Life Support

by Candace Calvert

  “It’s true. Gayle’s your biggest ally at Houston Grace.” Lauren brushed her fingers tentatively over the corn-silk hair, realizing the rarity of the moment: Hannah sleeping peacefully at her feet and her troubled sister snuggled against her. It was almost Camelot. “No,” she corrected, “I’m your biggest ally, Jess. You can count on me . . . always.”

  “Mmm.” Jess’s lids fluttered, her lips parting in submission to sleep. She looked no older than Emma Landry.

  Thank you, God, for this unexpected moment.

  Lauren glanced toward the window, where the sky was beginning to lighten. Even without the rude awakening, she’d have had to get up soon anyway for her Saturday shift. And she had some prep to do for the hospital’s disaster committee meeting; hurricane season always prompted a system-wide refresher. Because of her training as a peer counselor, Lauren was teamed with social services. She’d render support if hospital staff suffered any effects of emotional stress during a disaster scenario.

  Disaster . . .

  Lauren thought of the incident at the Landry estate. Though Eli would be the first to deny it, his day qualified him as a poster child for stress. She gazed down at her sister. Despite Lauren’s worries, Jess was whole, healthy, and home. Regardless of a few obvious quirks—evidenced by her mother’s weather devices—the Barclay family was intact and devoted to each other. And Lauren and her parents were on the same page, the same exact line on that particular page, when it came to helping Jess. It was a blessing.

  Eli couldn’t say the same. His brother was far from healthy, his daughter had no mother, and—the very real possibility stunned her—his father could have shot him last night. If eBay sold an early-warning system for family tragedy, Eli Landry could be completely deaf by now.

  - + -

  Drew’s nose itched. Real bad. But every time he tried to get his good hand up there to—

  Hey, it wasn’t tied down now. It was shaky, but he made his fingers walk over the stubbly part of his face, find that plastic thing stuck in his nose, and—

  “Easy, Champ. That’s your oxygen.” His brother’s face slid into view; he was smiling the way he always did. But his eyes were real shiny like he might cry. “You’re waking up. I like that.” He eased Drew’s hand back down to his side. Then gave his shoulder a squeeze. His brother had strong hands. “Does your nose itch?”

  Duh . . . Drew wanted to say it out loud. The way that made Eli laugh. But his tongue was stuck. So he nodded yes instead. His brother always knew what he needed.

  “There.” Eli finished scratching Drew’s nose and put the oxygen tube back. “Now hang on—I’m going to wipe your lips with one of those wet sponge things. Your mouth looks like the time we sneaked those boxes of Jell-O pudding and ate ’em dry. Remember that?” His eyebrows bunched up like he was worried. “You know who I am, right?”

  “D . . . uh,” Drew whispered, pretty sure he might also be spitting stuff. “Trr-rouble.” He smiled, choked a little when a laugh came out, then raised his good hand for a knuckle bump. His chest hurt, and something taped on his arm pinched, but he didn’t really care. It didn’t matter. His brother was here. “You’re . . . Trouble.”

  “Right.” Eli smiled again, bumped his knuckles against Drew’s. “That’s me. Okay, good. Now that we’re clear on that, let’s fix those lips.”

  Drew closed his eyes. He heard his brother talking, felt the sponge on his mouth . . . the tube in his nose . . . He couldn’t keep his eyes open. Sleepy . . . so sleepy. There was that squeeze on his shoulder again. He opened his eyes.

  “I’m going to let you rest now, Champ. You’re in the hospital. But I’m going to look at a new place for you to stay. It’s got a goofy name: Mimaw’s. Like we called our grandma in Baton Rouge. It sounds like a good place. More like being at . . .” Eli stopped what he was saying, made a face like he had a stomachache. “Anyhow, I’m going to go look at this place today. It has musical instruments. A baseball diamond, kites, and chickens. Real chickens. Emma and Shrek can visit any day, all day if we want. And—”

  “Pan . . . cakes?”

  “With blueberry syrup. I already asked.”

  Drew smiled and closed his eyes. His brother always knew what he needed.

  - + -

  Lauren gazed at the hospital cafeteria’s ceiling-high windows and the French doors leading to the courtyard patio. “I was hoping we could eat dinner outside. Eating in here always feels like being on call.” She discreetly pointed her half-eaten veggie wrap toward a woman at the next table. The gout patient, one beefy leg propped on a chair, had been staring daggers at them for a full fifteen minutes. Obviously resentful of her continuing wait for treatment in the ER. And that the staff was allowed meals at all.

  “Her choice.” Vee’s braids swayed with the shake of her head. “Urgent care was happy to take her two hours ago if she didn’t have issues about being examined by ‘only a PA.’” She glanced to where Eli sat at the table closest to the patio doors, hunched alone over his own meal. “I would have preferred the courtyard myself, except that they’re moving all the tables and chairs under cover with this crazy wind.” As if to prove her point, a janitor outside leaned a folded patio umbrella against a stack of chairs.

  “Eloise.” Lauren stifled a yawn with her napkin. “Upgraded from a depression to a tropical storm around 5 a.m.—scared me half to death.” She smiled at the confusion on Vee’s face. “My mother has this evil weather-alert gizmo; if Jess hadn’t known how to turn it off, my ears would have bled. Thank heaven she left her shift a couple of hours early.”

  “I heard she did.” Vee’s brows pinched for a moment. “Uh . . . did she mention anything about problems here last night?”

  Lauren pushed her wrap aside. “Problems?”

  “Well, you know that Gayle stayed over for a few hours?”

  “Yes.” Lauren got an uncomfortable feeling. “So?”

  “One of the clerks said the night staff was upset because Jessica ‘disappeared’ from the department. Never told anyone she was leaving. Someone apparently complained to Gayle. You know Gayle; she’s not one to fly off the handle or jump to any conclusions.”

  “I don’t know what you mean. What conclusions?” Lauren remembered Jess’s words: “Gayle’s always on me.”

  “Two employee lockers were broken into last night. One in the admissions office and one up on the second floor. Money taken. And a phone. So—” Vee turned to look as a gust of wind rattled the courtyard doors.

  “But no one would think that Jess would do something like that. Gayle didn’t suspect her, did she?”

  “No. Security talked to everyone. It sounds like Gayle did her best to stop any finger-pointing. But apparently she did have a talk with Jessica about taking an unauthorized break.” Vee’s expression was kind. “I’m not surprised your sister took the chance to leave early after all that. Plus, I guess she was limping all night.”

  “Blisters from running. Nothing serious. But . . . do you know . . . ?” Lauren saw Eli gathering up his things at the far table. “Did Jess say where she’d gone when she left the ER?”

  “The second floor. To see how a patient was doing. I guess she’d been worried about her. Someone Eli saw in the urgent care yesterday—the young woman who was dancing in the reflecting pool at Hermann Park.”

  “Right. I saw her for a minute. Fletcher Holt brought her in.” Lauren tried to recall if there had ever been a time Jess had worried enough to follow up on a hospital patient.

  “She was admitted to treat her dehydration,” Vee continued. “Social services was arranging for a psych eval. Plus, child protective services got involved because of some issues with her baby.”

  “Code green, second floor,” the PA system blared. “Code green. Security, please report to the second floor.”

  “Green?” Lauren squinted at the overhead speaker. “Isn’t that—?”

  “Patient elopement,” Vee confirmed. “A patient’s gone AWOL.”

  “Advise
all personnel: code green,” the voice shrilled again. “Twenty-six-year-old female. Five feet eight inches, 130 pounds, long red hair. Last seen near the east stairwell, second—”

  “What’s . . . ?” Something moved in Lauren’s peripheral vision. In the tallest garden window. A hurtling flash of white. And . . . “Oh, dear God—no!”

  She leaped to her feet just as Vee shrieked and the entire cafeteria erupted in horrified screams.

  “Look! Oh no, did you see that?”

  “Someone fell—that girl fell right out of the sky!”

  “CLEAR THEM AWAY!” Eli shouted against the wind. Several security guards struggled to keep eager looky-loos from spilling out of the cafeteria—and raising cell phones. “Staff’s running a gurney down. Make room.” A siren yelped in the parking lot. He gripped his phone, continuing his conversation with the ER. “Right. A rescue scoop, too. And an extrication neck brace. No, she’s not responsive. Make sure surgery’s alerted. Find the neurosurgeon.”

  “It’s . . . her.” Lauren’s pupils were huge against the blue of her eyes; she hunched over the victim, attempting to stabilize her neck, hands wrist-deep in the tangle of red hair. Blood had wicked onto the chest pocket of her scrubs, a crimson bloom against the faded pink fabric. “She’s your patient from yesterday.”

  “Darcee.” The shock hit Eli again. “We admitted her for IV hydration and—”

  “Unhhh,” their patient groaned. Blood bubbled from her nostrils with the effort, sending a wine-colored rivulet to pool in the pale hollow at the base of her neck. Her breath came in shallow grunts, lips going gray.

  Get that stretcher here. . . . “How’s her pulse?”

  “Thready,” Vee reported, fingers pressed against the side of the woman’s neck. The wind whipped braids against her face as she glanced down. “I count 104.”

  “I think this stack of furniture lessened her impact with the ground a little. Hopefully.” Lauren scanned the flattened tangle of aluminum, canvas, and plastic beneath Darcee’s bowed torso. “Broke her fall.”

  “And probably her spine.” Eli glanced up as a trio of police officers arrived at the gate that connected with the parking lot. Fletcher Holt was one of them. This world was shrinking way too fast. “I’d be surprised if there isn’t a hunk of that chair embedded in her back.”

  Lauren paled. A gust of wind tossed her hair as she brushed her thumb across the unconscious woman’s cheek, lips moving as if murmuring a prayer.

  “Here!” Eli waved his arm overhead, beckoning to the arriving ER team. “We’re over here!”

  Eli helped the nurses and techs with the extrication collar and supervised as Darcee was loaded, protecting her spine, onto the gurney. Then he jogged alongside Lauren and Vee as they hustled through the cafeteria. Maybe Lauren’s prayer had helped: apparently a neurosurgeon had just finished a case in the OR, and both a thoracic and general surgeon were standing by. Darcee would have the best chance that medicine provided. A skilled healing machine. But . . .

  Once again, the shock sent him reeling. He’d treated her for sunburn only yesterday, fielded her caustic sarcasm and her embarrassing attempts to flirt with him. He’d cleared her medically—with the concurrence of the ER physician—and arranged for intervention with what Eli was certain was an ongoing psychiatric problem. Even so, she’d been lucid. And despite her initial objections, quite cooperative once the safety of her baby was assured. But somehow she’d still ended up in a fatal plummet from the second floor of this hospital.

  Fatal. He was sure of it, even now. Darcee Grafton’s last dance would be that public spectacle in Hermann Park. Her skull’s impact against the courtyard pavement wasn’t much different from the crush of that boat hull against his brother’s head. It might take days, weeks, or even painful years for Darcee to finally succumb, but in the interim she’d never be a mother to her baby. Never be the same daughter, sister . . .

  He helped them guide the gurney around a corner, slowing only for a moment before continuing full speed toward the ER. Lauren still had that stricken look on her face. It occurred to Eli that he’d never asked her about those stormy hours with Shrek. Or if Fletcher had said anything about what happened at his folks’ house last night.

  They slowed for one last turn, then started down the hospital’s long back corridor; from here it would be a frenzied race to the ER. They were still well within a trauma victim’s survivable golden hour. If Eli were subject to hope, he’d pin jaded optimism on that—time. At least it was on Darcee’s side. In the meantime, he’d hold on to the only bright spot in his day: the Champ was hungry for pancakes.

  - + -

  “I can’t talk now.” Gayle stepped outside the busy trauma room, whispering into her cell phone. She glanced toward the team inside: ER physician, two surgeons, techs manning a portable X-ray machine. The young redhead was being intubated. “I’m sorry, Leo. But we have a trauma case. A bad one.”

  “Yeah, well—” her husband’s voice competed with a background belch of ESPN, boxing probably—“it’s no picnic here, either. Spent all day arguing with state disability clowns. And trying to decide if I should flush those worthless anti-inflammatory pills down the toilet or drag myself to my quack doctor’s office and shove that bottle—”

  “I’m sorry, sweetheart,” Gayle interrupted, leaning against the wall as her pulse did one of its too-frequent skip-skip-thuds. The coffee. She couldn’t keep up the pace without caffeine. Especially when she was always so tired. She’d almost fallen asleep at the wheel when she finally left the hospital last night. “I’ll try to catch one of our new staff orthopods, pick his brain about some better meds.”

  “Pick his pocket while you’re at it.”

  “Right.” She played along, wishing her husband’s quip were a sign that somewhere beneath his pain and battered pride there was still a spark of the fun-loving man she’d married twenty-three years ago. Gayle wasn’t sure she’d even recognize him anymore. But these days grim jokes were better than violent blowups, fueled by—

  “Beer,” Leo added against a volley of thuds and shouts from the TV. “Pick some up on your way home. We’re running low.”

  - + -

  “You look like you’re not feeling well.” Lauren was being polite; Gayle had looked haggard from the moment she arrived today. “Are you okay?”

  “Fine, thanks. A little tired.” Gayle offered a smile at odds with the continuing anxiety in her eyes. “I worked those extra hours last evening and then I had trouble sleeping.”

  Because of my sister? Surely Gayle didn’t think Jess was responsible for the locker thefts.

  “Fill me in on Darcee Grafton.” The manager shifted her gaze. And their conversation.

  “Glasgow Coma Scale around 8 or 9. She localized pain, made purposeful movement. No neck injury, amazingly.” Lauren caught a glimpse of Eli’s white coat at the doorway; he’d gone back to his patients in the urgent care but clearly felt connected to this case. “I got a large-bore IV in. Her saline lock from her admission was still intact. After a couple liters of fluids, blood pressure’s holding around 102 systolic. Heart rate’s in the low 100s.” Lauren took a few steps toward the gurney, glanced at the Foley bag near the floor. “Gross blood in her urine; they’re thinking a contused kidney and probably comminuted breaks of her right lower leg and heel. Maybe compression of the lumbar spine, too.” She saw Gayle wince and suspected she was thinking of her husband’s debilitating back injury.

  “Belly?”

  “Nothing obvious there, but we’re cross-matching blood. Vee and I are going with her to CT; the neurosurgeon wants to see the brain results right away. Brain, chest, belly, pelvis, legs . . . working our way down.” Lauren sighed. It was surreal that this young woman had been an inpatient when she sustained these horrific injuries. “Do they have any idea how this happened?”

  “The police are still up there.” Gayle’s wide eyes glanced toward the ceiling. “She’d been waiting for a visit from DFPS about her baby. We can�
�t know if there is any connection between that and whatever reason it was she climbed those stairs to the roof. Thank goodness this portion of the building is only two stories.”

  “Yes.” Lauren battled a wave of queasiness at the thought of this woman plunging from one of Houston Grace’s six-story towers. Past multiple floors of windows, horrified patients, and staff. “She had a cell phone. One of the officers found it in the courtyard. Maybe she went up to the roof thinking she’d make a call from there. But got too close to the edge and was thrown off-balance by a gust.” Lauren needed that to be true. She couldn’t bear to even imagine that this beautiful young woman, only a few years older than Jess, could have deliberately—“It had to be an accident.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” The shadows beneath Gayle’s eyes seemed somehow darker. “The hospital is liable, regardless. Fortunately Eli addressed her mental health issues and made certain that her admission orders provided for a workup. But still . . . the hospital will be subject to scrutiny for legal blame. We’ll all be looked at.” She shook her head. “I’ve had more than enough of that sort of trouble in the past twenty-four hours.”

  My sister? Is that what you mean?

  “I’m leaving early,” Gayle added. “I’ve arranged for Marjorie from the ICU to come in and cover the next two hours.”

  Lauren tried to hide her surprise. The manager never left early.

  “My husband . . .” Sadness flickered across Gayle’s face. “I’m needed at home.”

  - + -

  “I’m almost finished here. Except for the coffee. Thanks, Lauren.” Fletcher raised his nearly empty Styrofoam cup. “Fuel to power me through till midnight.” He stole a glance down the corridor toward the ER registration office, telling himself he was only hanging around for the coffee.

  “Jess should be here any minute. She’s working a twelve-hour night shift.”

  “Yeah?” He hoped there was a shrug in his voice despite the warmth creeping upward from his uniform collar. “Guess that’s best with her school.”

  Lauren turned as Eli Landry strode up the corridor. He stopped beside them.