by Jude Hardin
“Who the hell are you?” Trey said.
“My name’s Lisa. I brought your pain medication.”
“Where’s Jason? I thought he was supposed to be my nurse.”
“He’s busy with another patient. If you’d rather wait—”
“Just give it to me,” Trey said.
Lisa uncapped the syringe and delivered the medication through Trey’s IV line.
“There,” she said. “Jason will be in to check on you in a few minutes.”
“Whatever. My sister’s coming here to stay the night. I need someone to bring a cot in here for her to sleep on.”
“I’ll let Housekeeping know.”
Lisa turned and walked away.
By the time Final Jeopardy came on, Trey wasn’t feeling very well. He wasn’t feeling very well at all. He started sweating profusely, and he couldn’t even remember his own name. Something in that medication she gave him…
He tried to push the call button, but he couldn’t move his arms.
In fact, he couldn’t move anything. Not even his eyelids.
He tried to shout, but his vocal cords were as useless as the rest of his body. Trey Remington was going to die, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.
A shroud of darkness engulfed him, and his final thought was that the hospital is a very dangerous place to be.
And that the cute little blonde was a very bad nurse.
Jason
Saturday Night, Hallows Cove
Mr. Remington’s room was a mess, in the same way all hospital rooms are a mess after a code. Wrappers from syringes and needles and respiratory supplies and defibrillator pads littered the floor as though a hurricane had blown through. Surgical gloves soiled with blood and sputum and vomit were draped over the overflowing trash can, evidence of the heroic efforts of the team, but as sad and lifeless now as the body lying in the bed.
Mr. Remington didn’t make it.
For Jason Powers, the registered nurse assigned to room 603 at the beginning of the shift, this was the second code blue in less than a week. In fact, the second one in as many shifts. Codes were always stressful, especially when the patient died. Two in a row? Practically unbearable.
It was times like this that made Jason think about changing professions. Plumbers and truck drivers and HVAC technicians made pretty good money, and they didn’t have to deal with pain and suffering and death on a daily basis.
And they didn’t have to deal with Mona Walsh.
“What the hell happened?” Mona said.
She stood there with her arms folded over her chest as Jason gathered the long ribbon of EKG paper curled in front of the crash cart. Mona was in charge of the unit, and she’d been in charge Thursday when Jason’s other patient had stopped breathing. Fortunately, Ms. Elsie Shaw was doing okay down in the intensive care unit now. She was still on a ventilator, but she was doing okay.
“I don’t know what happened,” Jason said. “I talked to him at the beginning of the shift. He was fine. His vitals were great. He called for some pain medicine, and I walked in to give it to him, and that’s when I found him unresponsive.”
“What did he have ordered for pain?”
“Morphine, two milligrams IV.”
“And you never gave it to him?”
Jason reached into his lab coat pocket and produced a syringe filled with clear liquid. He held it up so Mona could see it, and then he tossed it into the sharps container mounted on the side of the crash cart.
“You’re my witness that I wasted it,” he said.
Jason was trying hard to project a calm, detached, professional demeanor as he spoke with Mona, but somewhere deep inside there were a million microscopic piranhas gnawing away at his nervous system. You can’t watch a perfectly viable patient like Trey Remington abruptly circle the drain without being affected by it. You just can’t.
A call came over the intercom. Mona’s presence was being requested at the nurses’ station.
“Get the room and the patient cleaned up,” she said, shaking her head and walking toward the door. “I’ll need to talk to you more about this before the shift is over.”
“No problem,” Jason said.
He looked at his watch. 9:37.
The shift wouldn’t be over for a long, long time.
He grabbed the trash can, pulled the bulging liner out and tied a knot in it and replaced it with a clean one. He started picking up all the little pieces of debris from the floor, the wrappers and needle caps and squares of gauze that he and the emergency room doctor and the other members of the code team had hurriedly flung in the air as they worked to save Mr. Remington’s life.
Sixty-two years old, Jason thought. Trey Remington had been relatively young for a patient admitted to the telemetry unit, and relatively healthy. He’d been scheduled for a laparoscopic cholecystectomy in the morning, a fairly routine surgical procedure where the gallbladder was removed by guiding a camera and the necessary cutting and clamping instruments into the abdominal cavity through a small incision. Piece of cake, really. Remington’s serial blood work had ruled out any sort of cardiac event, and his twelve-lead EKG had shown a normal sinus rhythm. There was no reason this man should have died.
Yet there he was, pale and cold, one eye closed and the other fixed on the ceiling.
“Hey!”
The intercom again. Jason nearly pissed his pants.
“What is it, Lisa?” he said.
He recognized the voice. Lisa Webber knew he was in the room alone with a corpse, and she’d purposely tried to startle him. That kind of black humor wasn’t unusual among nurses, but Jason wasn’t in the mood for it. Not tonight.
“You need to come to the nurses’ station,” Lisa said. “There’s someone here who wants to talk to you.”
“All right. I’ll be right there.”
“Better hurry,” she said, slipping into that annoying sing-song voice of hers. Jason wasn’t in the mood for that either.
He set the trash can down and walked out of the room, closing the door behind him. When he got to the nurses’ station, he saw a woman standing at the counter in front of the unit clerk’s desk. Mid-fifties, attractive, nice hair and makeup, designer shoes fresh out of the box. She was holding a small red suitcase, which also appeared to be new and expensive.
She had a worried look on her face, and Jason was pretty sure this horrible night was about to get even worse.
He walked up to her and said, “May I help you, ma’am?”
“My name’s Chloe Hampton. I’m Trey Remington’s sister. I came to spend the night with him. I was on my way to his room, and the lady at the desk said I needed to speak to his nurse first. Are you my brother’s nurse?”
“Yes, ma’am. My name’s Jason Powers. I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, Ms. Hampton, but your brother passed away a little while ago.”
Chloe Hampton’s jaw dropped. Her suitcase hit the floor.
“What?”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Are you telling me my brother is dead?”
“I’m so sorry,” Jason repeated. “We did everything we could.”
Ms. Hampton put her hand over her mouth. Tears welled in her eyes.
“No!” she shouted. “No! That just can’t be. I talked him just a little while ago. He was afraid to stay here alone all night. No, no, no. This just can’t be.”
She was becoming hysterical. Jason led her to the visitors’ waiting area on the other side of the hall and motioned for her to have a seat on the couch. He grabbed a box of tissues from the end table, handed it to her and sat down beside her.
Jason wasn’t very good with grieving family members. He never knew what to say. It was his least favorite part of being a registered nurse.
“I know you must be shocked,” he said. “But these things just happen sometimes. And we really did do everything we could. We worked on him for over an hour.”
Ms. Hampton sniffed into her tissue. “It�
�s just so unexpected,” she said. “The doctor told us it was his gallbladder. That doesn’t kill people, does it?”
“Not usually,” Jason said.
His nerves were even more jangled than before. He laced his fingers together to keep them from trembling.
“Then what was the cause of death?”
“Cardiac arrest,” Jason said.
It was a lame answer. When you got down to it, cardiac arrest was the cause of every death. In fact, it was pretty much the definition of death.
“But they said there wasn’t anything wrong with his heart.”
“I’m going to go call the doctor who was in charge of the resuscitation efforts,” Jason said. “He’s down in the emergency room. Maybe he can give you some better answers. I’ll be back in just a few minutes, okay?”
She nodded. Her eyes were red and swollen and glassy, and Jason couldn’t bear looking into them anymore. Ms. Hampton was a stranger to him, but he understood her sorrow. Her overwhelming sense of grief. Losing a loved one is never easy, and even harder when the loss is unexpected.
Jason understood her sorrow very well, because not long ago he’d lost someone himself.
Lisa
Saturday Night, Hallows Cove
Lisa Webber sat by the chart rack and pretended to review a patient record. She kept her eyes on the binder in front of her, but her mental focus was elsewhere—zeroed in on Jason’s conversation with the family member of the newly deceased in room 603. Lisa was enjoying Jason’s discomfort. It was her entertainment for the evening. If life was like a train chugging along on a set of tracks, Lisa was more than happy to see Jason’s derail. Bastard. She hated his guts.
And she loved him with all her heart.
She’d gone out with him for a brief period a while back, only a couple of months but long enough to fall head over heels. During that time, they had shared quite a few intimate details from their past and present lives. Two years ago—or three, she couldn’t remember exactly—a close friend of Jason’s had been killed in a car accident. It was a guy named Darryl, and Jason had known him since high school. Best friends, Jason had said, whatever that meant. As far as Lisa was concerned, the person you’re involved with romantically should always be your best friend. She and Jason had even discussed it one time, and had gotten into a bit of an argument about it.
“So who’s your best friend now that Darryl’s gone?” Lisa had said.
“I don’t know. I guess I really don’t have a best friend anymore. I have some friends, but—”
“I should be your best friend. You should want to hang out with me more than anyone on the planet. If you really love me, that is.”
“That’s different,” Jason said. “You’re my girlfriend. It’s not the same thing.”
“Why is it different? Are you saying that I could never be as good a friend as Darryl was? How do you even know unless you give me a chance? I can be a very good friend. I’ll do anything for you, and I’ll always be there for you.”
“What if we break up? Are you still going to be my friend then? See, that’s the difference. The only way Darryl and I could have stopped being friends is if one of us died. Which, of course, he did.”
“Are you planning to break up with me? Is that why you’re saying this?”
“I’m just saying it could happen,” Jason said. “Relationships end all the time. You know that. Hell, over half of the marriages in this country end up in divorce. How many of those people are still friends afterwards? Not many, I can tell you that.”
“But since we’re never going to break up, we can be best friends. That’s the way it should be when you love someone. Forever and always. Till death do us part.”
“But how do you know we’re never going to break up?”
“Well, I know I’m never going to break up with you. And if you ever break up with me, I’ll bash your skull in. How’s that? Pretty good motivation for staying together, wouldn’t you say?”
Lisa had been joking, of course. For the most part, anyway. She never really intended to kill Jason. It was just something to say, to see what his reaction would be. It was never a true threat.
But Jason started acting differently after that. He wasn’t as affectionate, and he could hardly even make eye contact with her. Then, one night on the phone, he told her it was over. Just like that. One minute Lisa was the love of his life, and the next she was out the door like a sack of garbage. Maybe it had happened a little more gradually than that, but that was the way it seemed at the time.
Lisa had never taken rejection well, but this was different. This took the cake. She loved Jason Powers. She’d shared all her secrets with him. She’d done things in bed with him that she’d never done with anyone else.
Lisa had trouble accepting the fact that she and Jason weren’t going to be a couple anymore. In fact, she’d decided not to accept it. Ever.
Jason just needed some time.
And some encouragement.
Soon he would realize that Lisa was the best thing that ever happened to him.
Mark
Sunday Morning, Key West
Mark Taylor woke up with a hangover, which wasn’t unusual for a Sunday. Or a Monday. Or any other day of the week, for that matter. He staggered into the bathroom, emptied his bladder, splashed some cold water on his face. His eyes were bloodshot, his white T-shirt dotted with enchilada sauce from Taco Bell. He was only thirty years old, but the lines of a much older man creased the corners of his mouth, and his hair had started to whiten at the temples. Screw it, he thought. He was still a damn good looking man.
He walked into the kitchen, lit a cigarette, started a pot of coffee. Checked his phone for messages. Nothing.
His wallet was on the table, and while the coffee brewed he opened it and pulled out the money. There were three bills, a five and two ones. Last night he’d walked into Jake’s Key West Saloon with two hundred dollars. How many beers had he slammed? How many shots of tequila? How many rounds had he bought for other people?
He couldn’t remember much, but it must have been a hell of a good time. How could you spend almost two hundred bucks and not have a hell of a good time? There was live music and dancing and conch fritters and an endless sea of alcohol. It was the perfect Saturday night out.
Perfect except for one thing.
Danielle still wouldn’t answer her phone. That he remembered. He’d been trying to call her for over a month, and for over a month his calls had been going to voice mail. He couldn’t even begin to remember how many times he’d said the words I’m sorry. How could she still be angry after all this time? It wasn’t like he’d hit her or anything.
Well, he’d come close. He might have pushed her around a little, and she might have fallen on her ass a couple of times. He might have grabbed her arm tightly enough to leave bruises. Still, there was no need for her to threaten to call the cops if he ever came near her again.
Hell, all couples had their squabbles sometimes, didn’t they? It was part of the deal. You got mad and you fought, and then you kissed and made up. The bad times made the good seem all the sweeter. Anyway, Danielle usually started it with that mouth of hers. That was the truth of the matter. She usually started it.
Mark took his coffee to the computer desk in the living room, and clicked on the icon to open his Internet browser. Along with the phone calls, he’d sent Danielle numerous emails and messages. She hadn’t answered any of them. Not only had she failed to answer his heartfelt letters, but three weeks ago her Facebook page seemed to have magically disappeared. One day it was there, and the next day it was gone. All their memories erased with the click of a mouse. All the pictures and links, all their private little jokes. Everything gone, just like that.
It was bullshit. Mark had given Danielle almost two years of his life, and he’d spent more money on her than he even wanted to think about. He’d spent a good portion of his inheritance on jewelry and clothes and nights on the town and trips to Mexico and the Baham
as. A damn good portion. All for her. And this was how she thanked him? By ignoring his letters and phone calls?
Bullshit.
Mark had had enough. The time had come to pay Danielle a visit in person. Surely she had cooled down enough by now to not phone the police right away. He knew where she lived, and he knew where she worked. Sooner or later he would find her at one place or the other, and she would have to talk to him. She would have to, because he loved her too much to let her go.
Mark shaved and took a shower and put on some fresh clothes. On the way to Danielle’s apartment, he stopped at the supermarket and bought a dozen long-stemmed red roses. Danielle loved flowers. She loved jewelry, too, and Mark had stowed the diamond tennis bracelet he’d planned to give her on Valentine’s Day in his BMW’s glove compartment, right beside his Smith and Wesson .38 caliber revolver. Flowers and jewelry—and a heartfelt apology—should do the trick, Mark thought. Soon she would be his once again.
Mark and Danielle had met in a bar, the same bar Mark had partied at last night. Jake’s Key West Saloon. Jake’s was off the beaten path, away from Duval Street and all the annoying tourists, and draft beer was only two bucks during happy hour. You could belly up to the bar and enjoy a beer and a shot and some good conversation, and when the band started you could dance and sweat and roll with it till four in the morning. It was Mark’s kind of place. He’d been going there for years, and he knew all the bartenders and wait staff by name. Hell, he’d slept with half of them.
Then one night Danielle walked in and everything changed. She was gorgeous, and alone, and she just happened to park that fine ass of hers on the stool next to Mark’s. Never the shy one, especially after a couple of shots, Mark struck up a conversation with her right away.
“I bet you a five dollars I know where you got your shoes,” he said.
“Excuse me?”
“I bet you a five dollars I know where you got your shoes,” Mark repeated.
She looked down at her feet. “There’s no way you could know that. All right, it’s a bet.”