by C. J. Lyons
Tank shrugged. “Don’t know.”
“Were they there yesterday?”
He looked blank. Lydia tried again. “When you took a shower yesterday, did you see them? Or these on your shoulder; did you notice them when you looked in the mirror?”
“Don’t remember.” He started his Game Boy again, the volume loud enough to set the IV pole shaking.
Lydia grabbed the game and turned it off, staring him full in the face. “Harold. This is very important.”
“Tank. My name is Tank.”
“Tank. I need you to think hard. When did you first see the rash? Has it been coming and going? Do you remember the first spot? Is it itchy or painful at all?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t remember, no, and no.” He held out his hand for his video game. Lydia didn’t relent.
“Any vomiting, diarrhea?” she asked.
Tank gave up talking, his face set in a sullen stare, responding to her questions with a mere nod or shake of his head. Lydia ran through a litany of questions, trying her best to get an accurate history—she got further than Gina had, but in the end Tank’s symptoms were still irritatingly vague, other than the documented fever and the rash. Finally Lydia returned the game to him.
She joined Gina and Trey in the corner. “We’ll get blood, do a spinal tap, but I don’t know, it doesn’t feel like meningococcemia to me. Although with the rash, I can see why the school wanted him checked out.”
“Oh, they want more than that,” Gina said.
“Didn’t Dr. Frantz call you?” Trey asked.
“No. Who’s Dr. Frantz?”
“Kid’s private physician. Ordered the school nurse to give him a slug of ceftriaxone—”
“He already got antibiotics?” Lydia yanked the chart from Trey, scanning through his notes. “That changes everything—we’ll never be able to culture any bacteria. What was that bozo thinking?”
“It gets worse,” Gina said. “He’s also reserving a PICU bed for our ‘critical’ patient.”
“Amanda said they only have one bed left, and I have another patient who needs it.”
“Hate to say it, but I have a feeling Mr. Memory here is gonna trump whatever patient you have—unless he or she’s related to the governor.”
“Why don’t we get some labs back, by that time one of the parents might get here and we can get a better picture of things. In the meantime, I’m going to check on my other PICU patient.”
“Translation: you’re going to try to grab the PICU bed before Tank here takes it.”
Lydia gave her the barest hint of a smile.
“You okay here, Gina? I’ll be right back,” Trey said, moving to follow Lydia out of the room.
Gina watched him intercept Lydia. The way he brushed against her and suddenly the two of them were in perfect sync, strolling down a public corridor yet obviously in a world of their own. Gina touched the simple gold chain that hid Jerry’s ring beneath her shirt. Why was it that when she saw couples like Lydia and Trey, or even Amanda and Lucas, she felt empty inside? Like maybe she just wasn’t meant for that kind of love.
Tank’s video game let out a bone-crunching shriek. “Aw shit!” he shouted, flopping back against the pillow. “Son of a bitch!”
“Hey.” Gina whirled on him, tired of his wannabe-punk attitude. “This is a hospital. You will play quietly or not at all.”
At first she thought he was going to call her bluff and stick out his tongue at her, but something in her body language must have given him second thoughts because all she did was take one step toward the bed and he sat up straight, silenced the machine, and nodded his head. “Yes, ma’am.”
Ma’am? Hmmm . . . she liked that. “Okay, then.” Still no nurses—where was everyone today? It wasn’t her job, but as Lydia was constantly reminding her, in the ER every patient was everyone’s job, so she hooked him up to the monitor. “Let’s get a set of vitals on you.”
“Am I going to be okay?” He didn’t sound scared, but he didn’t sound too cocky about his chances, either.
Before Gina could answer, the door was flung open by a high-heeled, high-polished woman wearing a power suit. Armani. High-class wannabe, Gina’s mother would have categorized her.
“Harold!” She clattered across the room, heels clicking like a metronome on overdrive. “What happened? Are you okay?”
Tank hid his face in his game, brushing her embrace aside. “I’m fine, Mom.”
“No, you’re not. Oh, my poor baby!” Mrs. Trenton stood, clutching the bedrail but not touching her son. She did an about-face to address Gina. “Are you his nurse? Where’s Dr. Frantz? Why isn’t he up in the ICU yet?”
“I’m Dr. Gina Freeman. I helped transport Harold”—Tank winced at her use of his real name—“from Heinz Prep. If you’re his mother, we have a few questions.”
“Of course I’m his mother!” Mrs. Trenton seemed unable to avoid exclamations, her chin bobbing with every sentence, adding emphasis—and threatening to make Gina dizzy. “I know you! You’re LaRose and Moses Freeman’s daughter! We’ve met before, at your parents’ club. They’d said you’d gone off and done something crazy like joining the Peace Corps—I never dreamed they meant you’d be working here! If Angels didn’t have the best pediatric specialists, we’d never come—”
Gina’s glare interrupted her. Great, friends of her parents. Just what she didn’t need. “Mrs. Trenton, the school nurse, wasn’t able to give us any information about Harold’s vaccination status. Did he receive the meningococcemia vaccine?”
“Of course not! Harold has never had any vaccines! His grandfather is Harold Trenton, you know, the chiropractor? So we know all about the dangers of vaccines! I’d never allow any of my children to risk their lives to satisfy a government bureaucracy. Do you have any idea how much harm vaccines cause each year?”
As opposed to the millions of lives saved? Gina kept her face neutral—she’d had tons of practice holding her tongue around her father and his cohorts. Why was it rich people thought they knew everything without ever actually bothering to learn anything? “When did you notice your son’s fever and rash?”
“Rash? What rash?” She laid her hand against Tank’s forehead. “Oh my God, he has a fever! He’s burning up! Why haven’t you people done anything for him?”
Gina gave up. Let the ER sort it out. Luckily she could escape with Trey and Gecko on the ambulance. “Later, Tank,” she said, opening the door.
“Wait! You can’t leave us. Dr. Frantz isn’t here yet. Who’s going to take care of Harold?”
“The ER staff will take good care of him. I have to go.”
“Gina, please. You can’t. I’m sure your parents would want you to stay and help us out. In fact, we’re sitting at their table on Saturday. They invited us to watch you get that award. I’m sure someone brave enough to save all those children can bend a few rules and help out a friend.”
“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Trenton. But I have to go save lives. I’m sure everything will work out just fine for you and Tank—in fact, I’ll send in Dr. Fiore.”
“Dr. Fiore? I heard about her! She almost killed a man!”
“Really? Well, I’m sure he deserved it. Good luck.” Waiting until the door was closed behind her, Gina chuckled. The rich were so easy to mess with—one of life’s simple joys.
“YOU OKAY?” TREY ASKED AS HE AND LYDIA walked down the hall. They stopped inside the ambulance bay where the cold wind whipped at the doors, some of it sneaking past, but it was otherwise quiet. “You look upset.”
Lydia turned her face to the outside doors, searching for any hint of sunlight. The day had turned an impenetrable gray; she couldn’t even tell if it was still morning or close to sundown. So typical of this town. “We lost a patient this morning. It was bad.”
Trey took her hand in his, gave her time. He was good at that.
“It was a nurse,” Lydia continued. Her emotions leached into her words. She couldn’t afford to break down, no
t with almost an entire shift left. She clamped down on the memory of Karen’s body—somehow it was mixed up with the memory of her mother’s. “She was attacked in the cemetery. Raped, stabbed, beaten. And then they sprayed graffiti over her—like she was a piece of garbage, worthless.”
She stopped. She couldn’t go on, not without letting loose all the emotions roiling inside her. Clenching a fist so tightly that her fingernails cut into her palms, she tried to squeeze all her sharp and dangerous feelings into a ball, roll them out of the way so she could focus on her job.
Trey pulled her into a tight hug. She couldn’t return it at first, afraid that if she relaxed her guard she wouldn’t be able to stem the tidal wave of emotions, but Lord, how she needed it. After a long moment, she was able to squeeze him back and actually take a deep breath again.
Someone called her name from the ER. “Thanks,” she told Trey, reluctantly pushing away from his embrace. She squared her shoulders and trudged back to the nurses’ station.
Despite her best efforts, she still couldn’t banish the vision of Karen’s body.
GINA , TREY, AND GECKO LEFT THE ER AND WERE walking back to the ambulance when Gina stopped short. The ER entrance and ambulance bay were on a slope, elevated enough that she could spy yellow ribbons of crime-scene tape fluttering around the statue of a weeping angel across the street in the cemetery. The angel was covered with neon-colored graffiti. Jerry crouched among the tombstones, measuring off distances and checking sight lines.
“What the hell?” She was half-tempted to shout out to Jerry, get the inside scoop from him, but knew how he hated to be disturbed at work. Besides, if he saw her dressed like she was, she’d have to lie about her bulletproof vest.
“They found a nurse over there.” Trey opened the rear doors to allow Gina and Gecko to slide the gurney back inside. “Raped and stabbed. She died.”
“Did they catch the guy?”
“Lydia didn’t say, so I’m guessing not.”
Gina shivered and wrapped her arms around herself, wishing she’d grabbed her jacket for the short run into the ER. “Who was it?” Then she saw Jerry jogging across the street, coming toward them. “Oh shit.”
“Hey guys,” Jerry said by way of greeting. He had that wide-eyed flushed look he always got in the early stages of a case—before the exhaustion of working nonstop ground it out of him. “Trey, I need a favor—”
Gina tried to edge behind the side of the ambulance, but it was too late. Jerry turned to her, his head cocked to one side in worry and confusion. “Where’s your vest?”
“Don’t worry,” Gecko said. “She’s riding with the A-team.”
“Don’t tell me when to worry.” Jerry’s voice snapped like an elastic band stretched too far. “Riding with you didn’t stop her from being shot last summer.”
“Jerry, calm down,” Gina said.
But he ignored her, aiming his glare at Trey. “I asked you to look after her.”
Gina stomped a booted foot to get their attention. She’d have loved to aim it a bit higher at a certain someone’s ass. Jerry was the reason why Trey kept hovering? She’d been blaming Lydia for assigning her the district chief as watchdog.
“Hey,” she said, stepping between Trey and Jerry. “Stop talking about me like I’m not here.”
Jerry didn’t even have the good grace to look chagrined. “You promised you’d wear your vest.”
“I forgot it. Sue me. I’m only human. But I’m not a child, I don’t need looking after.”
“But Gina, I only—”
“Forget it, Jerry. We’re not having this discussion again. Call off your babysitters and get back to work.” She climbed into the ambulance and slammed the door shut.
Through the door, she heard Jerry ask Trey to spread the word among the medics to let him know if they’d seen anything in the cemetery that morning. And then, fueling her anger further, Jerry apologized to Trey for Gina’s surliness.
She added a fresh piece of nicotine gum to the wad she was already chewing, chomping down hard, wishing she had a cigarette. Why was Jerry always trying to protect her? She knew he loved her, but sometimes . . .
Her ear popped as her jaws worked the gum harder. But she couldn’t avoid the truth. That sometimes Jerry reminded her of her father.
And that was never a compliment.
NORA STOOD OUTSIDE THE OR DOORS, WATCHING in silence as the crime-scene investigators searched and cata loged every scrap of cloth and paper surrounding Karen’s body. Still no sign of the rape kit.
Behind her, less than forty feet down the hall, the noise from the ER sounded small and tinny as if it came from a mistuned television. She was supposed to be in charge, but it sounded like they were doing just fine without her.
Jerry Boyle’s partner, Janet Kwon, had taken her statement, treating Nora as if she were a suspect herself. Nora had showered and changed into scrubs, but she still felt unclean. Maybe because she hadn’t yet been able to find the words—or the strength—to tell anyone about what happened to her two years ago.
She’d gone over every step of her walk from the parking garage, showing Janet where she’d found Karen and explaining about the rape kit. Without ever mentioning that she knew this rapist’s work, up close and personal. Of course, Janet’s resentment over the lost evidence, implying that Nora was at best incompetent and at worst an accomplice to murder, hadn’t helped.
She’d wait and talk to Jerry, Nora promised herself. A few hours wouldn’t make a difference. Wouldn’t change anything. It wasn’t like she had any concrete evidence to offer—she hadn’t seen her attacker and his voice had been disguised.
All the same excuses she’d been using for two years, trying to rationalize her silence.
The medical examiner’s team had taken a sterile sheet and used it to wrap the body before bundling Karen into a body bag and onto their stretcher. Nora stood silent as they wheeled the body past her. It seemed as if the entire ER quieted to a hush.
A hand touched her arm, and the noise rushed back. Nora shook her head against the barrage. She glanced up, expecting the hand to belong to Seth. Instead it was Jim Lazarov, the snotty intern was the last person she was in the mood to see.
“What?”
“I need a nurse to observe while I examine a teenager, and you’re the only one not doing anything.” Without waiting for her answer, he strode off in the direction of the OB-GYN room.
Nora rolled her eyes but followed. Unfortunately, Jim was probably right. With the police pulling her away from her duties, the other nurses had been busy picking up the slack. Jim pushed open the door without knocking. The clash of metal against metal sounded just as Nora arrived.
“I told you to get the hell out of here!” the girl shouted. She was maybe seventeen, dressed all in black with multiple facial piercings marring her otherwise flawless porcelain complexion. “I changed my mind!”
Nora entered and closed the door behind her. The girl had backed herself into the corner near the instrument cart, her eyes wide, the skin around them dark—and not just from the Goth makeup she wore.
“You need to let me examine you,” Jim said, yanking on a pair of gloves.
“No, I don’t! Leave me alone!”
“You came here for help, Glory. Now let me help you.”
“Jim, why don’t you let me talk to her?” Nora asked, edging toward the girl.
“I can handle it.” Jim threw her a glare. Then he turned his focus back onto Glory. “The guy beat you up. Why are you protecting him?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. He loves me. Why won’t you leave me alone?” The girl was crying now, tears streaking black and blue down her cheeks.
“Sorry, no can do,” Jim said, gesturing imperatively at the exam table. “Now sit down and let me examine you.”
Glory had other ideas. She grabbed a pair of surgical scissors from the instrument tray. They weren’t blunted like bandage scissors, but sharp and deadly. She brandished them at
Jim, then turned them on herself, holding them to her neck right over her carotid artery.
“Stay away or I’ll kill myself,” she warned.
FIVE
Thursday, 11:02 A.M.
“OH SHIT,” JIM SAID. HE BACKPEDALED AS IF HE were the one in danger.
Not trusting Jim to do anything but aggravate the situation, Nora centered her attention on Glory. Grabbing a box of tissues from the counter, she stepped forward to hand it to the girl. The door slammed open and shut again as Jim plowed through it.
Glory started at the movement, gesturing with the scissors, but Nora simply held the tissues out, her hand remarkably steady.
“Looks painful,” she said, nodding at an ugly burn on Glory’s wrist about the size of a cigarette.
Glory grabbed a handful of tissues and rubbed them across her nose and cheeks. “Yeah. That’s why I came. Until he”—she jerked her head at the door Jim had escaped through—“got all up in my face, asking questions.”
“How old is it?” Nora kept her voice level. “I’m worried it might be infected.”
The teen still held the scissors but hesitated, her gaze going to the burn. “Couple of days. He didn’t mean anything by it, honest. It was all my fault. I was in the toilet, didn’t answer his text fast enough.”
“He texts you a lot, I’ll bet. Likes to keep tabs on you—even in the middle of the night, right?”
Glory looked surprised. “Yeah, how’d you know? That way my folks don’t know. But”—her voice betrayed her fatigue—“sometimes I wish . . .” She trailed off. “I don’t want to get him in trouble. He loves me.”
Nora had heard it all too often. Women mistaking manipulation and coercion for love. It was a common pattern—especially in this era of instant communication when it was impossible to hide from an obsessed partner.