Guarding Miranda

by Amanda M. Holt

  They gave their affirmative and he climbed into the driver’s seat.

  “Letterman General Hospital is only a few minutes away.” Sherry told Brian, as she climbed into the seat next to him and closed the ambulance doors. “It’ll be a short ride.”

  “The shorter, the better,” said Brian, looking down at Miranda, unconscious on the stretcher.

  He submitted to the powerful urge to hold her hand, a hand that was so much smaller than his own.

  “Her fingers are cold.”

  “Blood loss,” Sherry explained dismissively. “Her body’s working to conserve heat and circulation to the essential organs.”

  As Sherry busied herself with adding more bandages to Miranda’s shoulder, Brian gently squeezed Miranda’s left hand in his own.

  He noticed then that despite her wealth and access to finery, the only jewelry she wore was the engagement ring on her left hand.

  “Poor girl,” he whispered softly. “You won’t be needing that anymore.”

  He felt the weight of his pity for her, for her loss, for the grief awaiting her whenever she regained consciousness.

  The driver activated the siren as they pulled out of the parking lot, on their way to Letterman General Hospital...

  * * *

  As though from a great distance, Miranda could hear a siren.

  It clanged and reverberated all about her.

  Siren, she thought, furrowing her brow. What is up with that?

  She struggled to open her eyes and find the origin of the offensive noise but she was tired, so very tired.

  She forced her eyes open, only to close them again.

  There had been a blurred surrealistic quality to what she had seen, white walls, white ceiling, an instrument panel with buttons and dials and medical supplies and a dark haired head peering down at her.

  The light overhead was too bright, too bright...

  She was just beginning to settle back into that deep comfort and restful sleep, the swirling black about to swallow her whole when she heard a man mutter, “Sherry, she just opened her eyes.”

  “Miss Fowler?” A woman was speaking to her but Miranda didn’t have the energy to respond.

  “Miranda.” The male voice was saying something else in a soft, husky tone but the moment her ears recognized the safety and security in the sound of her own name, on compassionate male lips, she was fading back to sleep.

  What an odd accent, she thought and it was her last thought as Morpheus embraced her once more...

  The next time she woke up, she was lying flat on her stomach, a bit of moisture running from the corner of her mouth, unto a stark white pillow.

  She opened her eyes and saw an obscure contraption of metal and plastic and neon green numbers dancing in a liquid crystal display.

  Miranda closed her eyes, feeling more exhausted than she had ever been in her life.

  It was as though her entire body had gained a hundred pounds of weight.

  Two hundred, even.

  It felt like an effort just to open her eyes.

  She closed them, let herself rest a moment.

  Something was not right.

  Where the Hell was she?

  She had a feeling that she should force herself up, off of her stomach...

  There was something very important she had to know but at the moment, she couldn’t remember what that was or why it was so important in the first place.

  All she knew for certain about her surroundings was that, while it was very quiet around her, there seemed to be a hum of activity nearby, of people, perhaps, coming and going.

  It was then that she heard the page over an intercom system: “Dr. Morgenson, lab please, Dr. Morgenson, lab...”

  Doctor? thought Miranda, her weary eyes closed. Am I in the hospital? If so, then why? Why could I possibly be in the hospital?

  She was incredibly weary.

  She felt like she hadn’t slept in days.

  Or was it the effect of drugs, medication?

  That was a sobering thought.

  Why would she be on drugs?

  Medication?

  She listened intently and her suspicions were confirmed by someone asking to speak with a nurse.

  She was in the hospital... but she still didn’t know why.

  There had to be a reason why they were keeping her on her stomach but what, pray tell, was that reason?

  She opened her eyes again and the metal contraption was still there, looking like a piece of modern art, with its long plastic tubes coming out of it all over the place and those neon green lights flashing numbers and symbols that made no sense to her.

  The beeps that the machine emitted made no sense to her, either.

  No sense at all.

  She listened intently, fighting the urge to again close her eyes...

  It was like a television medical drama, only the personal nightmare rendition.

  She almost fell asleep again.

  But she didn’t want to sleep.

  She wanted to know what the Hell was going on.

  What had happened?

  She saw that there was a curtain behind the tall, narrow machine and she was sure she heard breathing.

  Deep, shallow breathing.

  Was someone there, on the other side of the curtain?

  Miranda shifted her right arm and her head and was amazed by the amount of effort that the single, simple move took.

  Her arm felt like lead and her head swam as she looked at the small push button device that was pinned to the sheet of the bed that she was on, just within reach of another one, a yellow one.

  She stared at them for a long moment, because staring took less energy than moving.

  But she was determined to move, so she raised and turned her head back to its original position and stared some more to her left, at the tall machine that was as appalling as it was intriguing.

  A dim recollection of a medical program she had watched once told her that it was an IV machine, IV meaning intravenous, of course.

  That much she knew.

  “What happened to me?” She tried asking the breathing presence in the room but all that came out of her throat was a dry croak.

  She heard the person startle and rush out of the room.

  She considered calling out for help.

  “Hello?” The moment she found her voice the second time, the door to her shared room opened and she saw a flash of white.

  A uniform!

  There was someone standing before her.

  A nurse maybe?

  “I see that you’re awake,” said the woman, in a soft, chipper tone. “Don’t try to move any more than you absolutely have to. You’ve had a medical emergency and as a result, you’re in a surgical recovery room at the Letterman General Hospital.”

  “What?” Miranda croaked and, though her mouth was dry, recovered her voice. She seemed to have difficulty concentrating. Her mind was as numb as the rest of her, her thoughts seeming to move slowly, sluggishly. “What sort of emergency?”

  “I’m not sure its best for you to talk about that right now,” answered the nurse, who bent over so that Miranda could see her.

  The nurse had short-cropped blond hair and from the look of the big smile on her face, Miranda just knew that she was one of those incredibly cheerful people who loved to annoy the hell out of immobile, weary people such as herself.

  “What am I doing on my stomach?” She asked, frustrated with her situation.

  “The lesser of two evils,” replied the nurse, still as cheerful as the moment she had come in. “You’ve had surgery to your front and back but most of the damage was done to your back, so I’m afraid you’ll have to be on your stomach most of the time for the next few days.”

  Miranda fought to keep her eyes open.

  “Damage?”

  “You were shot, Miranda.”

  “Shot?” She croaked.

  “You’re very fortunate, actually. A few inches lower or higher and it could have
killed you.”

  Shot.

  The thought startled her.

  “What are those devices near my right hand for?”

  “The yellow one is the call bell – you push the button if you need help. The white one is Morphine.” The nurse sounded worried when she added, “On a scale of one to ten, one being the least amount and ten being the worst ever, how bad is the pain in your left shoulder?”

  Miranda tried to focus on what the nurse was saying.

  She felt dazed but got the gist of it.

  Her shoulder ached a little.

  Moreso, it throbbed slightly.

  It didn’t feel near as bad as she thought a gun shot should feel.

  “About a four?” Miranda replied.

  “Well, then – when the pain in your shoulder comes back, when you feel you need something for the pain, press the white button once and the machine will measure out a dose for you.”

  “Does my family know that I’m in here?”

  “Your Aunt Nancee and Uncle Russ were in to see you earlier today. You were asleep.”

  Miranda frowned. “How long have I been in here?”

  “Since about ten o’clock last night.”

  Last night...

  What had happened last night?

  She struggled to remember but groggy as she was, she could not.

  “What time is it now?” She asked, her voice high pitched with panic.

  “Twenty after nine. In the evening.”

  Almost twenty-four hours had passed since her emergency.

  She wondered where Richard was, if he had come to see her too...

  No, that didn’t seem quite right.

  Richard was...

  Richard was...

  Had something happened to Richard, too?

  They had gone to the baroque concert, hadn’t they?

  Vaguely, she remembered the baroque.

  The clarinet player with the lips of steel.

  She remembered leaving her seat, remembered speaking with Judge Aitken briefly at the intermission...

  Beyond that, she could not remember a thing.

  Or could she?

  “Where’s Richard?” She asked, anxiety making her pulse quicken and the beeping of the monitor to pick up tempo.

  “Upset, aren’t you?” Asked the young nurse, brandishing a hypodermic needle. “Your physician figured you would be.”

  “Oh God, a needle?”

  “He prescribed you a little something to help you settle.”

  Whatever was in the needle, Miranda didn’t want.

  The adult in her fought against her childhood fear of needles, inner conflict that it was it didn’t really show on the outside but she was on the losing end of the battle.

  The blond nurse pulled back her covers and Miranda felt a rush of cool air on her bare legs.

  She swabbed Miranda’s skin with a piece of alcohol-moistened cotton and inserted the needle in the flesh above her right buttock, with the blatant lie, “It won’t hurt a bit.”

  It didn’t hurt as much as other needles she’d had in the past but Miranda still felt the pinch…

  The next time Miranda awoke, her left shoulder was aching.

  Vaguely remembering the nurse’s words, she depressed the white button with her right hand and quick relief was soon granted her by the saccharine embrace of the morphine.

  She felt even more fuzzy than she had been before, as the drug took renewed hold.

  These are some cool drugs, she thought, amused in her state of drug stupor. Very cool drugs...

  And so it was with amusement that she looked up at the transfusion stand that had been placed next to the IV machine.

  It was with amusement also that she watched the red of a donor’s blood drip slowly into the plastic tubing that led to the needle that disappeared into her flesh of the back of her hand.

  The needle there amused her some more.

  She hated needles but his one didn’t hurt a bit, despite the different tubes that were attached to it, dripping their solutions into her veins...

  She felt gratitude to the unknown donor.

  “I’ve got to make sure I donate blood next time…”

  Contrary to the young nurse’s claim that she was going to have to be on her stomach for a couple of days, the head nurse came with a helper in the afternoon and propped her into a sitting position. The left side of her body was heavily bandaged, her left arm in a sling, to keep it immobile and promote healing. They put a great number of cushions at the small of her back to ensure that there was no pressure being put on her shoulder and thus, she was able to sit up and sip water and visit with friends and family.

  Around three o’clock, her Uncle Russ, Aunt Nancee and cousin Lynn came to visit her.

  They crowded Miranda’s small half of the hospital room.

  It was with a sheepish smile that her influential uncle said, “We tried to get you a private room but the hospital was packed.”

  She looked at her red haired uncle and wasn’t sure if she heard him right.

  The drugs were playing tricks on her ears.

  “That’s all right, Uncle Russ. A room is a room.” She shrugged and smiled a dopey smile, elated by the morphine. “So, what happened to me, anyway?”

  Her Aunt Nancee frowned and her cousin Lynn glared at her Uncle Russ.

  Lynn was every bit as red headed as her father and had the Scottish temper to match.

  “Tell her, dad.” Lynn’s green eyes sparkled dangerously with unspoken threats as she went on to say: “Tell her the truth.”

  “The truth.” Miranda agreed, with a big dopey grin for the family she loved.

  Uncle Russ looked uncomfortable with whatever truth he had to offer.

  “As the nurses told you, you were shot, Miranda. We’re not sure by whom. The police are hoping you could tell them...”

  “Shot?” An array of images flashed through Miranda’s mind, too quick, too tangled for her to make sense of.

  She felt a surge of panic as she thought of Richard.

  Panic directed at his well being.

  Panic that brought her to fear the worst.

  Even in fear, she wore a half smile.

  Only morphine could offer her such detached bliss...

  “Richard was with me, wasn’t he?”

  Her tiny blond haired aunt seemed particularly uncomfortable, shifting from foot to foot.

  Nancee rubbed her small hands nervously, a gesture that told Miranda bad news was about to hit the fan.

  “Well,” Nancee began and then paused, to let out her burden, a long, deep sigh. “Richard... well, Richard... he was shot too, sweetheart.”

  Fragments of memories flooded Miranda’s mind full of waking dreams.

  She thought she remembered a gunshot, a voice – a gruff voice that was not Richard’s...

  Say goodnight, princess.

  Miranda’s intelligent green eyes swelled with horror, as she remembered Richard’s body slumping to the ground before her, remembered the splash of warm wetness that had hit her face a fragment of a moment after the first gunshot.

  Remembered the second gunshot, the one that had, no doubt, put her here, in the hospital.

  “He was shot... Richard!” Her fearful green eyes turned to behold her Uncle Russ, who sported a frown beneath his red moustache. “Uncle Russ, is he all right?”

  “No, my dear, he’s not all right.” Russ shoved his hands deep into his pockets.

  In his pockets, the hands became tight, frustrated fists.

  “Is he here? Is he hurt too?”

  “Richard is dead.” Russ told her and braced himself for the worst.

  “Dead?” Even though Miranda knew that it was true, she didn’t want to believe it.

  “I’m so sorry..,” said Lynn, stepping forward. “Oh, Miranda, you don’t know how worried I was about you – how worried we all were. When Mr. Logan called us and said you’d been shot...”

  Lynn kept talking but Miranda was no lo
nger listening.

  Richard, dead?

  That couldn’t be...

  He couldn’t be dead.

  They were going to be married.

  She loved Richard and Richard loved her.

  The Fates would not be so cruel, as to part two lovers about to be married, would they?

  Yet over and over again, in her mind’s eye, she could see Richard’s head jerking back after the first gunshot, saw the hole left there, saw his body slump to the ground, saw the man with the menacing gun, saw-

  “Miranda,” began Nancee, “I know that words cannot-“

  “Barry.” Miranda said suddenly, snatching the name from the painful vision in her head, interrupting her aunt. “A man named Barry shot us. Richard knew him by name.”

  “And you’re sure it was Barry?” Russ asked, though the name was familiar to him for reasons he was not about to disclose.

  It was bad enough that his wife and daughter had forced him into confessing to them the private investigator he’d hired.

  He was not about to tell Miranda everything.

  Not now, in her drugged state.

  He knew that she was on a high dose of morphine – as her next of kin, he had spoken to her doctor himself.

  From the way Miranda was behaving, he just knew that it wouldn’t do her any good to overload her with too much too soon.

  He would tell her everything, in due time. He would tell her about his discoveries, about the private investigator he had hired.

  Now was just not the right time to discuss Brian Logan...

  “I’m certain of it.” Miranda felt the first of many tears well up in her eyes.

  She swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat and sought her glass of water.

  The morphine was cushioning the shock of the news but only just.

  To hear that Richard was gone still hurt her – the loss was a horrible, crushing weight on her chest, an ache in her heart that she was sure no drug could fully ease.

  She had come to know loss quite well through her twenty seven years.

  This loss didn’t hurt any less because of the morphine.

  She considered her losses for a moment.

  First, there had been the untimely death of the Fowlers, her mother, Simone, father, Eric and brother, Dennis, when she was only sixteen. Then, when Miranda was twenty, she suffered the loss of her grandmother, Serena, a woman she had loved with all of her heart. Now, as painful as all the others, was the loss of her fiancé, the man she had loved with all of her being, all of her soul.