We All Sleep Alone

by Calle J. Brookes

  “Not as hard as we were. The sheriff and one of his deputies are still missing.”

  Jillian and Izzie both gasped at that.

  Rafe nodded, rubbing a hand up Jillian’s back soothingly. “I’m sorry; I know she’s a friend. It’s Bailey that’s missing. I have contacts who will let me know if—when—she and Sheriff Addy are found.”

  “Anything from the TSP?” Shelby had been on her way there to pick up her closest friend. He’d yet to hear from her.

  She’d be trying to get to him if she could. Send him a message. Allen knew that.

  Rafe shook his head. “Another direct hit. They lost two officers and a detective who were caught outside during the storm that I know of right now. There will be more coming from their building; rescue teams are continuing to get them out. No word yet on everyone who was out on patrol. The chief took a knock to the head, but he’s going to be fine. They pulled him out fifteen minutes ago and are bringing him in now.”

  Allen fought the urge to be sick. Everything in him was torn now. His sister was his world. He battled back the urge to run out into the night and find her with everything he had.

  “What the hell are we facing tonight?”

  Rafe shook his head. “I don’t know, but I think it’s just beginning.”

  6

  Still nothing from Shelby. Allen battled back the fear. He couldn’t abandon the hospital—lives could very well be lost if he did. He kept trying to get a call out to his sister over the next few hours—when he could.

  Shelby was the center of his world, now.

  She was all he had left. The only family he had anywhere in the world.

  He disconnected after leaving his tenth message.

  He tunneled all the fear and concern he felt for Shelby on the nurse in front of him. He’d come up behind her in the hall time to hear her coughing and wheezing, and he’d known.

  “Dr. Jacobson.” She said his name after another round of wheezing. He took the supplies out of her arms and handed them to an orderly who was passing by with apparently nothing to do.

  They’d been through a damned tornado—there was plenty for everyone to do.

  He looked at Izzie. “Where are these going?”

  “Tent one. Dr. Henedy and Cherise. I told them I’d grab these on my way back from taking a patient to Virat.”

  They still had most of the tents functional—the fifth had taken damage when someone had driven a truck too near it in a panicked rush for help.

  It would take time to get it back operational.

  “Brandon will take them there. You’re coming with me.” The woman was wheezing. Badly. Combined with the coughing and the known irritants she’d been exposed to, he wasn’t about to take any chances. They needed everyone able bodied. Every nurse was worth their weight in gold tonight. More.

  Rafe had one of the injured nurses still capable of helping out trying to get calls to every part-timer or recent retired nurse they could think of. Anyone. Every hospital was calling in reinforcements.

  “Where?”

  “To an exam room.” He led the way down the hall toward pediatrics. He’d be able to find what he needed there.

  He passed a CNA who didn’t seem to have enough to do either and ordered her to grab him a spirometer. “How bad is the asthma usually?”

  The answer finally came. “Managed with daily medication, mostly.” He had a feeling she never wanted to admit to any weaknesses.

  “And now?”

  “I don’t exactly have my bag with me. It was somewhere in the lobby when it was hit.”

  It would take forever to find that bag, if it hadn’t been picked up by the hell wind and tossed eight miles away. “You couldn’t find any around here?”

  “Not without a prescription and taking the time to get one. I’m fine. I’ve missed it before. I have spares of the asthma meds and the epinephrine pen at home. There’s too much work to do right now. I’m needed out there.”

  He heard the irritation, but Allen ignored it.

  “Not too much that you can’t take care of your own health. What are you on?” He motioned toward the exam table. The room they were using had broken glass on the left side of the room, but he didn’t see any on the exam table. “Sit.”

  He stepped to the side, where he could reach her back with his stethoscope easily. He listened for a moment. “You’re wheezing badly enough I heard you around the corner. The dust we were exposed to most likely had irritants in it. I’d bet my next paycheck on that. Irritants that are going to trigger an acute attack sooner rather than later. You’re lucky it hasn’t hit yet. We need to get it stopped before it gets worse.”

  “I’m going to be fine. We’re understaffed, even for a regular night in the ER. Let alone when the ER has been destroyed.” The wheeze behind her words undermined her argument. Allen listened to it through his stethoscope.

  “Moderate or severe on average?”

  “Mild to moderate. Depends on the season. Let me go.”

  “You won’t do us a damned bit of good if you stop breathing in the middle of us. All that will do is take valuable time to fix, probably at the worst possible time. You’ve been here for hours, after surviving a tornado. You’re done for the night. Period.” The woman he’d sent to fetch what he wanted finally returned. He held it out to the dark-eyed nurse in front of him. Waiting.

  She was going to prove to be stubborn. He knew it. Allen had a feeling stubborn was her strongest trait.

  She glared at him. He wasn’t budging. “Use it.”

  She glared some more. Allen humored her, for the moment. Then when she showed no signs of backing down, he played his trump card. “You do as I say tonight, or I’ll recommend to Rafe you be placed on medical leave. For a week. Have you barred from the hospital completely. Even as a visitor.”

  A bit beyond his ability, but he’d certainly try. He could push, and succeed, but that kind of action would be up to Rafe, HR, and her direct supervisors.

  Izzie finally complied—because of who was in room 403 right now. Annie.

  The results showed him exactly what he suspected. Stress, exposure, and lack of proper medication had combined to do some damage. Either they stopped it now, or it would worsen.

  “Congratulations. You’re off the clock now and will be partaking of some bronchodilators as soon as it can be arranged. If that doesn’t work, you’ll be spending the night here until we get this cleared up.” He held up a hand when she tried to protest. He knew the signs; his sister had suffered chronic but mild asthma until about the age of thirteen or fourteen when they’d finally been able to manage it. “You really think I’m going to back down? You’re more valuable to us healthy and whole than as a wheezing mess. I don’t know how many nurses we’re down now. We’ll need each and every one we can get tomorrow. You’re finished. Give it up. Rest tonight, get back out there in the morning.”

  She’d already more than done her part tonight. Now, it was time she stopped and took care of herself.

  If she wouldn’t make that decision, Allen was going to make it for her.

  7

  Dr. Wallace Henedy stepped into the hallway as the orderlies prepared Nikkie Jean, the pediatric surgeon he worked with, for the quick trip into the room she’d been assigned. He checked the chart quickly. Room 403, bed B.

  He considered it again. Ending it for her. Putting a pillow over her face—or even his hand—and making certain she never told anyone what she’d seen. Who she’d seen him with.

  It wouldn’t take much to do. She was still out from the drug he had given her. His hand was big enough to do the job so easily.

  Her hand lay flat against her stomach.

  Where her fetus rested.

  Everyone knew how excited she was about her baby. A miracle baby she hadn’t expected to ever have.

  Like he and his wife Jennifer had once been.

  Elizabeth Rosemary was supposed to be his and Jennifer’s miracle baby. They’d tried for years after their
son. Jennifer had been so excited to have a daughter, too. It had been her dream to have a daughter.

  The worst day of his life had been the day Elizabeth Rosemary had been born and they had lost her three hours later.

  She would have been twenty-six tomorrow, had she lived.

  Nikkie Jean was thirty, but looked so much younger.

  She was no bigger than a butterfly there.

  He couldn’t do it. There was no way he could harm Nikkie Jean now.

  The loss of his daughter still hurt him every day. A little girl who had so greatly resembled her mother that Wallace had had trouble looking at Jennifer for a few months after.

  Her eyes would have darkened to Jennifer’s deep brown. Wallace had imagined her so many times.

  Her hair had already been pitch black, and would have been the rich coffee that Jennifer’s had been when he’d first met her. He would have laid odds on that, even though their son had his lighter coloring.

  Wallace had imagined what she would have grown to look like, to be like, every single day since.

  Jennifer hadn’t wanted to try for another child after that. She’d been afraid the genetic condition would be passed down again.

  His fault. It had been from him. He’d killed his daughter all those years ago. It had made the both of them cling to Reggie all the more. Made them realize how lucky they had been to get him in the first place.

  His son had weathered the storm safely, and was already organizing his construction crew to get heavy machinery to the worst-hit parts of the city to help with search-and-rescue efforts.

  His son was a good man. One Wallace would always be proud of.

  Reggie wouldn’t be proud of him now. Not for what Wallace had done.

  “Dr. Henedy?” Gwyn, a young nurse in her twenties he’d always found sweetly attractive, called his name. “We’re ready to move Dr. Netorre now.”

  “Of course. I’ll follow along, check her over once she’s settled for the night.” Technically, Nikkie Jean was his patient now. He took his oath to his patients more seriously than any other than his vows to love Jennifer for his entire life.

  No. He would not harm Nikkie Jean again.

  He was disgusted at himself for what he had almost done.

  Damn it, would he ever stop hurting people?

  8

  Izzie was stuck. In a hospital bed. It was all Allen Jacobson’s fault, but she wasn’t complaining any longer.

  After the initial round of meds had failed to do what Dr. Jacobson had expected—apparently, he wanted miracles—the man had admitted her. Over her protests.

  Every time she’d said something, he’d argued right over her.

  No matter how she told him that she was routinely struggling with her asthma, and that this wasn’t much different than normal.

  It hadn’t been enough for him. Dictator.

  Cherise had put her in room 403—that was what had her finally complying would have stayed in there all night, anyway. Nikkie Jean was sound asleep in the second bed when Jillian and Cherise railroaded her into 403, in conjunction with the Dictator.

  Cherise filled her in on what she knew about Nikkie Jean as she handed Izzie the indignifying hospital gown and told her to get changed.

  They’d found Nikkie Jean two hours after the storm hit. Nikkie Jean hadn’t wakened fully since. Wallace Henedy hadn’t taken a blood test or anything to find out. They didn’t know why; it was listed that she’d most likely hit her head. There was a bruise on her temple.

  Izzie had a lot of questions.

  Izzie settled into the chair between the beds.

  So her friends didn’t have to wake alone.

  9

  When next Wallace popped into room 403, just to check if Nikkie Jean had come out of the sedative yet, it was to see the head of the trauma department—his supervisor, Allen Jacobson—in the room, arguing with a smaller dark-haired woman. She was in a patient gown, but when Wallace looked closer, he realized it was Nikkie Jean’s close friend. The one who had always reminded him of his wife, the way she’d been thirty-five years ago.

  So pixyish in appearance, but with a will of iron—and a wit sharper than a knife.

  With her that close to Jacobson, from a distance, the two of them mimicked him and Jennifer all those years ago. Wallace and his wife had probably looked just like that. He and Jacobson were the same height, had similar coloring. Jenny…his Jennifer had been a lot like that girl.

  Every time he ever saw that nurse, he would remember the early years with his Jennifer.

  Izzie, he thought she was called. A pretty girl, but she was very caustic when a physician made a mistake near her. Bright. Bright enough to be a physician herself. She didn’t like him much, and Wallace knew that.

  Concern for her had him doing a quick check of her chart as well. She hadn’t appeared injured earlier; but he thought the girl was an asthmatic.

  A quick visual inspection didn’t tell him a thing, though.

  Until he listened to what Allen was telling her.

  “Dr. Jacobson,” Wallace said. He had been going to examine Nikkie Jean one more time, but with Allen in the room and that nurse shooting daggers at everyone—even as she was coughing and rasping more than any asthmatic he’d ever seen still standing—that wasn’t going to happen. He couldn’t risk giving himself away. Instead, he looked at the third woman in the room, so still in the bed. It surprised him when he realized who it was.

  “I heard we had some of our people in here with Nikkie Jean. I wanted to stop by, check on them before I head out. I’m going to do a shift at County now. They need every one of us they can get.”

  Jacobson nodded. “I’m checking on them myself. They’ll recover, Henedy. Annie took the worst of it, but she’s holding her own. It’s just going to take time.”

  Wallace nodded. Annie—one of the swing-shift nurses, if he recalled correctly. She was often found around Nikkie Jean and Izzie. “Of course.”

  Someone stepped into the room. Rafael Holden-Deane. “Wallace, I need to speak with you a moment.”

  Sweat beaded on Wallace’s neck. It was possible the man knew. Rafe somehow seemed to know everything that happened on FCGH property. The other man was as damned overprotective of Nikkie Jean as he was that wife of his, or Lacy Deane, his sister-in-law. “Of course.”

  They stepped out into the hallway.

  “Wallace…I’m sorry to tell you this,” Rafe started. Wallace tensed. “I didn’t realize Ray was your nephew.”

  Wallace started a bit. “Ray? What’s happened?”

  Ray had a habit of finding trouble at the worst times.

  Wallace knew the instant his eyes met Rafe’s.

  “Wallace, I’m sorry. He’s gone. He was caught in the parking garage and was hit in the head by falling concrete. He died an hour ago. I didn’t realize he was your nephew, or I would have found you sooner.”

  Wallace’s breath backed up in his chest at the other man’s words.

  No. Not his nephew. Not his boy.

  “No…not my boy. No…”

  Rafe’s hand came to Wallace’s shoulder as Allen stepped closer. From the look in his eyes, Allen had heard, too.

  Nurse Izzie peeked around the man’s left shoulder.

  There was compassion in her big dark eyes. Pain for him.

  Dark eyes like Jennifer’s. Dark eyes like Elizabeth would have had.

  Jennifer. He was going to have to tell her, tell his son. “I need…I need my wife. She needs to know. I need Jennifer.”

  “We’ll send Vincent to get her,” Rafe said. “We’ll find one of the chaplains. You don’t have to tell your wife alone.”

  Wallace barely heard him.

  All he could think was that maybe this was the punishment he’d earned by what he’d done to little Nikkie Jean. By leaving her out there in the storm to die.

  For her, for Connie, and Miranda. For Elizabeth.

  It had to be.

  Nothing short of what he deserved. />
  10

  The dark-eyed nurse he was holding hostage was sitting next to her friends’ beds when Allen walked into room 403 again, close to four that morning. It had been one of the longest nights of his life.

  War. It had been war. The hospital staff fighting against the elements, Mother Nature, and time.

  Most of the damage to people that happened in a tornado came from debris and construction materials crushing them. As a trauma surgeon, he was the best qualified to treat those injuries.

  As the head of the department, he was needed. If nothing else, just to keep his people going.

  He was going to take a few hours to rest, before clocking back in sometime in the early morning. Virat was back after a three-hour break, ready to take over some of the burden, as was Cage. The two of them were going to handle things while Allen and Rafe rested.

  He’d gotten ahold of Shelby, finally. Less than thirty minutes earlier, she’d called his phone. He’d been lucky to have signal. She hadn’t spoken directly to him but had left a message.

  Shelby was ok.

  His sister had slightly injured her leg—according to her own report—and her condo had lost part of its roof, but her unit was unaffected. As was his, a few blocks down. She had been able to get a ride to the house she’d inherited from Logan instead. She and a few friends were going to stay there for the night, as it was closer to wherever she’d been with her friend Daryn, before making themselves useful in the morning. Shelby had volunteer search-and-rescue training, though she’d only been in the field a few times; her closest friend’s father had been a former search-and-rescue supervisor with the TSP.

  After what had happened to Shelby when she’d been an undergrad, Allen had encouraged her learning from that man. It had given her a sense of agency in a time she’d desperately needed it. Shown her that not all TSP were evil. That was a lesson he half suspected his sister still needed to learn.

  Allen was going to head there and see his sister for himself as soon as he could.