Heart Stop

by Radclyffe

  “And what makes you think I can’t do that? I’ve been performing at a high level all my life. I don’t think your…” She searched for the word and didn’t know what to call them. They weren’t patients. They weren’t clients or customers either. They were corpses.

  “‘Cases’ is the word I think you’re looking for,” Olivia said smoothly, the ice growing thicker in the room by the moment.

  “At least there’s no urgency,” Jay finished.

  Olivia sat forward, glacial gaze narrowing. “That’s just one of the many ways in which you are wrong, Doctor. Many things hinge on a speedy and accurate diagnosis of cause and manner of death. Death certificates are necessary before families can bury their dead, collect life insurance or other benefits, dissolve partnerships, execute wills, and of course, in the case of unlawful deaths, before the authorities can investigate properly. We must be as accurate and as efficient as any other emergency medical doctor.”

  Jay bit back a retort, noting the ME hadn’t mentioned closure for the family in her list. Arguing over which specialty was more important was locker room banter, and besides, Price had a point. All those things mattered, maybe not quite as critically as a ruptured aorta, but medicine was about more than the moment. Maybe she’d fare better when she talked to the chief ME. She didn’t know where Olivia Price fit in the chain of command, and as much as she’d been willing to walk away from the whole crazy idea of a pathology residency at breakfast, now she wasn’t willing to burn her bridges.

  “You’re right,” Jay said, “and I misspoke. In the trauma bay, the patient’s life depends on split-second decisions. I only meant that there is a slightly larger window of time to do the job that needs to be done in your field.”

  Price tilted her head infinitesimally. “I will grant you that.”

  Score one for me.

  “Still, that does not excuse incompetence.”

  Jay bristled. “I may be inexperienced in the specifics, but incompetence cannot be assumed, only observed, wouldn’t you agree?”

  Olivia Price smiled, a genuine smile, and the impact was as unexpected and shocking as a sucker punch. Jay’s heart nearly stopped in her chest, and since she knew what that felt like, she was light-headed for a second. Where once there had been ice and stone, now there was heat and sunlight. For a heartbeat, less, Olivia was radiant. And if Jay hadn’t been absolutely positive she’d seen it, she wouldn’t have believed it.

  The absence of that heat a second later sent a chill down her spine.

  “You may not be aware,” Price said slowly, “but the job itself is physically rigorous. Every staff pathologist performs at least one autopsy a day, if not several, sometimes half a dozen or more, which requires standing, lifting, transferring bodies. Physical stamina is essential.”

  As she talked, Jay’s jaws clenched and now her teeth ached. She knew what Olivia saw—skinny as a stick, pale as the patients Price probably labored over every day, weak and damaged. She couldn’t argue with what was evident to anyone who cared to look at her. “As I said before, that’s something that remains to be seen.”

  “How long have you been out of the hospital?”

  The gentleness of the question was worse than the previous distance. Jay would’ve liked to lie, but there was no point when the facts could be checked and probably would be before the day was ended. “A few months.”

  “Rehab?”

  Jay blew out a breath. “Three mornings a week, the hours can be flexible. I’ll work around it.”

  “That hardly seems advisable.”

  “My physical condition shouldn’t concern you as long as I can do the job.”

  “And that’s exactly what does concern me. You are eminently unqualified on every level.”

  “Is there anything else you need from me, then?” Jay asked. This was going nowhere, and she had better things to do than beat her head against the wall. Actually, she didn’t, but she could beat herself up all on her own.

  “I have a question,” Price said. “It’s the same one I asked you when you first arrived. Why do you want this position?”

  “I don’t, at least I didn’t,” Jay said, surprising herself with the words. But faking anything was never in her tool kit. “I’m a trauma surgeon—that’s all I’ve ever wanted to be.” She huffed and looked down at herself. “As you can see, that plan has gone off the rails. I’m well trained and I can do the job you’re offering.”

  “I can’t use anyone who isn’t one hundred percent committed.” Olivia Price rose. “I’m sorry.”

  Jay pushed herself up and steadied herself with the cane. “Thank you for your time.”

  “Of course,” Olivia said, watching as Jay crossed the room and let herself out. Jay Reynolds carried herself with pride, despite her injuries, visible and otherwise. A tragedy, one of dozens Olivia witnessed every day, although usually those were the kind that ended in death. Then again, there were more kinds of death than just physical. She knew that all too well.

  A knock at her door brought her back from the brink of memory, a mental lapse she rarely allowed. For a second she wondered if Jay Reynolds had returned to plead her case again. But no, Jay didn’t look like the kind of woman who would do that—beneath the battered exterior and that hint of dark defeat in her eyes, her spirit still seethed.

  “Yes?” Olivia called.

  The door opened a few inches. “I’ve got that file you called about, Dr. Price.”

  “Morning, Pam. Bring it in.”

  Pam Hernandez, Greenly’s secretary, crossed the room with the file extended and a look of chagrin she couldn’t quite hide. “Sorry. Dr. Greenly couldn’t put his hands on it right away.”

  “I imagine,” Olivia said. “Thank you.”

  “Sure thing,” Pam said, beating a hasty retreat.

  Olivia squared the file in the center of her desk and studied it, much as she did a body before she began the actual physical examination. The manila folder looked just like that of all the other applicants, but this one was brand new and uncreased. Whatever was inside, no one else had ever looked at it, and she doubted there was much of anything to see. Certainly not the reams of material they generally collected on an applicant, sometimes going all the way back to college—transcripts, medical school records and recommendations, copies of licensure, test scores, and personal affidavits. This was hastily thrown together to satisfy protocol.

  Protocol. She checked her watch. 8:42.

  She was already late for morning review, and what did it matter now what the file said. The decision was already made. She knew it and so did Jay Reynolds. Morning review was the time when pending cases were assigned. Presumably Greenly was running the session in her stead, which only meant she would have to go over all the cases set for that day with their assigned pathologists to be sure everything was in order and on schedule. Well, she’d be there in a few minutes. Another minute wouldn’t matter.

  She opened the folder and drew out the three single pages, the first a half dozen lines of demographic material—name, DOB—she’d been wrong, Jay was only thirty years old—and a medical school dean’s letter dated six years previously. The summary stated the applicant, Jay Emerson Reynolds, was an excellent candidate for surgical training, having earned an honors grade in all her core courses and junior internships. Excellent was a code word for top of the class, which most medical schools didn’t actually stipulate in so many words, but everyone understood. The next page held a copy of her board certification in general surgery earned the year before, putting her on time, according to Olivia’s mental math, in her training schedule. The final page was a personal letter of recommendation from Ali Torveau, MD, the chief of the surgical trauma division at University Hospital, their affiliate institution next door. Olivia had talked with Ali Torveau a few times in the eighteen months she’d been with the ME’s office when she’d needed clarification about a case that had previously been Torveau’s. Her impression had been Torveau was bright, scrupulous about detai
ls, and not afraid to admit a surgical outcome was less favorable than she desired. Olivia had never found any indication an individual’s demise had been due to a surgical mishap in Torveau’s department. She scanned Torveau’s recommendation, focusing on the final paragraph.

  “Dr. Jay Reynolds is a superb clinician, technically and intellectually, and will be a superior addition to any department lucky enough to secure her in the future. Her tenure as a trauma fellow at University Hospital proved her to be exemplary in judgment, skill, and dedication. I recommend her without reservation for a training position in pathology, for which her previous training affords her unique qualification.”

  Olivia closed the folder and sat back. Well, that told her not much more than she already knew—Jay Reynolds had a lot of people in her corner, including quite a number of important and influential ones. That might mean she was well liked or it could mean she was simply well positioned politically. Torveau obviously held Reynolds in high regard, and like most surgeons, thought surgical training equipped someone to do just about anything as well as the experts in the field. As Jay herself had stated, though, she didn’t want to be a forensic pathologist. Her only interest was trauma surgery, and that road was clearly closed to her.

  Olivia keyed her computer, entered her ID number and password, and scrolled into the statewide medical records database. Her department had access to online hospital records, since many of the cases they cleared originated as inpatients. Deducing Jay would have been treated at the hospital where she trained, Olivia searched the University Hospital records first. Jay’s name came up on-screen with an intake date of nine months ago. She hovered the mouse over the link for an instant and then closed the database.

  Whatever was in that record would give her the facts, but she’d already seen the results. She spent her life steeped in the tragedy of others, witnessing day in and day out the aftermath of accident, illness, and crime. She didn’t search for reason, only for cause, and she couldn’t do the work she did if she allowed the concept of fairness to cloud her judgment. Still, for an instant, she mourned Jay Reynolds’s lost dreams.

  Chapter Three

  Jay left the ME’s building less than an hour after she’d entered. Still early morning. This time nine months ago, she would’ve been in the OR, scrubbed and just starting the first case of the day, or making rounds with the team in the trauma intensive care unit. Instead, she was standing on the street corner at loose ends. All she had to look forward to for the rest of the day was a rehab session, which at this point, she could do on her own. Her personal effects were still in the TICU locker room. No one had said anything to her about clearing it out, and she hadn’t been back since she’d been discharged from the hospital. Like if she didn’t empty out her things, she wouldn’t have to face the hard fact that she was never going back. But she knew she was done, everyone knew she was done, and pretending things were going to be any different some magical time in the future was a loser’s game. Sitting in Olivia Price’s office, passing on a job she could do if she’d been willing to jettison her empty wishes, made her realize she was stuck in some self-appointed limbo, feeling sorry for herself. The admission made her wince.

  Time to change the channel.

  She got a coffee and a cinnamon roll from a food truck and ate standing out on the street corner, watching the traffic go by on University Boulevard. The light rain didn’t bother her, not with the smell of spring in the air. Most of the snow had melted and green poked up from the ground and blossomed on the branches. She looked at her watch. April 1. She grinned, accepting the irony that appeared to be her life. She admitted having been fooled—the question was, where to next.

  “Time to get on with it and find out.” She tossed back the rest of the coffee, dumped the paper cup in a trash can, and made her way down the long delivery drive separating the ME building from the rear entrance to the medical complex. University Hospital had grown up over a couple hundred years, starting back when the medical school was established by Benjamin Franklin. Now it was a two-block-long labyrinth of mismatched buildings cobbled together and connected by hallways that started on one floor and ended on another. Only experienced residents were aware of the circuitous back routes, and part of the training tradition was losing the newbies the first time a code was called. Jay smiled to herself, thinking about the days of rushing headlong from the cafeteria on the ground floor through the hallways with her team, people parting to let them pass, some turning to watch, taking the stairs two at a time to the main level and shouldering through the trauma doors ready to take on any challenge. The Gods of War.

  Yeah, right.

  Not anymore. Her days of running anywhere apparently were over. The rehab doc assured her she’d be able to walk without a cane at some point, once she retrained the rest of the muscles on the right side of her body, once the ligaments in her knee got solid again and didn’t fold up every time she tried to climb a set of stairs faster than a snail. He wasn’t quite so optimistic about her arm, though. All the joints worked and the muscles were supposedly undamaged, although it felt weak to her, but the mainframe sending signals from her head to her hand wasn’t working right. The tremor was probably permanent, although she was learning to work with it. Good thing she’d always been fairly ambidextrous, and her motor skills on the left were pretty damn good.

  Not good enough to operate, but she could hold a scalpel. For what, she didn’t know, but it mattered to her that she could. She flashed on Olivia Price studying her without a hint of pity, which she appreciated, even if she didn’t care for her conclusions. Unqualified. Dismissing her without a second thought, cool and impenetrable, except for those few moments where a little bit of sympathy peeked through, which Jay didn’t need, and that blazing instant when she’d smiled. Now, that Jay wouldn’t mind witnessing again.

  And bullshit to the unqualified. Hell, she could hold a scalpel to cut a cadaver. She knew more about anatomy—okay, as much about anatomy—as Price. She didn’t need any training there. The rest she could get if she had a chance to get her hands dirty. Her chest tightened thinking how much she missed putting her hands to work.

  She shoved the thought aside as she walked into the hospital feeling like a thief sneaking around. The halls were bustling, and no one paid her any attention in her civilian clothes. She was just another visitor to what had been her life. She keyed in her ID code on the pad next to the swinging doors at the trauma unit and, miracle of miracles, it still worked. She should have figured that, though. Ali wouldn’t have shut her out.

  Hoping she didn’t run into anyone, she hurried as fast as her leg could manage the short distance to the locker room and pushed her way in. It was empty, and the relief made her a little dizzy for a second. She didn’t want to see anyone, hated the look of sympathy in their eyes or, not quite as bad, the discomfort mixed with embarrassed gratitude it hadn’t been them out on that highway. She parked her windbreaker along with her cane on the bench that ran the length of the room between the lockers and opened number 72. Her scrubs were stacked on the top shelf, her clogs on the bottom, and her lab coat with her name stitched on the front and trauma surgery on the arm hung from a hook. The pockets of her coat were filled with the usual equipment—a stethoscope, stainless steel bandage scissors, a couple of rolls of tape, a folded sheet of paper with patient names and work lists. She tossed the scrubs into the used clothing bin and stared at the coat, not sure what to do with it. After a minute, she retrieved the stethoscope and scissors and stored them on the empty top shelf of the locker. Somebody would use them or toss them, didn’t matter to her. She rolled up the coat and shoved it into the trash bin along with her OR clogs.

  “Cleaning house?” Ali asked from behind her.

  “Thought it was time,” Jay said, still staring into the empty space where her identity used to reside.

  “How’d the interviews go?”

  Jay closed the door, let the lock fall shut, and turned with her back against the bank of loc
kers. Ali leaned against the row opposite her, shadows under her deep brown eyes, her shaggy dark hair shaggier than usual.

  “Long night?” Jay asked, avoiding the inevitable.

  Ali Torveau nodded. “You know how it is with rainy nights and MVAs. Had a two-car head-on from the expressway about three.”

  “Just finishing up?”

  Ali grimaced. “Yeah. So?”

  “No go.”

  Ali’s eyebrow rose. “What do you mean? How do you know that already?”

  “Have you ever met Olivia Price, the assistant chief ME?”

  “Not in person but I talked to her a couple of times, I think. Sounds young, smart, no bullshit?”

  “Yeah, that’s her. She informed me that I’m unacceptable on every level—I think that’s how she phrased it.”

  “Does she know Andrews already approved you for the path residency?”

  “I told her, but I got the idea she hadn’t been briefed on anything. I don’t think it would matter. I am an unorthodox candidate, and she’s a very orthodox, by-the-book kind of person.”

  “Well, don’t be too sure yet. It sounds like she just didn’t get the whole picture.”

  “I’m pretty sure she did.” Jay grinned. “And I probably didn’t help when I told her I didn’t really want to be a pathologist.”

  Ali pressed her lips together and shoved her hands into her pockets. “Ookay. Talk to me, Jay. What do you want to do, then?”

  “I’ve been asking myself that since I left Price’s office. A little late, I guess. I’ve been pretty much of an ass, haven’t I?”

  “No, you haven’t. At least”—Ali smirked—“no more than ever.”

  Jay laughed. Ali was as much a big sister to her as Vic. Her older sister and Ali had been best friends since grade school, and Jay had been the younger kid sister, tagging along whenever she could. They were so tight, and she looked so much more like Ali than her blond-goddess sister, people always thought they were a trio of sibs. She’d grown up wanting to be just like both of them, following them to medical school and surgical training and, she thought, into trauma surgery. Ali could kick her ass like nobody else in her life except her big sister Vic, and the two of them hadn’t been kicking her at all since the accident.