by Jaime Maddox
“Sure thing,” he said, then looked down the bar where a man was seated, quietly nursing a drink. “Another one for you, Emory?”
Although the man wasn’t very noticeable, with average looks and size, his name was certainly distinct. Ward turned and studied him a little more closely as she popped a fry into her mouth. “Are you the Emory who took Jess Benson to the prom and tried to grope her in your pickup?” Ward asked.
George chuckled, but Ward wasn’t amused. It was a serious question and deserved an answer. Suddenly, it was more important than the food before her or her impending headache. The answer to her question was more important than anything. Emory was trying to take Jess from her. Her partner. Her lover. Her heart. Ward had never hit another human being in her life, yet she was suddenly filled with rage, with the desire to beat thoughts of Jess from his mind. “Hey! Emory! I’m talking to you!”
Ward stood, and although she was dizzy and her vision had blurred even more, she registered the fear in Emory’s eyes, and it made her happy. “Are you after my partner?” she demanded, so close to him she could smell his sickening cologne. Ward barely registered George’s presence as she grabbed Emory by the neck and slammed his face into the wooden surface of the bar. Clutching a handful of his hair, she raised his head and saw blood pouring from his swollen nose, then slammed his head into the bar again. She pushed George aside as he tried to restrain her and managed to get in a few kicks to the belly and the groin as she pulled Emory to the floor, before someone much larger finally pulled her away.
She felt cold metal handcuffs close around her wrists and heard Zeke’s voice then, behind her. His words echoed and she had difficulty focusing, but she concentrated and turned her head to face him. She tried to speak but couldn’t manage to form an answer as he asked her, “Ward, what have you done?”
Looking around, she saw George sitting on the floor, bleeding from the head, and another man at her feet, bleeding and not moving. Then she slumped back against Zeke and passed out.
Chapter Six
Coma
Zeke watched as the stretcher carrying Ward was loaded into the ambulance. Since she was still unconscious, the paramedics decided she was the most seriously injured of the three patients at the bar and should travel on the stretcher. George was riding in the front of the ambulance, looking like a combat victim with gauze wrapped around his head, blood soaking through from the gash he’d sustained when his head hit the floor. And Emory was riding in the police vehicle, getting blood all over the SUV Zeke so meticulously maintained.
“What the fuck happened, Emory?” Zeke demanded as he closed the door behind him and started the engine. “You were supposed to slip the stuff into her drink and then get her into her car, not start World War III!”
“She broke my fuckin’ nose, Zeke! And I didn’t do nothin’. I slipped it in her drink, just like you told me, and sat at the end of the bar waiting for it to work. The next thing I knew, she was pounding on me. If you hadn’t showed up when you did, she probably would’ve killed me. That’s one violent dyke. Forget about this idea of me with Jess. If I have to put up with this shit, it’s not worth it. I want Ward Thrasher in jail, too, and I’m willing to press charges.”
“Shut up! You’re not doing anything of the kind, you fool. What if they run a drug screen on her and find out you put something in her drink? You wanna go to jail?”
Zeke drove in silence, following closely behind the ambulance, thinking about how he might turn these surprising events in his favor. He’d been the sheriff for forty-five years, and he’d done it hundreds of times—hiding a little evidence here or there so someone didn’t have to get arrested. The favors always came back to him in spades, but this was the greatest reward ever—the chance to get Jess out from under the spell of Ward Thrasher.
“This is what you’re gonna do, Emory,” he said, and began to speak.
As the ambulance reached the hospital, Zeke parked in the emergency spot beside it, and rather than helping escort the patients, he raced inside, anxious to find his daughter and give her the correct spin on things. “Jess,” he yelled when he saw her standing at the counter. “Come quick. It’s Ward!”
Jess ran to his side, and they hurried down the hall. “What happened, Dad?”
“Ward got drunk and beat up Emory. She’s passed out cold.”
The stretcher bearing Ward’s limp body appeared in the hall, and Jess raced to her side. “Stop!” she ordered the medics.
Pulling a penlight from her pocket, she pulled up Ward’s eyelid and shined it on her pupil. It was normal in size and reacted briskly to the light, as did the other. No signs of head injury or drugs. “Ward!” she screamed as she shook her lover’s body. “Ward! Open your eyes!”
In response to the command, Ward’s eyelids fluttered but didn’t manage to open. “Put her in the trauma room, guys. Dad, tell me what happened!”
Before he could respond, an ambulance attendant appeared, escorting George Stiles and Emory Paldrane, one on each arm. Both men were bleeding and moving slowly. “Good God,” Jess said as she moved to assist.
“Good God won’t be enough to help that bitch!” Emory responded. “Sheriff, I want her arrested immediately! I know people, and I’ll have her thrown out of this hospital and she’ll never work again. She’s a disgrace to her profession!”
Jess took a deep breath as she guided Emory toward a treatment room. “Take it easy, Em. Just tell me what happened.” Her eyes met the medic’s and she gave him instructions. “Put George in room one, hook him up to the monitor, and I’ll be over there as soon as I can.”
Jess guided Emory to the stretcher in room eight and peeked up to see the nurses hooking Ward up to the monitor. She only had a few seconds for Emory. Ward was the more critical patient. “I was just having a beer, Jess, and she attacked me. Blind-sided me and smashed my face into the bar.” As he spoke, Jess felt his neck, checked his pupils, looked into his nose and ears, and then felt his chest and belly. He seemed fine, other than the nose. “Did you get knocked out?” she asked.
When he denied loss of consciousness, Jess reassured him he’d be okay, ordered an X-ray of his nose, and then went to check on Ward. A glance at the monitor told her all the vital signs were in the normal range, although her blood pressure was in the lower end. “Ward, open your eyes!” she demanded, and this time, Ward responded. “You’re in the ER. Do you remember what happened?”
Ward’s response was an incoherent grumble. Jess went over her from head to toe, looking for signs of trauma—blood, scrapes, swelling, bruising. Nothing but some scrapes on her hands. Then she used her tools and searched the back of Ward’s eyes for swelling and her ears for blood. Everything appeared normal, except for Ward.
“Let’s get a stat CT of the head,” Jess instructed the nurse.
“Tox panel?” the woman asked.
Jess shook her head. “Not yet. Let’s see what the CT shows.” If she ordered the toxicology panel and it was positive, Ward was screwed. Jess had never known Ward to use drugs—other than alcohol—but something funny was going on. Had Ward given in to the pressures of the past few months, of the strain of leaving home and caring for a dying woman, all the while watching her drift further and further away? A flash of guilt caused her to step back, but she quickly squashed it. She wasn’t responsible for this. Maybe she’d caused Ward’s distress, but she certainly hadn’t put the bottle in her hand. And from the first day they’d met, Jess had suspected alcohol could be a demon that would bring Ward down.
She closed her eyes and focused, finding her objectivity. She’d treat Ward like any other patient—identify the problem and fix it, hopefully without having Ward lose her license to practice medicine. Jess would run all the other tests, and if she found nothing, no other explanation for Ward’s condition, then she knew the answer. Ward was drunk.
Her father wrapped a loving arm around her shoulder. He was a rock, and Jess was so proud of how he’d handled her mother’s final months, making her laugh and
seeing that she was comfortable. Jess only wished she had half of his strength. The stress of her mother’s illness had crippled Jess, and she still felt like she couldn’t cope with it. Coming home to be with her had been a great decision, and life here was so much easier than in Philly. There was little crime, and friendly faces greeted her everyplace she went. The only problem was Ward.
Jess knew Ward wasn’t really happy in Garden, and Jess wasn’t happy with Ward. Emory Paldrane wasn’t the answer, but maybe another man—someone a bit more sophisticated—might make her happy. She’d never been in a relationship with a man, but did that mean she couldn’t be? Her mother’s illness had brought a sense of finality that was eating at her, and it had awakened a need she’d never known before. Suddenly the idea of children wasn’t so scary. Instead, it seemed like a wonderful way to honor her parents, to give them life for generations to come. Settling down with a man might help ground her, and having a family might give her the sense of purpose that always eluded her.
She and Ward had never discussed having children. Ward’s flippant comments about other people’s kids had killed any desire to speak of it, and Ward wouldn’t be a good parent. She was too busy. When they’d lived in Philly, Ward had memberships at every museum and spent her free days studying art and science. She volunteered for countless hospital committees and mentored students. Since they’d moved to Garden, she’d taken on new hobbies. She played golf in nice weather, kayaked and hiked on her days off. In the winter she skied—cross-country, no less. Traveling was a passion for Ward, and Jess had a hard time imagining dragging a child up the Spanish Steps or through the Louvre. Ward drank too much, too. Hell, look at her now! She was pathetic. How in the hell would she handle a child?
Looking to her father for strength, she focused on him instead of the sadness that coursed through her. They had been heading this way for a while, but now they’d reached the end, and Jess didn’t like the feeling coming over her. She was sad, and there was no time for that. She still had three patients to care for. “Dad, what can you tell me about tonight?” Jess asked him.
“I guess she just drank too much. It’s a good thing I saw her car there and stopped in, though. She might have killed him. And I feel bad, Jess, because I told her Emory had a thing for you. I think that’s why she did it.”
Jess’s jaw dropped. Ward had told her about her conversation with her father, and Jess knew Ward was upset, but she’d never known her to be violent. Apparently people were capable of reaching new lows under stress. You know all about that, don’t you? she thought.
Jealous. Ward was jealous. That explained it all, although it certainly didn’t justify it. She tried to reassure him with a hand placed on his. “Dad, it’s not your fault. She did it, not you.”
“Has she ever done anything like this before?” he asked, studying the still form beneath the white sheet, the only signs of life coming from the electronic gadgets monitoring Ward’s vital signs. “Has she ever…”
Jess jumped to Ward’s defense. She was having problems with Ward, but she knew it wasn’t all Ward’s fault. And no matter what she did to drive Jess crazy—badger her to travel or hike, blow off things that irritated Jess, kill her with kindness—Ward had never been violent. Not to her. Not to anyone. She was a kind and gentle woman, perhaps too much so. If she was tougher, especially on Jess, things might have turned out differently. “No! No, she’s not like that. I can’t believe she’d do this. She must be more stressed than I thought.”
Jess watched as they wheeled Ward’s stretcher toward radiology before leading her dad toward a chair in the nurses’ station. “Let me get back to work,” she said, then walked to room one to check out George. “What happened, Mr. Stiles?”
He shook his head, clearly shocked. “It was scary, Jess, the way she snapped. I’ve never seen anything like it. One minute she was eating her burger, and the next she was kickin’ the shit out of Em.”
“How much did she drink?” Jess asked as she went over him in the same fashion as her other two patients.
George looked at the sheriff and the ceiling as he seemed to weigh his answer. It was clear he didn’t want to give one, and whether it was to protect Ward or himself, she wasn’t sure. Nor did she care. His hesitation told her all she needed to know. Ward was drunk. “Never mind, Mr. Stiles. It’s not important. Let me take a look at you.”
Jess examined him, checking the wound and his brain function and found him to be in better shape than her other two patients. “This is just a small cut. I can close it with two staples. Does that sound okay?”
When he nodded, she cleaned the wound, and before he could protest, she was finished. “I guess there’s just the matter of the police, Mr. Stiles. Are you going to press charges against her?”
He shook his head. “I like Ward, and I know she didn’t mean me any harm. I’ll be fine, if I can just get a ride back to the bar.”
“I think the sheriff’s going to play taxi driver tonight. Just give me a minute to do your paperwork, and Em’s, and I’ll let you get out of here.”
“The CT is normal,” the tech told Jess as she passed by, wheeling Ward back into the exam room. Ward was still out of it. Jeez, why would she do something so stupid?
“What about the labs?” the nurse asked, and Jess didn’t turn to meet her gaze, trying to appear nonchalant. “No, I don’t think they’ll be helpful. But set up a surgical tray. I want to do a lumbar puncture.”
Jess pulled up the X-ray of Em’s nose and winced. It wasn’t just broken. It was shattered, but she didn’t tell him that. “Em, your nose is broken.”
“No shit!” he said, with humor rather than malice this time.
Then she figured she’d better level with him. This fracture would probably need surgical repair if he ever hoped to breath normally again. She told him so.
“That bitch.” The anger had returned.
Jess turned to see her father approaching, and once again he placed his arm around her for support. His words were hard to hear, but she knew they were true. “Ward isn’t a bad person. She’s just out of her element here. She’s stressed, and tonight, she took it out on poor Em.”
Jess didn’t want to have this conversation in front of him, but he had other ideas, and when she heard them, she nearly fell over. “Em has agreed not to press charges, but only if Ward leaves town. He wants her gone. And, you have to go out for dinner with him. On Valentine’s Day.”
“Dad, that’s ridiculous!” Jess looked from her father to her patient, but neither was smiling.
“Which part?” Em asked.
“All of it!” Jess looked at them. It was so preposterous an idea that Jess would have been suspicious these two had set Ward up if Mr. Stiles hadn’t witnessed the attack.
“Listen to me, Jess. Even if you don’t go out with me, you should think about Ward. This isn’t her home, and she doesn’t belong here. Tonight, that really showed. If I press charges, she’ll probably lose her license and be in a whole heap of trouble. If I don’t, who’s she going to beat on next? Someone else who appreciates you like I do? Or someone totally innocent? Is that what you want?”
Jess couldn’t believe this was happening. How had her life gotten so fucked up? “Let me think about it, okay?”
Jess discharged both George and Em, and then she went back to Ward’s bedside. Her mental status was no better than it’d been earlier. She was barely responsive. Her breath smelled of alcohol. The more data she amassed, the clearer the diagnosis became. Ward was fucking passed-out drunk, in plain English. Still, Jess had to be sure. Could Ward have caught some strange infection that was taking over her brain? As an intern, she’d seen a case of viral encephalitis caused by the herpes virus. The patient had stabbed her husband, a Baptist minister, with a knitting needle and used more cuss words in a single sentence than she’d ever heard in her life.
With help from the nurse, Jess positioned Ward on her side and took her place on a stool behind her. After cleaning her skin, s
he carefully placed a long, thin spinal needle between the vertebrae in the low back and easily withdrew five tubes of clear, colorless fluid from the space around the spinal cord. Four were necessary, the fifth was a bonus. Ward didn’t even flinch during the procedure. Jess instructed the nurse on the orders, but she suspected this test would also be normal. While germs and blood rendered spinal fluid discolored and cloudy, clear fluid usually meant no worries.
An hour later, Ward’s status hadn’t changed, but four tubes of normal spinal fluid satisfied Jess that she had her diagnosis. Alcohol intoxication.
Jess looked up from the lab reports to find her father walking down the hallway. “Well, everyone’s all tucked in. George is going to forget about this, but I’m worried about Em. If he presses charges, what’s going to happen to Ward?”
Jess nodded. “I know,” she said, the words floating out on a huge sigh as she leaned against the wall beside Ward’s room.
“How is she? Is she coming around?” he asked.
Jess couldn’t speak as she fought tears, and the ER was eerily quiet, amplifying her silence. After a moment, she found her voice, faint but resolved. “I think she’ll be fine. Would you mind taking her home?”
“Wouldn’t mind at all.”
“Just put her to bed, Dad. I’ll get her shift covered for the morning. No matter what I decide to do, there’s no way Ward’s working tomorrow.”
Chapter Seven
Penetrating Trauma
Abby finished the last bite of the cheeseburger she’d ordered from the hospital cafeteria, then headed into the private bathroom connected to her office. When she worked late, she usually patronized the cafeteria. As CEO, it was good for her to show the hospital employees that the hospital food was palatable. It was practical, too. The cafeteria was just two floors beneath the administrative suites.
After brushing her teeth, she touched up her makeup and her hair and then smiled at herself. For the first time in a week, her reflection smiled back. Dick Rave was out of the ICU and expected to make a total, if slow, recovery. The hospital staff, especially the ER physicians, had come together to cover the holes in the schedule left by Dick’s illness, and Abby was proud to be their CEO. Now, a new physician was arriving to cover for Dick during the last weeks of January, and the agency Abby had hired was able to cover the ER for another six months, giving Dick plenty of time to recover from his illness. If he didn’t recover, or if his convalescence was prolonged, she’d deal with the scheduling void then. For now, though, she could relax.