think it’s too dressy for a family birthday party?”

  “Not at all. It’s a good color on you.”

  Nicole burst into giggles. “Roy, its black, you idiot.”

  “So?” He feigned hurt. “It’s still a good color on you. But then, any color would be a good color on you.”

  It was the truth. His sister was stunning. At five-eleven, she was just three inches shorter than he was, with long, straight, gleaming blond hair. She had the slender figure of a fashion model and a mind like a high-speed computer, and under that golden tan were the muscles of an Amazon. Tonight she was wearing spiky heels, so they were nearly eye to eye.

  Nicole was warm and funny and vulnerable. Out of three sisters and two brothers, she was his favorite sibling, a go-for-the-jugular divorce lawyer who dreamed of being a landscape architect. She fantasized about living in a cottage on acres of land where she could grow tomatoes and babies, but for convenience’ sake she lived in a condo with a postage stamp for a yard.

  Single, as he was. Searching, which he assured himself he wasn’t.

  She reached up and smoothed his hair back. “You could use a haircut, or are you going for that killer ponytail look? Crooked nose, dimple in your chin—you might just get away with it.”

  He scowled at her. “It’s not a dimple, it’s a cleft. And I plan to get a haircut. In fact, I’m thinking of a brush cut.”

  “I’ll get Mom and the sisters to vote tonight on whether or not you should. My money’s on the ponytail.”

  “I won’t be around to hear the results. I’m gonna have to cut the evening short, Nicky. I got a call from work just as I was leaving. Can’t stay for dinner.”

  “Just as well for the rest of us. Jen’s making Italian—the cake’s gonna be that cream-and-chocolate masterpiece. What’s the emergency?”

  “An abandoned baby at St. Joe’s. I need to meet the little guy and talk to the doctor. You mind if we stop on our way?”

  “Not at all. The family knows my car’s in for repairs, so it’s your head that rolls if we’re late.”

  “That’s what I love about you, Nicky. You’re clear that it’s every man for himself.”

  “It comes from growing up in a house where there was one bathroom and seven bladders.”

  “That’s something I’m not sorry I missed out on.” Roy had reunited with his birth family when he was seventeen. His adoptive parents had had two bathrooms and one kid.

  He handed her into the car, then took the slight detour that would lead them to St. Joe’s.

  “Did you hear Dana’s pregnant again?”

  “Nobody tells me stuff like that. This’ll make, what, four for her?”

  “Five.” She shook her head and clucked her tongue. “Without me to remind you, you’d never remember how many nieces and nephews you’ve got.”

  “It keeps changing all the time.”

  “Lucky Dana.” Nicole’s soft brown eyes were wistful. “What did you get her for her birthday?”

  “A Swatch watch. I asked Greg what she might like and that’s what he said.”

  “I guess she’ll need it to time her contractions. I played it safe and got her soap and bubble bath. You can’t go wrong with that. She told me the kids used the last of her stash to make potions in the bathtub. They’re deep into wizardry. Harry Potter has created a whole new market for bubble bath.”

  He laughed. “They’re good kids. And Dana and Greg are great parents.” It was reassuring to know there were people who took care of their kids. He saw so many of the other kind.

  “What’s with the baby at St. Joe’s?”

  “Two-year-old David Riggs, found abandoned a few days ago in a downtown apartment.”

  “I think I saw a small article about him in the paper, but it didn’t give his name or anything.” Nicole frowned. “How could a mother leave a little kid alone for three days?”

  It was more a sad statement than a question. Nicole heard too many horror stories to be surprised by much.

  “She’s seventeen. She’ll probably insist she didn’t plan to be away more than a few minutes.” He’d heard it so many times before. “David’s now in the care of the ministry, so she’s gonna have to jump through hoops to get him back.”

  Unless some idiot judge decides otherwise. Four-year-old Scotty Sieberg had begged to stay with his foster family, and Roy had petitioned the court to leave him there. But Scotty had been handed back to his birth mother. And her boyfriend had shaken the little boy for not picking up his toys, and Scotty had died.

  Rage boiled in Roy as he pulled into the lot beside the medical center. He knew he had to shove the Sieberg case into a mental file drawer marked Don’t go there unless you have to.

  “Mind if I come in with you?” Nicole asked.

  “Well, I was really planning to leave you out here sweltering in the car,” he teased. “But maybe you can come, as long as you cling to me and do that swivel-hip thing you babes do in heels. Nobody here knows that you’re my sister, and it’ll get me a whole lot of respect from the male members of the staff.”

  “And here I thought it was the females you wanted to impress. Is there something sensitive and personal you want to tell me, big brother?”

  “Only that I need help fighting off the hordes of rabid women after my body.”

  “In your dreams.”

  The pediatrics ward was behind a locked door on the fourth floor. Roy presented ID, and the security guard let them in. There was no one at the nurses’ station, but they could hear children’s excited voices and loud laughter erupting from the playroom at the end of the corridor, so Roy headed that way.

  “Sounds like a party,” Nicole remarked. “We’ve come to the right place.”

  On the floor of the playroom, a group of children sat around a young woman with short, fiery-red curls. Huge, gray rabbit ears were secured to her head by a yellow ribbon. She was wearing a pink T-shirt patterned with garish sunflowers over a pair of green uniform pants, and she was sitting cross-legged, her head bent over a book she was reading aloud.

  On the floor beside her, a live rabbit in a wire cage munched on a lettuce leaf, a bored expression on his face. The room was overly warm, and there was a pungent odor of children, antiseptic, urine and rabbit turds.

  There was also the ripple of children’s laughter, and Roy smiled with pleasure and surprise. A
hospital wasn’t usually a place where kids enjoyed themselves, and it delighted him to hear them having fun.

  The sound of laughter died as one after another of the kids caught sight of Roy and Nicole. The woman stopped reading and turned toward them.

  “Hi,” she said in a voice that was husky and filled with what musicians called blue notes. “I’m Hailey Bergstrom. What can I do for you?”

  She was no beauty. Her nose was long and thin, her mouth too wide in a decidedly square face. Roy noticed those things, but he also noticed that she had unusual eyes, large, tilted, widely spaced. They were a peculiar color, like dark honey.

  She made no move to get up. The tag pinned to her chest said she was an RN.

  “I’m Roy Zedyck, David Riggs’s social worker. This is Nicole Hepburn.”

  “Hi, Roy. Hello, Nicole.” She gave Roy a questioning look. “How can I help you?”

  “I wondered if I could see David, and also whether Dr. Larue is around? I’d like to speak to him.”

  She turned to the kids. “Sorry, you guys, I’ve gotta go.” She rose to her feet, rabbit ears flopping, and the kids sent up a protesting howl. She held out the book to an emaciated girl in a pink tracksuit. The child was bald, and her eyes had immense brown circles under them.

  “Brittany, you finish the story, please.”

  “Noooo, nooooo, we want you, Hailey, pleeeeeze,” the kids chorused.

  “Brittany can read every bit as well as I can. Stop the noise or Skippy will freak out and have heart palpitations, and we’d have to call Doc Benson.”

  Her voice dropped to a whisper. “And you know how grumpy Doc Benson can be.” She pretended to shudder and then stood tall and held her hand to her forehead in a salute. “When duty calls I must obey, or I will live to rue the day.”

  Roy noted that she was very tall in her flat sandals, probably five-eleven like Nicole.

  “C’mon, David’s in 4B.”

  Brittany’s clear, high voice followed them down the corridor.

  Roy figured that Hailey Bergstrom was oblivious to the fact that she had a huge, furry bunny tail pinned to the seat of her uniform pants. It swished as she walked, emphasizing narrow hips. She was thin rather than slender, with long arms and legs, but there was a vibrancy about her that was almost palpable. She seemed to give off sparks. He wondered idly whether getting too close to her might result in an electric shock.

  “David just came up from intensive care this morning. He’s my patient. I thought his case worker’s name was Larissa Mott.”

  So she’d done her homework, Roy thought. Good for her.

  “Larissa’s father died, and she’s off on bereavement leave. David’s got me now.”

  She nodded and narrowed her eyes at him. “Any sign of his mother yet?”

  Roy shook his head. “Police are watching out for her, but so far no luck. How’s he doing?”

  “He’s a pretty sick little guy. His electrolytes are all out of whack and he won’t drink yet. We’ve got him on IV. There’s been a lot of phone calls about him. People saw the article in the Province.”

  “I’m sure Larissa already covered this, but I’ll be leaving written orders of my own that David not be released to anyone, and if anyone tries, I’m to be notified immediately.”

  Hailey nodded and opened the door to a two-bed ward. One of the cribs was empty, but in the other a tiny figure wearing a blue pajama top and a diaper lay sprawled on his back, deeply asleep, his curls dark against the white pillow. A stuffed dog, filthy and much the worse for wear, was clutched to his face, and an IV tube was attached to his foot with strips of tape. There were deep, dark circles under his eyes.

  Roy looked down at the sleeping child and his heart contracted. Children were fragile and precious, their lives dependent on the adults whose job it was to care for them. This one had been betrayed, and it tore at his gut. It always did. The discouraging thing was that it happened all too often in big cities like this one.

  “Were there other visible signs of abuse?” Roy knew he’d get the report, but he wanted to know now.

  Hailey held up a cautioning hand, frowned and shook her head at him. “We can discuss that outside the room.”

  “He’s so sweet, so very small.” Nicole’s voice was husky, and when he looked at her, Roy saw tears shimmering in her eyes. Her gaze was on the baby. “He can’t even tell anybody what hurts. That must be awful.”

  “You’re gonna talk a blue streak when you wake up, though, aren’t you, David?” Hailey leaned over the crib and in a crooning voice added, “You’re such a beautiful, smart boy. We’re gonna be great friends, aren’t we, little one?” Her hand lightly touched the boy’s curls, one finger stroking his cheek. She checked the IV drip and carefully covered his legs with a blanket.

  The boy turned his head restlessly to the other side and slept on, and Hailey led the way into the hall, her rabbit ears flopping around her neck.

  “No matter how little they are, no matter how deeply asleep or unconscious, they hear us talking, and even the smallest ones pick up on what we’re saying,” she said to Roy in a ferocious tone. “He was seriously dehydrated when he came in, he arrested down in the ER, he’s gaining a little ground, but he’s still really sick.” Her tone turned sarcastic. “And in answer to your question, other than being alone for three days without anything to eat or drink, he doesn’t seem to have been abused. He’s well nourished, no bruising or old scars, no broken bones. Real fortunate little guy, wouldn’t you say?”

  Roy felt like an idiot. “I’m sorry, Hailey, that was stupid of me. I should have known better than to talk in front of him.” He was embarrassed, but he also couldn’t believe he was being lectured by a woman wearing rabbit ears and a tail.

  “Does he have anything of his own, any toys or clothes?” Nicole asked. She was still looking through the glass door at the small figure in the crib.

  “The stuffed dog he’s clutching is all that came in with him. It’s his security blanket. It needs a wash, but there’s no way I’m taking it from him right now.”

  “Maybe I can bring him some things?”

  Hailey smiled at Nicole. “That’s sweet of you, but don’t go overboard. Stuff gets shared in here, and it also gets lost. But it is nice for the kids to have something that belongs just to them.”

  “I need to use a phone.” Roy had to contact the police and the firemen who’d found David.

  “There’s one at the nurses’ station.”

  “Thanks. I’ll use it on our way out.”

  “How on earth do you stand it?” Nicole was looking at Hailey, and there was awe and admiration in her voice. “I’d want to kidnap a baby like that and spoil the living daylights out of him.”

  “All we can do is love ’em and let ’em go,” Hailey said with a resigned shrug. “Nursing is care, not cure.” She turned her attention to Roy. “And having said that, do you know anything at all about this so-called mother of his?”

  Roy shook his head. “Sorry, that information’s confidential.”

  “Figures. Protect the criminal at all costs,” Hailey said scornfully, giving him another of her scathing glances. “Makes you wonder what was going on in her head, walking out and leaving him like that.”

  “He’s lucky to have you as his nurse,” Nicole said. “They all are. You’re obviously just what these kids need.”

  “Hey, thanks.” Hailey’s resentment seemed to evaporate. Her grin was spontaneous and wide, her face animated. She had straight, white teeth, and her amber eyes sparkled. “It’s so good to hear that on the day you’re wearing a bunny costume at work.” She glanced at her wristwatch. “Whoops, speaking of work, I’ve gotta go. It’s time for meds.” She turned to Roy. “Dr. Larue is on his dinner break. He’ll be here later this evening if you want to speak with him. Or the aide can give you his cell number.” She waved a hand at Roy and Nicole and hurried off toward the nurses’ station, tail swishing with gay abandon.

  Nicole watched her go. “N
ow there’s an unusual woman for you.”

  “Vicious is more like it.” The looks she’d given him were lethal. He wouldn’t want her armed with a hypodermic.

  “She’s not vicious, she’s gutsy.” Nicole looped an arm through Roy’s, and they hurried toward the nurses’ desk. “Balls enough to tell you off and enough perspective to accept the parameters of her job. It’s evident she really likes being a nurse.”

  “Nurses, lawyers—power. It’s all about power with you females.”

  But he silently agreed with Nicole. Hailey Bergstrom was an example of someone who’d obviously found the perfect job, and it suited her, even the part that included wearing rabbit ears and a tail.

  Or cutting him into chunks and spitting out the pieces.

  CHAPTER TWO

  FROM THE NURSES’ STATION Hailey watched them go down the corridor, Zedyck’s arm looped around the woman’s shoulders.

  They could have posed for a magazine ad, she mused. They made a striking couple, both tall, both blessed with an abundance of physical beauty.

  Nicole was a stunner, but based on one short meeting, she also seemed to be a truly nice person, lacking the self-centered attitude that sometimes went with such good looks.

  Hailey’s mind naturally turned to her older sister, Laura. Laura was drop-dead gorgeous, too, but in Hailey’s opinion, Laura was about as self-centered as it was possible to get. She’d carved out a perfect life, by her standards, and wasn’t the least bit interested in other people’s choices. She’d married Frank, a creep with the same sort of good looks she possessed, produced two perfect kids and decorated a house in the suburbs with a lot of help from Martha Stewart’s magazines.

  Hailey wouldn’t know Martha Stewart if the woman had a stroke in her living room, which was probable if she ever laid eyes on it.

  How different could two sisters be?

  And it was interesting how beautiful women gravitated to men whose looks complemented their own.

  Roy Zedyck was as dark as Nicole was fair, and in spite of his mental lapses, he was good to look at, if your taste ran to crooked noses and grass-green eyes and jawlines out of an old western. Good hair, too. She liked it wavy and covering a guy’s shirt collar, the way his did.