Intensive Care

by Jessica Andersen

  The rest would wait.

  He asked, “Everything okay?”

  She nodded and lifted the phone. “Everything’s set for this afternoon. We’re meeting in my father’s suite at five.” The noise level peaked abruptly as the Boston team took the field for the start of the first inning. Ripley glanced around at the cheering kids. “I don’t know, Cage. I have a bad feeling about being here.”

  “Yeah,” he agreed. “I know.” He jerked his chin at the far corner of the Tammy Fund box, where Leo was still holding court. “He’s occupied, and I’ve got Whistler covered. But I still feel like we’ve missed something obvious.”

  The first two batters went down in quick succession, and Cage excused himself to kneel down beside Milo’s chair. Ripley heard him say, “The next guy up is one of the most accurate hitters in the game today, did you know that?”

  Milo nodded and touched his glove. “Guess he won’t be hitting any foul balls this way, huh?”

  “You never know.”

  Ripley caught Cage’s wink and felt her heart turn over as he lifted the frail child in his arms and cupped a palm beneath the sagging baseball glove. She saw the man in the batter’s box nod once as he dug in. The pitcher nodded too, and wafted an easy curve above the plate. The slow, fat pitch was just begging to be slapped into the seats atop the big green wall, but instead, the most accurate hitter in the game looped a high, soft foul.

  Directly into the Tammy Fund box.

  A cheer went up from the Boston General crew when Milo caught the ball with a little help from Cage. The noise was echoed by the crowd when the scoreboard screen flashed the boy’s image, grinning and holding the ball up as Cage lifted him high.

  Ripley remembered the angry, hurt man in her office that first day who hadn’t even been able to look Milo in the eye. And as Cage grinned at her now, she felt her heart turn over in her chest again and fall to her toes, returning on a rush of warmth and lightness. Of love.

  “Dr. Rip! I caught it!” Milo waved the ball as Cage returned the boy to his chair. “I’ll have good luck now!”

  “Maybe your next round of chemo will get all those nasty leukemia cells and you can try out for Little League next spring,” Livvy shouted over the quieting crowd, and Ripley winced. Optimism was one thing. False hope was another. It wasn’t the therapy that was failing. It was Milo.

  “Miracles can happen,” Cage whispered, and squeezed her hand. “Just look at that foul ball.”

  “I have a feeling that ‘miracle’ had some help,” she whispered back. Then, not caring who was watching, she kissed his cheek. “Thanks.”

  The next couple of innings passed quickly as the batters struggled with two very sharp pitchers. It was the top of the third when Belle touched Ripley’s sleeve.

  “Dr. Davis. You might want to look at Milo.”

  Ripley’s heart tightened when she saw the boy’s pallor and his exhausted sleep. “Damn.” She’d hoped he would be strong enough to last the whole game. He’d wanted to see it so badly.

  “I can have one of the vans drive us back to Boston General,” Belle offered. “That way you can stay and chaperone the other children.”

  Ripley glanced at Milo again and nodded. “Okay. He needs rest more than anything. Take him back and call me if you have any problems, okay? The van driver is a certified EMT, so you shouldn’t have any trouble on the ride.”

  She watched as Belle pushed Milo’s chair down the shallow ramp that led away from the Tammy Fund’s box, and wished there was something more she could do. The treatments were killing the cancer cells, but Milo seemed to be giving up the fight. He was too quiet. Too weak. She’d tried to get his parents to visit more, but they couldn’t afford to make the trip as often as necessary, and their other children needed them as well.

  It was a difficult, but regrettably common, problem.

  “They headed back to BoGen?” Cage’s voice in her ear shivered through her like a promise, but it was a promise she knew his heart couldn’t keep. He wasn’t ready to leave the ghosts behind yet.

  She nodded and turned back to the game, pretending absorption as three more batters were mown down and the home team traded their gloves for bats. Tension simmered beneath the surface and she was acutely, elementally aware when he moved away from her at Leo’s call, trailing his fingertips down her arm as if to say, I wish.

  To cover the urge to turn and watch him walk away, Ripley glanced at her watch. Three-thirty. The day dragged. The urge to return to Boston General built.

  The feeling of imminent danger overwhelmed her.

  Ripley nearly jumped when the phone in her pocket chirped. Relieved to have something to do, she flipped it open. “Hello?”

  “Dr. Davis, this is Belle.”

  The fear was quick and total. “What’s wrong? Is it Milo?”

  “Yes, I’m sorry. Nurse Lockheart asked me to call. His primary oncologist is out of town and you’re next on the call list. He’s sluggish and having trouble breathing.”

  “I’ll be right there.” Ripley snapped the phone shut and cursed. “I have to get back to the hospital.”

  “What’s wrong?” Cage touched her arm and Ripley fought the urge to lean against him and close her eyes with exhausted worry. He was leaving. She shouldn’t get too used to having him around.

  “That was Belle. Milo isn’t good.” She cursed. “I’ve seen this coming, Cage. He’s giving up. He needs to fight harder, but he’s so little. So tired.”

  “With you on his side, he has no choice but to get better.” While Ripley look at him, surprised by the uncharacteristic thickness of his words, Cage glanced around at the box crammed full of kids. “Come on, we’ll catch a cab.”

  She shook her head. “No. You stay here and keep Leo busy until my father has everything organized for the board meeting. That’s our top priority right now. I’ll be careful, I promise. I’ll stay in well-lit, well-populated areas of the hospital. No chapel, I swear.” She touched his arm, feeling the unease swept aside by the need to reach Milo. “Meet me in the executive suite at five for the board meeting, okay?”

  “Are you sure? I don’t like this.”

  “I don’t like any of it, Zack.” She touched her lips to his. “I’ll see you at five.”

  She heard him call, “Be careful,” and she waved a hand in reply as she jogged up the cement steps and felt the doctor’s mantle slip over her shoulders.

  The cab ride to Boston General passed in a flash, and as Ripley swung through the doors to R-ONC, she was already running treatment options in her head.

  Pausing at the entrance to the atrium, she shivered slightly, thinking that only five days earlier, she’d walked across the tiles and been attacked by Ida Mae’s husband. So much had happened since then that she could hardly believe it. She glanced at the big clock above the café. Four o’clock. In an hour or so it would be over. Leo Gabney would be removed as head of Boston General, her father would take over the administration and call in the police, and the terror would be past.

  And Cage would be free to go.

  Hating the emptiness brought by that thought, Ripley hastened across the open atrium, feeling as though eyes were watching her progress. Feeling as though shadows lurked behind every display of a child’s finger painting.

  The nurses’ station between Radiation Oncology and Oncology proper was deserted, but that wasn’t unexpected given that R-ONC was all but empty, and most of the ONC patients were at the ballgame. Ripley poked her head into Milo’s room. “Belle? Are you in here?”

  There was no answer, and the lump beneath the bed-clothes didn’t move. Not even to breathe.

  “Milo!” Ripley dashed into the room and slapped the code button beside the bed before turning to the little boy. She noticed two things at once. The alarm didn’t sound. And the lump in the bed was a pile of pillows.

  “What the—?” She was half turned to the door when the first blow caught her on the shoulder. She fell to her knees, gasping with pain and sudde
n panic.

  The killer had found her!

  The second blow hit her on the back of the head and she fell forward into a dark, dark tunnel where there was no sensation, no pain.

  And no way out.

  Chapter Fourteen

  He should have gone with her, Cage thought for the hundredth time as he paced the length of the Tammy Fund box.

  “Where is Dr. Davis?” Gabney hissed between his teeth. “The committee chair wants to talk about R-ONC.”

  “She’s gone for a hot dog,” Cage lied, feeling dread curdle his stomach. “She’ll be back any minute.”

  “She’d better be, or the deal’s off,” Leo hissed back through a camera-ready smile. “Got it? And while we’re waiting for her to return, you can come over and provide color commentary. This game is about as exciting as vanilla pudding and the committee members are getting restless.”

  Cage was saved from replying when the phone in his pocket rang. He snapped it open, hoping it was Ripley. Hoping she was safe and had good news about Milo. “Hello?”

  “Mr. Cage, this is George Dixon.”

  The ugly feeling in Cage’s stomach grew worse. “Did you remember something else about the day you found the hots in the closet?” he asked, keeping his voice low and turning away from Leo Gabney.

  “Not about that day. A different day.” Dixon paused, then exhaled as though he’d made a difficult decision. “That wasn’t the first time I’d found hots where they didn’t belong. There was another time, maybe three months earlier.”

  Fury, sharp and edgy, poured through Cage. “And you didn’t tell anyone?”

  “I told Head Administrator Gabney. He told me he’d look into it.”

  Cage shot a black look over his shoulder. Gabney, it seemed, had been playing fast and loose with Boston General for quite some time. “Where did you find these hots, in the broom closet?”

  “No.” Dixon’s voice was thoughtful. “That was the odd thing. I was doing top-to-bottom sweeps just before the regulatory board was due for an inspection and I found a hot spot in the chapel, of all places.”

  The chill hit Cage in the chest. Ripley had thought there had been someone in the chapel with her. She had been right.

  “The chapel,” he repeated aloud. It fit with the message beneath the broken rose stem. Do not Interfere With the Lord’s Work.

  Whistler’s father had been a minister until just before his wife’s death. Was there a connection?

  Then, in a rush, Cage remembered what Whistler had said about the nurses who’d been in the hallway that day. The short one who always hangs around with your girlfriend. He had assumed that Whistler had been referring to Tansy, but Dixon had specifically said the nurses “weren’t hot.”

  A short, unattractive woman who hung around Ripley. One who spent time in the chapel and quoted the Lord’s name in conversation. The answer was swift and terrifying.

  Cage slapped the phone shut and leapt over the low railing of the Tammy Fund box just as a good solid “crack” and the roar of the crowd announced that the pitchers’ duel had ended with a solo home run. He fought his way through a sudden jam of screaming, waving Boston fans.

  In the cab, he dialed frantically. “Pick up. Come on…pick up!” There was no answer in Howard’s room and Ripley’s phone bounced him directly to voice mail. Fear congealed tight in his gut at the sound of her recorded voice. Ripley never shut off her phone.

  “Drive faster,” he snapped. When they reached Boston General, he tossed a bill at the driver and was out the door before the yellow cab stopped rolling.

  He bolted through the front doors into the atrium and slid to a halt in front of the waterfall fountain. The Cardiac ICU was on one side of the hospital. R-ONC was on the other.

  In the parking lot, Belle had heard them talking about Howard Davis calling in the authorities. That made him a target, and he was helpless, trapped in a hospital bed.

  But Ripley was in danger, too. And Cage couldn’t lose her.

  “Mr. Cage?” The hail from the security desk brought a flood of relief. He was there in three long strides.

  “Mike, I need you to page Whistler. Have him meet you up in—”

  The burly guard looked faintly ashamed. “I’m sorry, Mr. Cage. But I need you to surrender your ID badge and your keycards.” He held out a hand, and Cage became aware of uniformed men moving to flank him.

  Damn it! Leo had called ahead.

  Cage spread his hands to show a peaceful intent, even though his heart was screaming, Run! Ripley is in danger, she needs you!

  He’d failed Heather. He wouldn’t fail Ripley.

  “You don’t want to do this, Mike. Dr. Davis and her father are in grave danger. I need your help. At the very least, I need you to pretend you haven’t seen me.”

  The guard shook his head. “No can do, Mr. Cage. These orders came right from the top. It’ll be my job if I let you into the hospital.” He held out a hand. “Come on, now. Give me the badge and the keys.”

  Cage stepped back, feeling the indecision of the men at his back. He’d shared coffee with several of them. “Leo Gabney will be out of a job by this time tomorrow, Mike, and you’ll be right behind him in the unemployment line if you do this.” They traded stare for stare until Cage exploded. “Damn it, Mike! You’ve said yourself that Gabney is a profit-mongering hack. Why are you supporting him now? Come on! People are going to die if you don’t help me!”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Cage.” But there was a faint glitter in the guard’s eyes as he came to a decision. “I’m going to count to three, and if you haven’t given me your badge and keys by then, we’ll be forced to detain you.” He jerked his chin toward the elevators. “One…”

  Cage spun and bolted.

  “Two…”

  He jammed his finger into the elevator call button, wishing the stairs were closer.

  “Three…”

  The doors slid open and Cage leapt aboard, only then remembering that these elevators served the west wing of the hospital but not the east. He could reach the Cardiac ICU, but not R-ONC.

  “Get him, men!”

  The uniformed hospital security guards charged for the elevators as the doors slid shut and Cage pressed the button for the Cardiac floor. He would secure Howard Davis’s room first, then circle around to find Ripley.

  He could only pray he would be in time. He wouldn’t let down the woman he loved. Never again.

  RIPLEY COULDN’T MOVE, but she hadn’t yet decided whether it mattered. There was a bright light far above her and the rest was a blur. Was she dead? The idea brought a stab of regret.

  She’d be leaving Cage behind when she’d only just found him. He’d never know she wanted him to stay at Boston General, because she’d never asked him to.

  Someone whimpered, and it took Ripley a moment to realize the sound had come from her. Perhaps she was alive after all. Perhaps she still had a chance to ask Cage to stay with her. To love her.

  When she tried to focus her eyes, the bright light stabbed into her brain. She turned her head aside. And the pain hit in a white, blinding wave that threatened to send her under again.

  “God!” Ripley tried to clutch her head, but her hands wouldn’t move. Slowly, the world refocused. She felt a hard, flat surface beneath her, and straps across her chest and ankles. The back of her head was awash with pain, but it was manageable as long as she didn’t move or open her eyes. Which wouldn’t get her anywhere.

  She cracked one eyelid and tried to scan the room, though each movement of her eye sent shafts of pain through her head and neck. Someone had hit her, she remembered now. She’d been in Milo’s room and she’d been hit from behind. Milo! He hadn’t been in his bed. Where was he?

  For that matter, where was she? Fear shimmered beneath the pain, white and hot like rage when she recognized where she was. Treatment Room One. She was on the metal table beneath an A55 linear accelerator identical to the one that had killed Cage’s wife.

  “Oh, God!” The
fear burned away the pain in a heartbeat, and Ripley struggled frantically against the cargo straps holding her to the metal table. “Help! Cage, help!”

  “Oh, dear. What’s going on here?”

  Ripley hadn’t heard the outer office door open, but she jerked her head frantically toward the soft voice. “Belle! Oh, thank God you’re here. Quick, help me with these straps. I’ll explain everything later.”

  The little woman, who suddenly didn’t look as old as Ripley had always thought her, approached the table and clucked her tongue. “What have we here? These have loosened a bit. We can’t have that, can we, Dr. Davis?”

  “What?” Stupid with pain and concussion, Ripley watched uncomprehendingly as Belle tightened the straps across her chest and legs.

  “I know you usually use those flimsy little hook-and- loop straps during your treatments, but I like these better, don’t you?” Belle patted the sturdy nylon. “We can’t have you escaping, now, can we?”

  “Belle! What? Why?” The fear was chasing through Ripley in earnest now as she split her attention between the woman and the contraption that lurked above her like a giant metal vulture.

  “You were looking into Ida Mae’s case, that’s why,” hissed a very un-Bellelike voice. “Everything was going perfectly until then. I was doing my job and you were doing yours. Why did you have to stick your nose into my work? Why? R-ONC’s death rate was still lower than the average. What did it matter that I helped a few needy souls find their final reward? Really, who was I harming?”

  “The patients,” Ripley replied, feeling sick and scared, still trying to align her image of a motherly, nurturing volunteer with the woman now walking toward the computer console at the front of the room. “You were hurting the patients. Ida Mae. Janice.”