“But you need to get some rest, too,” Liam added. “Okay?”
“Okay. Oh, and Liam, I am truly happy for you,” Dylan added honestly. “I think you are going to make an amazing father. Those kids are going to be lucky to have you in their lives.”
“Thanks, Dylan,” Liam replied, with a grateful smile. “That means a lot.”
Dylan nodded before he turned and climbed out of the car. Walking up the steps to his house, he smiled to himself. Liam was going to be a father, and with Finn and Emmy pregnant too, that just left him the only one without a someone special in his life, without his own little family. Maybe it was time he started to think about settling down too?
Opening the door to his house, he couldn’t help but wonder if he would ever find someone he would want to spend the rest of his life with. Somehow, he doubted it. Given the long hours he pulled at the hospital, he couldn’t ever see himself finding someone that would put up with his long hours.
As Dylan walked into the kitchen, he opened the fridge, looking for something to eat. He was hungry, but he was also beyond tired, and he needed something quick and easy to eat.
Pulling out a bowl of leftover pasta, he looked at it and sighed. Cold pasta in an empty house. Was this what his life had come to now?
Suddenly he didn’t feel hungry any longer. Shoving the bowl back into the fridge, he turned and headed for the stairs.
Reaching his room, Dylan kicked off his shoes, then pulled his shirt off over his head before he crashed down to his bed. He needed sleep and nothing else. Closing his eyes, he slipped into a restless sleep.
Chapter 2
Dylan woke with a start, his heart racing. He’d had a dream, and while he couldn’t remember exactly what it was, he knew it had unsettled him. Also, he didn’t know why, but he knew that the dream had something to do with Jane Doe.
Turning over onto his side, he looked over at the clock on his nightstand and saw that it was almost two a.m. Dylan reached out to pick up his phone from his nightstand, checking to see if there were any missed calls from the hospital, which thankfully there wasn’t.
Still, something was bothering him. He just didn’t know what that something was.
He pushed himself up from the bed and made his way down to the kitchen to get himself a glass of water. As he stood in the kitchen, staring out at the blackness of his backyard, Jane Doe crashed into his mind once more. He wondered how she was doing. He was happy enough with her condition before he left, but still, he couldn’t help but think of the dozens of complications that could arise. He knew she wasn’t out of the woods yet; far from it. Her first hurdle was just making it through the night. Something Dylan knew was not guaranteed.
After knocking back his water, Dylan set his glass down on the counter before he headed back up to his room. When he reached it, he just sat down on the edge of the bed and sighed. He knew that he was never going to go back to sleep now. At least, not while the girl was still in his head.
He had no idea why this one patient had gotten to him so much, but she had. There was something about her, something familiar but he couldn’t put his finger on it.
Maybe he just felt sorry for her. Seeing all the injuries she had sustained, he could only imagine what she had gone through that brought her across his path. She had clearly lived through the unimaginable, and somehow, she survived. The one thing that he did find comforting was, judging from her injuries, she most likely would have blacked out long before the attack had ended. That was something at least, though not much comfort.
Or maybe he just thought she was an amazingly strong person. He was still stunned that she hadn’t died as a result of her injuries. Instead, she had fought. Fought for every single breath despite the collapsed lung; fought to live when most other people would have died.
But now it was his turn to keep her alive, his turn to make sure that she comes through this and somehow got her life back.
Dylan sighed as he pushed up from the bed. He knew he would never settle until he had gone to check on her himself. He walked to his wardrobe, then pulled out some jeans and a top. He threw them down onto his bed before he headed for the bathroom, to jump into the shower. Thirty minutes later he was heading out his front door, making the short journey to the hospital on foot.
When he reached the hospital, the security guard on the front desk nodded at him as Dylan passed him by. Dylan gave the man a nod before he headed to the elevators at the far end of the hallway.
When he reached the ICU, the nurse that was sitting behind the desk, monitoring the patients looked up and smiled the moment she saw Dylan.
“Doctor Murphy,” she said giving Dylan a warm smile, as her cheeks flushed a little with embarrassment. It was clear she liked Dylan more than just as a Doctor, and sure, Dylan thought she was pretty, but he would never go there. He lived by the strict rule of never mixing business with pleasure. So, dating someone from the hospital was something he didn’t do, something Landen, his oldest brother had drilled into his head from the very beginning. “What are you doing here at this time? I thought you had gone home for the evening.”
“I had,” he said as he walked up to the counter, picking up Jane Doe’s file. “But I wanted to check on a patient. How is Our Jane Doe doing? When was the last time she had her vitals checked?”
“About five minutes ago, Doctor Murphy,” the nurse, whose name was Jo, said as she stood up from her seat, giving Dylan a worried look. “There’s not much change, other than her temp was up a little. It’s written in the chart, and I have paged the on-call resident to come and check it out.”
“It’s okay, Jo,” Dylan said, giving the girl a warm smile. “I’ll check it out myself. I’m going to need some blood done; I need to be sure we aren’t dealing with an underlying infection that we don’t know about.”
“Certainly, Doctor Murphy,” Jo replied as she hurried off to get everything that Dylan was going to need.
Dylan checked down through the chart, once more, making sure there was nothing he missed before he turned around, heading for Jane Doe’s cubicle. He smiled at the police officer who was sitting on a chair just outside the glass cubicle before he pulled open the door and headed inside.
“You’re still with us I see,” Dylan said as he walked towards her bed, once more feeling almost sick just looking at the bruises on her face, knowing what she had gone through. “Thank you for not dying on me. I’m very grateful.”
He reached for her hand, giving it a gentle squeezing.
“You’re going to get through this,” he whispered, leaning down closer to her. “I give you my word.”
Releasing her hand, Dylan reached for the digital thermometer that was on the stand, next to the bed. Taking a quick check of her temp, he could see it had risen about point five degrees since it had been taken a few minutes earlier. This was definitely not a good sign.
“What is going on, Beautiful?” He whispered as he looked down at her and smiled. He knew she couldn’t see him, and most likely she couldn’t hear him, but Dylan believed that it was important to talk to the patient at all times because you never know what’s going on inside their heads. He stared at her for a moment and wondered just who this girl really was, as once more there was a sense of familiarity about her.
Pulling his stethoscope from his pocket, he placed it in his ears, before he gently set the other end on the girl’s chest, to listening to her heart.
A noise from behind Dylan made him turn around, and he smile when he saw Jo making her way into the cubicle carrying the blood testing kit he’s asked for.
“How is she?” Jo asked, her eyes fixed on Jane Doe, too.
“Her temp is up a little more,” Dylan said as he took the kit from her.
“I can do that, Doctor Murphy,” Jo said, as she moved around the bed.
“I’ve got it, thanks Jo,” Dylan replied. “And I’ve told you before; it’s Dylan.”
“Dylan,” she repeated with a nod, as she smiled at him.
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Dylan filled several small tubes of blood, then passed them to Jo, who labelled each one carefully.
“Take them straight to the lab, please” Dylan instructed her. “Tell them that these are a priority. In the meantime, I’m going to increase her antibiotics. We need to stop whatever is going on before it becomes a real problem.”
“Certainly, Dylan,” Jo said, as she hurried to the door, leaving Dylan alone once more with the girl.
“You have to keep fighting, okay?” Dylan said, reaching for her hand again. “Don’t you give up on me now, alright. We’ve got this.”
As Dylan watched her lying there, he knew there was something about this girl that had gotten under his skin; something that he couldn’t put his finger on.
Letting go of her hand, he stepped back and sat down on the chair in the corner of her room as the thought occurred to him, where was this girl’s family? Why was she all alone here, right at the moment when she needed people who loved her to be there for her? Why weren’t they looking for her? What was this girl’s story?
Dylan let his head back drop on the chair, before closing his eyes. He thought about his brothers. If any of them were hurt, every single member of the family turned up, so that they knew that they weren’t in this alone. Why didn’t this girl have that too? There was definitely something very sad about this broken, battered girl in the bed before him.
Suddenly Dylan felt tired. Releasing a long, tired breath, he quickly drifted off to sleep with thoughts of the girl in his head.
“Dylan,” Liam’s voice crashed into his dream, waking him with a start.
“What’s… what’s wrong,” he sat up straight in the chair, a little confused by his surroundings. “What are you doing here?”
“I just dropped by on my way to work to see how she was doing,” Liam explained, giving him a knowing smile. “The nurse said you’ve been here most of the night.”
“I woke up about two a.m.” Dylan yawn as he stood up and walked to the end of Brook’s bed. “I couldn’t go back to sleep, so I came in to check on her, which was a good thing, as she had a post-op temperature, so we upped her antibiotics and ran some blood tests.”
Dylan picked up the file from the end of the bed, checking on the lab results and her latest vitals, and outputs.
“How’s she doing?” Liam asked, watching Dylan closely.
“Her temp is still a little higher than I would like it,” Dylan said setting the chart back down on the end of the bed. “But her blood pressure and oxygen levels are good, so that’s hopeful.”
“So, she’s going to be okay?” Liam said, more so than asked.
“Honestly, we won’t know till she wakes up,” Dylan repeated with a smile. “Have you found out who she is yet? Is there anything new?”
“There is,” Liam said, giving Dylan a look that said, the news wasn’t good. “We still don’t know who she is. She was checked into the motel we found her in, under a fake name, and she paid with cash.”
“Damn,” Dylan sighed, as he glanced at her once more. “Someone has to know who this girl is.”
“Actually, we did find one thing,” Liam said, handing Dylan a piece of paper. Dylan looked at his brother for a moment, before his eyes dropped to the piece of paper in his hand.
“Do you have any clue why she had both our numbers on a piece of paper?” Liam asked as Dylan stared at the paper. “I’m right in assuming that’s your writing.”
“I know who she is,” Dylan said, surprising Liam completely. “At least I think I do. Jesus!”
“Who is she, Dylan?! Liam asked.
“She came into the ER once, a couple of years back,” Dylan explained. “Her name is Brook.”
“Are you sure it’s her?” Liam asked, giving Dylan a hopeful look.
“I would have to compare records,” Dylan replied with a shrug, as he looked back up at his brother. “But, yes; I’m pretty sure it’s her.”
“Why would you give her our numbers?” Liam asked, giving him another questioning look.
“She came into the emergency room,” Dylan explained. “She had been beaten up; she was so scared. It… it was the night of Emmy and Finn’s crash.”
“The crash!” Liam replied in surprise. “That was… that was three years ago.”
“I gave her our numbers in case she ever needed help,” Dylan explained. “But then I never heard from her again. So, I figured she just threw the numbers away, or maybe he found them…”
“He found them?” Liam asked.
“Her husband!” Dylan replied with a sigh. “He was the reason she was in the emergency room. He had beaten her up, and it wasn’t the first time either.”
“Why didn’t you call the cops?” Liam asked as he gave Dylan a questioning look.
“He was the cops!” Dylan replied with a sigh, as he looked down at Brook once more. “He was a real piece of work too. Acting like he was some kind of tough guy.”
“So, do you know his name?” Liam asked, giving Dylan a hopeful look.
“I would have to check the chart,” Dylan replied giving Liam a worried look. “But even if you have his name, what does that prove?”
“You said he did this before,” Liam said like it was obvious. “We can pick him up, have a chat with him.”
“And what proof do you have?” Dylan said. “She never told me it was him in so many words. Besides, it’s her word against his, right. That’s how it works. And he’s a cop…”
“That doesn’t mean he should get away with this, Dylan,” Liam said, sounding almost surprised by his brother’s answer. “You know that’s not how it works.”
“Isn’t it?” Dylan sighed. “Because as far as I remember, she didn’t get any help from the cops when she tried to get help before.”
“Did she say that?” Liam asked, stunned by his brother’s remark.
“Not in so many words,” Dylan shrugged. “But she said that the other cops had his back, and there was no one who could help her. That’s why I gave her your number.”
“Jesus,” Liam sighed, and Dylan knew he was angry. “Well, this time I have no one’s back. If he did this, he is not walking away from it.”
“But if you don’t have proof, Liam,” Dylan said, giving his brother a worried look. “He will just walk away from this, and then what. He will come back and finish what he started?”
“It won’t come to that,” Liam assured him. “I give you my word. And when she wakes up, she can tell us what happened…”
“Then why not wait?” Dylan asked, surprise his brother once more. “Wait till she wakes up. If her name goes into the system, he is going to know she is here.”
“I don’t understand,” Liam replied, giving his brother another questioning look.
“What if we keep who she is a secret?” Dylan suggested. “He will assume we have no clue who she is, and he got away with it.”
“And in the meantime,” Liam added with a smile, clearly sensing where Dylan was going with this. “I can do some digging, under the radar, see what dirt I can find on this scumbag. Until then, we will keep the officer posted outside her room.”
“Good,” Dylan nodded, but part of him was still worried.
“Don’t worry,” Liam said, sensing that his brother was still not happy. “I will pick guys that I trust. Good cops that put the job before everything else. You just need to get her through this first.”
“She’s in good hands,” Dylan replied, looking down at her once more. “I will do the best I can to get her through this.”
“I should get to the station,” Liam said, as he turned and made his way toward the door. “I still need you to confirm that she is who you think she is.”
“I will do that this morning,” Dylan assured him. “I just need to check her incisions first.”
“I think that’s my cue to go,” Liam laughed, as he turned and headed towards the door. “I’ll drop back later to see how she’s doing?”
“I’ll be here,” Dylan
replied with a smile before Liam left. Dylan turned to Brook, moving closer to the bed. “I guess we’re alone again. Damn it, Brook, why didn’t you call one of us sooner?”
He pulled his stethoscope from around his neck, popping it in his ears and pressing it against her chest. After listening to her heart for a few moments, he put the stethoscope back around his neck. Next, he took her temp again. As he did, he watched her sleeping, wondering what kind of a life she must have had for the last three years.
He wished he had made her listen that day. He should have never let her leave with him. This was all his fault. He could have stopped it, but he didn’t. He let her down.
“I know who did this to you, Brook,” Dylan whispered as he filled in her chart. “So does Liam now. He will catch him, and I promise you that he will never touch you again.”
He stared at her for a moment, wondering if she could hear anything he was saying.
“I know you must be scared,” Dylan continued as he reached for her hand, gently squeezing it softly. “But you have nothing to worry about. We are going to make sure that you get through this.”
He watched her for a moment, trying to remember how she looked that last time he saw her. He remembered her beautiful blue eyes, and just how sad they looked.
As Dylan stared at her, a sudden need to protect her was coursing through him.
“Doctor Murphy,” a nurse said suddenly from the doorway. “We are ready to take her down for her CT scan that Doctor Abrams has ordered.”
“Okay,” Dylan said, giving the nurse a grateful smile. Doctor Abrams was the neurologist that was taking care of Brook’s head injuries. He was the same doctor that had taken care of Emmy after her crash, so Dylan knew Brook was in good hands with him. “Please keep me informed of the result. Also, I want a repeat of her bloods. Her temp is still up, so I want a full panel done.”
“Certainly, Doctor Murphy,” the nurse replied, giving Dylan a warm smile.
“I also want her vital checks done every fifteen minutes, please” Dylan continued. “If anything changes, even in the slightest way, I want you to page me immediately. I will come back to check on her when I can.”
Dylan (The Murphy Series Book 5) Page 3
