Urgent Care (42 page)

“Clear a path!” Ken ordered in a voice that would have made a military drill sergeant proud.

The confused throng obeyed, Gina yanking the makeshift stretcher along, shoving people aside.

“I said move it!” she yelled at two gawking matrons draped in fur.

They sped around the corner into the back of the ER, and then through the doors to OR 13, where the trauma team was gathered.

“Thirty-seven-year-old male”—Gina called out the information, fighting to keep her tone neutral despite the churning anxiety tearing through her insides—“shot at close range through his left upper quadrant and left temporal parietal region. Unresponsive, but pupils equal and reactive. Heart rate one-thirty, good carotid, weak radial pulse. Abdomen distended, airway needs suctioning, respirations around twenty-four.”

Ken helped them move Jerry onto the OR bed, then stood to one side. The nurses and the second-year ER resident swarmed over Jerry’s body, cutting his clothes off and getting him on the monitor. Gina realized she was the senior physician. The command doc.

The one holding Jerry’s life in her hands.

“Someone page surgery, tell them to get their asses down here! Suction his airway and set up for intubation,” Gina ordered. “Give me two large-bore IVs, run them open for now with LR until the blood arrives. I want six units of O neg on the rapid infuser, trauma labs, X ray of his chest, abdomen, and head, NG and Foley.” The team leaped into action, following her commands.

She pushed the second-year resident out of the way and swiftly intubated Jerry. No way she was trusting a critical procedure to a second-year. She listened intently. It was hard to do with her own pulse thundering through her ears. “Down on the left. We need a chest tube. Where the hell’s X ray and surgery?”

The second-year started a central line while she set up for the chest tube. “His pressure’s spiking,” a nurse called. “Heart rate dropping.”

Damn. “Ken, take over here. You remember how to do a chest tube, don’t you?” She checked Jerry’s pupils. “Blown on the right. Push the mannitol, elevate his head, and someone get me the drill.”

She felt like she needed to be everywhere at once.
Breathe,
she reminded herself,
just breathe
. As she prepped Jerry’s skull, carefully palpating the landmarks to decide on where to place the burr hole, she talked Ken though the chest tube.

“Wouldn’t the bullet hole decompress the brain for him?” the second-year asked as he sutured the central line in place.

“Not if he has a contrecoup injury on the opposite side of his brain.” Which meant there was a good chance the brain between the entrance wound and the new area of bleeding was jelly. Gina shoved that thought aside and steadied her hands against the drill. Slowly she cranked the handle until she broke through the skull. “I think I’m in.” She pulled the drill out and a gush of blood followed.

“BP dropping back to normal, heart rate improving.”

“Nice work,” Diana DeFalco said as she flounced into the room. “Sorry to be late. The operator insisted that you all were bringing him up to us. And once I figured out that you were down here, security wouldn’t let me through. Something about a shooting in the research tower.”

“Yeah, Jerry,” Gina said, lowering her hands out of sight before Diana saw their trembling.

Diana’s gaze flicked over Jerry, assessing him without asking questions. “That purse-string suture needs to be tighter, Dr. Rosen,” she told Ken, who quickly retied the suture. “Hand me the ultrasound.”

As Diana scanned Jerry’s belly, she continued, “They said there was a second shooting. Lydia Fiore called it in? Anyway, looks like my work’s going to be easy. A splenic bleed, nothing too serious. I want to run his bowel, of course.”

She handed the ultrasound back to the nurse. “Okay, let’s get him packaged. The neurosurgeons cry like babies when they don’t have all their toys at hand, and this is obviously going to be their show. Page them stat to OR Four, tell them we’ll meet them there. And someone wake up radiology—I want them ready for immediate angiogram and CT when we need it.”

The nurses were trying to wheel Jerry away when Gina realized she was still gripping his hand. Ken gently pulled her away. “He’s in good hands, Gina.”

Diana held the door open as they pushed Jerry out. “You did a good job, Gina. If it weren’t for you, he’d never be making it to the OR alive.”

Nice words—but meaningless if Jerry died. Gina stared after him, feeling like she was drowning, gasping for air . . . and finding none.

 

 

GLEN FORCED NORA TO MARCH DOWN THE STEPS. He was so agitated that the knife shook in his hand and he’d nicked her neck. Blood trickled down her collar.

Two years ago, surrendering had saved her life.

But this time she was in control—despite the knife at her neck. She could choose: fight or flight.

Nora scoured the space before her, searching for an opportunity. She chose her moment as they approached the next landing.

She stepped down onto the flat ground. Glen, midstep above and behind her, lowered the knife as she pivoted to make the turn. But instead of continuing down the next flight of steps, she spun and pushed him as hard as she could, hoping to topple him over the railing.

He was too big for her to push over, but he did stumble, losing his footing, slipping down the final two steps, sprawling backward as he caught himself, the knife dropping beside him.

Nora seized her split second of freedom. She could run—but he’d make up for the lost ground before she got far. So she chose to fight.

He was drawing his gun. She went for that hand, smashing it against the corner of the step. Glen rolled over on top of her, pinning her beneath his weight. She twisted his wrist back, using all her strength to force it past its breaking point.

He grabbed her hair, yanking her head back so hard and fast that her vision darkened to red.

“Let her go!” Lydia’s voice came from below.

Nora kept a firm hold on Glen’s gun hand and fought to draw in a full breath as her neck was twisted. Glen’s grip on her hair only tightened.

“Let her go now, Glen!” Lydia arrived on the landing. Nora saw she had her gun out, was holding it on Glen.

Glen slowly uncurled his fingers, releasing Nora’s hair. Nora didn’t relax her grip on his gun hand, using both her hands to keep it jammed against the step.

“Drop the gun,” Lydia ordered, her voice as steady and calm as it was during a trauma.

Glen relaxed his grip on the gun. Nora hefted it in her hand, feeling its weight, the surprising warmth of its grip. Power coursed through her veins, releasing her fear, unleashing a giddy feeling of lightness. The colors surrounding her were bright, blinding, yet her vision remained clear, refusing to allow any gray to shadow the truth.

She wanted to kill Glen. She would kill him.

Her breath whistled through her bared teeth. He stared up at her, at first blankly, then with a knowing smile. “You and me, Nora. Together. It doesn’t have to be this way.”

She shoved his weight off her. As she stood and stepped back, she held the gun awkwardly, but it was pointed right at him—that was all that counted.

Glen didn’t stop smiling. “Go ahead. You can do it. Pull the trigger. It’s the one way you and I will always be together. You’ll never forget me. Every breath you take, every moment you’re alive, I’ll be with you forever.”

Nora’s index finger caressed the trigger.

“Nora, don’t listen to him,” Lydia said. “Step back toward me and give me the gun.”

Lydia’s voice was brittle, sharp-edged. Nora spared a glance in her direction and saw that Lydia looked afraid. Of her?

“Go, get help. I’ll deal with him,” Nora ordered Lydia.

Lydia glanced at her, ready to argue, then nodded solemnly and took a step back to the edge of the landing. But she didn’t leave, instead stood silent, watching.

Now it was only Nora and Glen. Just as it had been two years ago. Except this time she was the one who held life and death in her hands.

“I love you, Nora,” Glen crooned, as if he thought he could sway her with words. “Everything I did was because of that. It was all for you. If you had accepted me, looked at me, looked
at me
, we’d be together now and none of this would have happened. I did it all for you.”

“For
me
?” Nora said, her voice breaking with nervous laughter.

He sat up, inching closer, grimacing when he moved his injured leg. “It’s all your fault. I tried everything I knew. I loved you every way I knew how. I gave you everything.” He paused, his hand sliding out along the floor as if he were too weak to support himself.

Nora knew better, saw that he was reaching for the knife lying on the step above him.

“It’s not too late,” he continued in that same hypnotic singsong. “We can still be together. Forever. Just the way it was always meant to be.”

His gaze never left hers as his fingers curled around the knife’s handle. “You and me, Nora. Isn’t that what you want?”

Nora backed up a step. Her pulse drummed through her in a smooth rhythm as compelling as Glen’s words.

All her lies had been laid bare for the world to see. And she no longer felt fear. She was in control here; she had the power. Not Glen, not her terror, not the past.

Glen lashed out with the knife, springing to one foot, aiming for her heart.

Nora pulled the trigger. Again and again and again until she couldn’t pull it anymore. The sound was deafening as the bullets flew through the tiny space. Glen crumpled to a kneel ing position, the knife still clenched in his hand.

Lydia pulled Nora away, then cautiously took the knife from Glen.

Nora didn’t understand why there wasn’t more blood. Surely at least one of the bullets had hit him. But the only blood came from his left arm.

“Is he dead?” she asked.

Lydia reached for his pulse.

Glen’s eyes popped open as he launched himself at Lydia. She flew over the railing. Her body hit with an ugly thump on the steps below.

He turned on Nora, spit trailing from his mouth. Nora raised the useless gun, realized she had no other defense. “You bitch. Why couldn’t you love me?”

His hands closed around her neck, pinning her against the wall. As she pummeled her fists against his chest, they hit something hard. A bulletproof vest.

Her vision constricted. Glen’s face was the only thing she could see clearly as he towered over her. Then even that began to twist and blur as a haze of red overtook her and her body slumped.

Another blast sounded. This one close, so close that Nora thought she was the one shot. Warm blood sprayed against her face.

Glen’s hands relaxed their grip. His body fell forward onto Nora, then toppled to the floor. A large hole gaped where his left eye used to be.

Lydia stood at the edge of the landing, her right arm dangling limply, her pistol still raised in the left, following Glen’s body to the floor. Her chest was heaving, but her arm was steady.

Nora blinked, her vision clearing. A red puddle spread out from the back of Glen’s head. Her heart thumped against her chest wall, galloping.

Footsteps pounded down the steps accompanying the calls of “Police, hands, hands, hands!”

Lydia dropped the gun to the floor, grabbing Nora’s hand and holding her tight even as armed men swarmed the stairwell, surrounding them.

Saturday, 10:47 P.M.

IT WAS HOURS BEFORE THE POLICE LET NORA GO. She rushed to the surgical ICU, her thoughts focused only on Seth.

He wasn’t there.

A frozen void consumed her. It took her a few moments before she had the courage to walk back to the clerk at the nurses’ station. “Seth Cochran?”

Her fingernails dug into her palms as she waited for the clerk’s reply.

“We needed the room—they brought in that cop, you know.”

She did know. Jerry was at the far end of the unit, surrounded by family. But Seth—a thousand worst-case scenarios blossomed in her mind. He could have thrown a lethal blood clot, stroked out, maybe there was damage to his airway after all . . .

“Let’s see. Here he is. Room six-oh-six.”

“What?”

The clerk looked at her with exasperation. “I said, room six-oh-six.”

Nora fled through the door and took the stairs up to the med-surg floor. They must have extubated him—which meant his airway was okay. And they wouldn’t have let him leave the recovery room if he was hemodynamically unstable or showed any brain damage or other complications. . . . She pushed open the door to room six-oh-six. And stopped.

Seth lay sleeping, his IV dripping clear fluid into his arm, bandages peeking up above the left side of the soft cervical collar that protected his neck. But other than that, he looked . . . fine. His color was a little pale, but his face was peaceful. More than peaceful, he was beautiful.

She couldn’t hold back her tears any longer. She crept across the floor and sank into the chair beside him, reaching for his hand. That wasn’t close enough, so she lowered the bedrail and laid her arm alongside his.

Still not enough. She needed him in a way she’d never needed him before. Slipping her shoes off, she climbed into bed with him, the two of them barely fitting. Taking care not to jostle his monitor leads or injured side, she curled her body against his, fitting just right, sharing her warmth with him. As she nestled into his side, she reached down and intertwined her fingers with his.

At last, she could sleep.

 

 

GINA SAT AT JERRY’S BEDSIDE, IGNORING THE stares in her direction. People were saying that she’d saved him, that she shot him, that she killed the gunman . . . How wrong they were. She’d survived—because of him. That was all.

She hadn’t been a hero, had barely even been thinking clearly. It was Jerry who had saved her. And she didn’t like the anger she felt about that. She wanted to love him, to think of him as a hero, but instead there was only anger.