I pushed it into an IV, which I assumed had been started by the nurse who had walked out on me. As soon as the meds took effect, his body relaxed. Then I was able to get the nosebleed under control by putting the tiny bone back into place and holding it for a few moments. He was covered in blood.
“So, how’d you get the busted nose?”
“I came out better than everyone else,” he said with a laugh. I felt like maybe I’d given him a little bit too much. He seemed too relaxed. “If that guy wouldn’t have hit me, no one would’ve gotten hurt. I just needed the money to get these shakes under control. Just a little fix. I guess I shoulda just come to see you, huh, Doc?”
Suddenly, as realization dawned, the room elongated as if I were in a movie. He was on one side; I was on the other. I shook my head, a fresh set of tears springing to my eyes.
“You shot these people?”
“Shhh. If you tell, that won’t be good for nobody.”
“You shot these people?” I repeated. I couldn’t believe my ears. Why would he confess? Maybe he was just crazy.
I walked out of the room and stood outside the door. I needed to think. I thought about the restaurant employees that I’d treated. They’d described the man. They had said he’d been punched by a patron, in an attempt to stop the robbery.
Ben walked by. “What are you doing, Drake? Get busy.”
“Yeah, right behind you,” I said.
I moved quickly, grabbing a gunshot residue kit from the closet where I’d gotten the rape kit the day before, and went back into the potential murderer’s room. I didn’t know why I hadn’t asked for Ben’s help, but I hadn’t. Instead, I tested the tip of the man’s fingers for gunpowder residue. It only took a moment to show that it was positive.
“Now what? You gonna call the cops? I done slipped by them once today.”
“You killed a child. Her name was Lou-Lou. She was a beautiful little—”
“Them drugs is wear’n off. You holding out on me?”
I blinked several times. I didn’t really think about it, rather, I felt my arms moving as I pulled the pillow from under his head and placed it over his face. After a moment, he thrashed, so I climbed on top of him and put my whole body’s weight on the pillow. After he passed out, I came to my senses and jumped down. But then the thought of Lou-Lou’s dad sprang into my mind. I ran my fingers across the bracelets on my wrist.
There was so much senseless crime…perhaps, there should be a fair share of crime that made sense. With that notion, I reached over, re-broke his nose, tilted his head back, and walked out.
Unfortunately for him, the drugs I’d given him to ease his withdrawal had a blood-thinning effect. I flipped the chart to make it look like the patient’s treatment had been completed and then moved on to catch up with Ben.
As I walked out of the room, I actually thought that, after a few minutes, I would run back and turn his head so at least the blood would run out to the side instead of down the back of his throat. Then maybe someone would notice and help him. Not me, I wouldn’t help him, but someone might. But that didn’t happen. None of that happened. Three hours later, after the chaos began to wane, someone realized that particular room hadn’t been turned over and found him dead.
I had already put it out of my mind, somehow.
When I heard some of the staff talking about it, I felt relieved. Not the kind of relief I got from helping someone, but more like the kind I got from removing a thorn from my side. It was better than the anguish I’d been feeling before over that girl and her dad.
I went back to check on the dad after things had calmed down a bit. He was being admitted, as were many of the patients who’d survived the shooting, but was waiting on a room. In the interim, I ordered medicine for his pain and something for anxiety. He’d been sedated after he was told what had happened. But he had to wake up sometime. I wished I could tell him that justice had been served, but I couldn’t. Someone would, though. Someone would figure out that the dead guy was the shooter. They just wouldn’t know what had happened to him. That would work out just fine.
I slipped one tiny, pink bracelet onto the man’s wrist. It was tight, but the rubber material gave enough. He would recognize it. I kept the other for myself, just in case I ever forgot the reason why I’d done what I had.
“So, what happened to room two?” Ben asked as I walked back out into the hallway.
“Huh?”
“You were standing right outside the door a few hours before they found him. What happened?”
“Oh, it was a nosebleed.” I shrugged. Shockingly, not at all remorseful for a fresh murderer. I’d never hurt anyone before. In fact, quite the opposite. All I’d ever done was help to heal people. I don’t know what made me do what I did. Probably because it made sense when nothing else I’d seen around here did.
“Just a nosebleed?”
“I know, right? After everything that’s happened this evening—”
“Drake,” he interrupted, “do you think it could’ve been the shooter? Remember what some of the victims said about the shooter getting punched in the face?”
“Oh, wow. I don’t know. You should tell someone that theory.”
He shrugged. Our shift was over. We were both spent.
“You know, Drake, I thought you were going to walk out on me there for a minute.”
“Shhh,” was all I could manage. I didn’t want to talk about the horrible things I’d seen. He gave a curt nod, waited for me to get my things, and then walked me to the deck in silence.
“Will you be back tomorrow?”
I just gave him a blank stare, got in my car, and closed the door. The sun was already up. I looked in the rearview mirror. I wished I wouldn’t have. The person I saw was not the same as the person I’d been before my shift. She was darker somehow. Less afraid. She was vibrant and scary, but brave. She was so brave.
I tilted the mirror up. I just needed to get some sleep. I was so freaking tired. That was all.
On the drive home, I think I went through all of the stages of grief. Not for the man I’d killed, or the little girl he’d killed, but for the person I’d been yesterday. By the time I got home, acceptance rested on my shoulders.
I’d wanted to change the world, and so I had. I’d scraped a tiny piece of crap from the bottom of one shoe, from one city, of one country, in this world.
I could accept that.
Chapter 4
I thought I’d been kidding myself. I thought remorse for my actions would make my belly heavy and my thoughts even heavier, but it didn’t. I felt justified. Sleep had come easily. I’d slept a dreamless, deep, satisfying sleep until my alarm went off.
I awoke feeling as refreshed as I thought I could ever feel for sleeping during the day then readied for work, slipping on the tiny pink bracelet. I would work my shift then be off for a few days. That was the shift I’d accepted. A Baylor, nurses called it. As a doctor, I’d always called it a ‘Swing Shift’. It was a weekend-only position. I worked Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights, then was off Monday through Thursday.
I’d thought I would go see my parents on my off days, but not now. Not after what had happened. I’d seen too much…I’d done something they’d never understand. I wasn’t ashamed, but I still didn’t want to lie to them. Being with them, and pretending to be a healer or a hero, would be a lie. I did text them something to let them know I was okay and heading into work.
When I got to work, I felt charged. It was as if I were the coffee.
Ben approached me with a sort of caution that I didn’t understand. It was as though he sensed something was off. But we hadn’t known each other long enough for him to be that attuned to me.
“Glad to see you back, Dr. Drake.”
“You really do think I’m weak, don’t you, Bailey? Is it just me or all women?”
“No, it was just the way you…” He spoke softly. “You know, you were very upset yesterday. I was just worried about you, that’s all.”<
br />
I blinked several times. “You can’t get caught up on one patient, Benjamin. Isn’t that what you said? You have to keep moving, right?”
“Yeah, but that kid—”
“Let it go.”
“Aubrey.”
“We’re walking,” I said, taking a chart from the desk, leaving him standing there. The part of me that had hardened didn’t want to be reminded of how soft it had been before. I couldn’t think about what he was asking me to discuss, so I just kept moving.
The night seemed to fly by with patient after patient running together like watercolors. I stitched wounds, staunched bleeds, set bones, and so on. It was a tad of almost everything I’d learned in trauma. That’s where I worked best. They didn’t ask me over to the side where they treated the sick or idiopathic patients. Ben and I worked four hands to one mind in trauma.
Professionally, Ben and I were meant to be. We were one. He knew what I was thinking or what I needed before I spoke it. He was the best nurse I’d ever worked with, hands-down. His anticipation skills were almost supernatural. I guessed if I could be a killer, he could be a mind reader. Possibilities seemed endless all of the sudden.
Police officers were regulars on our side of the desk, which sat in the middle of the emergency department like a hive. Cops came in with injured suspects as well as victims. I’d seen cops here all three nights I’d worked. They were like rubberneckers on the freeway: useless and in the way. They bogged up traffic that would otherwise move smoothly. I hadn’t seen a use for them here when they should be out in the city at work. In fact, Ben was surprised when I began asking them to leave the room during examinations. They had little choice but to oblige those requests when it came to victims. When I was treating suspects on the other hand, well, that was a different story.
“I’m here to protect you from this animal,” a scrawny little cop answered when I asked why he was in my way. I knew I was being overly harsh toward the men and women in blue but I thought they should be out preventing crimes instead of waiting around here to pick up a suspect after the fact. They seemed to have an excellent working relationship with the other staff but to me, they were easy targets for blame. A cop out, pun intended.
“Yeah? What did he do?”
“I’m not at liberty to discuss—”
“What did you do, guy?” I asked the patient directly. He looked at the cop and back at me as though I was crazy. He wasn’t about to confess. Well, duh.
I looked him over carefully. He was a large, brawny man. A stereotypical biker type. I went to inspect his knuckles for fistfight-type wounds.
“He stabbed someone,” Ben said. Everyone in the room looked at him. I briefly wondered if he really were a mind reader. “For real. Look at the insides of his hands. The cuts. Looks like whoever he stabbed put up a fight. The lacerations suggest that he tried to stab them multiple times, but his knife kept slipping, causing his own injuries. He’s a lefty. See for yourself.”
“I want a lawyer,” the man said. The cop began speaking into his radio, at which point I did ask him to at least stand on the other side of the wall with the door open, so I could do my job. He was reporting all of what Ben had said.
I examined the man’s hands closely, as Ben had from more of a distance, and found him to be correct. I looked at Ben in awe. What a brilliant talent he had.
“You know,” I said to the patient, “burly men such as yourself seem to think that it takes a lot of strength to overcome someone. Look what you’ve done to yourself.” I spoke as I worked to sew up the deep cuts on his dominant hand. “By the look of your own wounds, I would guess you must’ve stabbed the other guy three, maybe four times?”
“Seven, at least,” Ben chimed in, handing me another suture. The man’s eyes widened. I don’t think he even knew how many times he’d stabbed his victim.
“My cohort is very observant, isn’t he? He’s so handy. Anyway, as I was saying, brains over brawn, fella. See, you nearly sliced your fingers off trying to stab someone when I could kill you right now with one prick of this tiny little needle.” I held up the suture. “One slip to the artery and that’s all it would take. Well, that and about fifteen minutes.” I laughed. “But I digress.”
Ben was staring at me with his mouth agape. He took the suture. “I’ll finish this up.”
“Of course. Thank you, Ben,” I said in an attempt to rein myself in. I stepped into the hallway, finding two officers discussing the stabbing incident. I needed to know. “What happened? Where’s the victim?”
“There was no victim, lady. They’re both criminals, and they’re both going to make it. Since they’re about even-steven on the piece-of-shit scale, I doubt either of them will file charges.”
I was about to inquire how it was possible that neither would go to jail if they were criminals. How was the justice system so off-kilter that not just one, but two, violent offenders would be set free? But then I saw Detective Morris from the corner of my eye. I remembered him from The Village rape patient. I didn’t think I would ever forget a moment of this weekend, even if I wished I could. It had been too eventful.
“Detective,” I called out. Todd Morris was about five foot six, short for a man but tall to me. He had light hair and eyes to match. There was a charisma about him that probably drew women in. It was his confidence, the way he carried himself, that made me look twice.
“Firecracker! I wasn’t expecting you to still be here.”
“Why is that, Detective?”
“Too squeamish.”
“Humph. Well, I guess I proved you wrong.”
“I guess so.”
“What are you doing here?”,
“The Village Rapist struck again.”
“No…”
“Yep. We’ve been waiting a half-hour for an exam. Do you think you could help me out?”
“Sure, let me grab Ben.”
He tilted his head to the side with a slight grin. “You seem capable of handling this without the sidekick, Aubrey.”
“Don’t expect me to swoon because you remembered my name, and don’t compliment me while insulting my wingman.”
“Like I said, firecracker.”
“You must like to be chastised, Detective.”
“By you, any day,” he flirted. I couldn’t help the little blush that rose on my cheeks and the smile that broke free. I turned to go get Ben, but he was right there behind me. I wiped the schoolgirl grin from my face immediately.
“Ben, I was just coming to get you. How long have you been standing there?”
“Long enough,” he said, looking down at me, seemingly disappointed.
I made quick work of getting the kit done this time. I was more efficient, yet still emotional. The girl looked nothing like the first young woman, which I thought was strange. I’d assumed that a rapist, like any man, would have a type or preference. I mentioned this to the detective.
“None of them look particularly alike,” he said.
“I don’t think it’s about looks at all,” Ben said, towering over both of us.
They stared at one another. They may as well have held out their dicks for me to measure. There was clearly something deeper going on between the two of them. I was just coming in on something that had obviously been going on for a while. I didn’t care. It wasn’t my business. It was my business to help these women. I intended to make it my business to, hopefully, prevent more rapes from occurring. If I had to flirt a little with this hotshot detective to get some info on the rapist, then I would.
“Well, by all means, let’s hear what nurse Ben has to say on the matter,” Morris spat.
“I think there’s something deep going on in his mind.”
The detective laughed. “Ya think?”
“Yeah, I do. I don’t think his motives are about looks, or even sex.”
“Really, nurse?” Morris stepped up in a standoff position, as if Ben were challenging him.
“You can stop saying nurse as if I should be
embarrassed. I went to college and have a master’s degree in nursing. How long did you go to school, Dick?”
“Okay, guys; I think that’s enough with the pissing contest. Ben, grab the next chart, okay? I’ll catch up,” I said, hoping to de-escalate the situation. He looked down at me with a furrowed brow. “Please?” I patted his shoulder.
After he walked away, I looked to Detective Morris. “What’s up with you two?”
“He’s still pissed about Gia. There was this chick, ah, girl, Gia, that he liked. She was a nurse here for about a minute. She picked me.” He smiled and shrugged, as though it were the obvious choice.
Flirting wasn’t a skill I’d mastered, but I decided that this guy thought enough of himself to make it easy. I looked up at him with a slight smile. “Well, you do have a way about you, Detective.”
“You can call me Todd, Aubrey.”
I bit my lip and smiled. “You can call me Doctor, Todd.” He laughed at that.
“So, do you expect the rapist to strike again this week? If so, why wouldn’t you guys just cover the entire community with officers?”
“Go out with me.”
What? Go out? I began to panic. I hadn’t expected that. I thought a little harmless flirting would get me the information I was looking for. I had questions. I figured if I could do…what I did…I could stop this rapist too, if I could catch him, since the cops weren’t getting the job done.
“I assume most of the attacks occurred at night,” I said, ignoring the question.
“Doctor, those are very specific questions. We hardly know each other,” he joked. “Come on; go out with me. Just dinner.”
I thought it over. Ben called out to me from the desk. “A drink. Just a drink. I’m new to the city, but I know this little place around the corner from my apartment. It’s called Pubster, I think. Meet me there at seven tonight,” I spoke as I was walking away backward. Ben was rubbing off on me.
Do No Harm (Dr. Aubrey Drake #1) Page 3
