Critical Condition

by CJ Lyons

  He grunted at that—he felt self-conscious, stumbling through the hallways leaning on a three-footed cane for balance. “No. Too many people.” Jerry flung his hand toward the snow-frosted window. “I want to go out.”

  “There aren’t really that many people. And you don’t want to go out in this weather. They say this storm might grow into a real blizzard. The entire city is pretty much shutting down.” Gina was prattling, but New Jerry wasn’t exactly a sparkling conversationalist.

  He said nothing, just kept watching her, a stranger who wore Jerry’s face like a Halloween mask that slipped and wrinkled in all the wrong places.

  “Want my gun.”

  New Jerry was only nineteen days old—and had spent the first three of those in a coma. His gag reflex still wasn’t working properly, so he couldn’t handle anything more solid than oatmeal without triggering a coughing fit. He was easily frustrated, especially when he couldn’t ignore his new clumsiness and inability to perform simple tasks that used to be automatic, like adjusting a toothbrush to the right angle while looking in the mirror. He couldn’t sleep and alternated between outbursts of tears, laughter, fury—sometimes all three at once.

  Words and faces and entire chunks of his life had been lost to him, maybe forever. He remembered Gina but had forgotten their engagement, and seemed to have blacked out most of the shooting, except for when he dreamed. Yet he constantly asked to see Lydia Fiore, the ER doctor who’d been the real target of the hit man.

  And his gun, he wanted his gun back; he would retreat into a glowering silence for hours if she didn’t let him have it.

  Gina blew out a sigh that left a steam cloud floating on the window, obscuring her reflection. Her dark skin was dull and had lost its shine, her braids were haphazard, her eyes appeared bruised. The woman in the window was a stranger. She drew Jerry’s Beretta from her sweater pocket—it was unloaded, of course—and handed it to him. He grabbed it greedily, clutching it like a security blanket. For the first time since she’d entered the room, his face relaxed, a glimpse of Old Jerry—her Jerry—winking into sight.

  Then it was gone once more. “Lydia?”

  Never once did he ask how Gina was—ask about her own nightmares and lack of sleep and outbursts of tears, laughter, fury. So totally unlike Old Jerry who had cherished and protected her, solved her problems, vanquished her fears, and wrapped her in Kevlar.

  “It’s New Year’s Eve,” she said, forcing a laugh, hoping it disguised her anger. If it weren’t for Lydia, he wouldn’t be lying here, both their futures in shreds. “I’m sure she and Trey are home celebrating.”

  “She’s okay?” He frowned as if Gina’s words made no sense. As if Lydia hadn’t come by to visit him every morning since the shooting. “Sure?” He scratched at his scar and the stubble of dark brown hair growing back on his shaved scalp. “I need to—can’t remember—”

  “She’s fine.” Her words cracked through the air between them. “Forget about Lydia. Let’s work on getting you up and moving.” Getting you back to normal, she wanted to say but didn’t.

  She ducked her head to reach for his slippers under the bed, hoping the movement hid her fear: Life would never be normal again.

  He ignored her as she knelt before him, guiding his feet into the slippers. Cradling his gun, he rubbed it as if it were Aladdin’s lamp, waiting for a genie to emerge. “Don’t know,” he whispered, clutching her shoulder, his gaze skittering around the empty room, searching for enemies. “Not safe. Out there.”

  “It’s okay,” Gina lied. She stood and wrapped her arms around him, gun and all. “I’ll keep you safe.”

  AMANDA MASON LEFT THE HOSPITAL CAFETERIA through the front door, clutching her prize: a large aluminum can clad in a black-and-white generic label. She paused for a moment, looking at the way the snow swirled over the glass walls and ceiling of the spacious atrium to her right. The snow was pretty, but she hoped it didn’t get any worse—she had big plans for tonight.

  Turning her back on the atrium, she passed the auditorium and went to the rear elevator bank reserved for staff and patients, which usually moved a bit faster than the visitor ones. Although the elevators’ idea of “faster” left a lot to be desired. She was debating taking the stairs instead when she saw ER charge nurse Nora Halloran approaching from the hallway behind the auditorium, pulling on a jacket over the top of her scrubs.

  “Can you believe how quiet it is?” Amanda asked by way of a greeting.

  “The ER got a bit busy when the snow started, but we haven’t had a new patient in the past two hours,” Nora agreed.

  Amanda noticed how her friend avoided the use of the Q-word—ER people were so superstitious. She herself missed the hustle and bustle that usually energized the hospital. This quiet was nothing less than eerie; it made her nervous, like the way the wind held its breath before a squall hit back in her hometown on the South Carolina coast. But Pittsburgh was home now, ever since she’d left the Lowcountry to attend medical school here four years ago.

  “With the holiday and no elective surgeries, we only have four patients in the PICU. Rounds went by like lightning,” Amanda said. It was the last day of her pediatric ICU rotation but, despite the holiday, the PICU fellow had initially scheduled her to be on call. Which, with so few patients in the unit—and since as a medical student she was low person on the totem pole when it came to any interesting procedures—also meant sitting around doing nothing.

  “Any news on when Lydia’s coming back to work?” she asked Nora.

  “Don’t know. Hard to do much in the ER with one arm out of commission.” Nora punched the elevator call button again even though it was already lit. “Have you been up to see Jerry yet today?”

  “I stopped by around lunch. He’s doing good today, only got frustrated once. Said he was tired of everyone treating him like he wasn’t normal.”

  “He might never be back to normal,” Nora said in a soft tone.

  “Don’t talk like that. Lucas says it’s a miracle Jerry survived at all, much less came out of the coma as quickly as he did.” Lucas Stone, Amanda’s fiancé, was Jerry’s neurologist.

  “Is that what you have there?” Nora nodded to the can Amanda held. “More of your sensory therapy?”

  Every day Amanda had brought Jerry something to stimulate one of his senses—lilac water sprinkled on his pillow, a fuzzy koala bear with whiskers that tickled, a Bach CD. Lucas had given her articles on traumatic brain injury, so she was trying her best to help any way she could. “Something must be working. He’s making progress.”

  “What is it today?”

  “The cafeteria ladies found me some banana pudding. Isn’t that great?”

  Nora took the can of pudding and squinted at the label. “You realize that bananas aren’t even listed in the ingredients?”

  “The gift shop is closed because of the holiday. It’s the best I can do.”

  Nora’s cell phone buzzed. She glanced at the display, sighed, and closed it. “Seth. Checking up on me. I called him twenty minutes ago to let him know I’d be late getting home, but—”

  “He’s worried about you. After the shootings, you can’t blame him.” Seth was Nora’s fiancé, a surgical resident who had also been injured the same night that Jerry was shot and Lydia broke her arm. Amanda hated even thinking about that night—though it could have been so much worse than it was. Both Nora and Seth had almost died on that awful night, along with Lydia, Gina, and Jerry.

  “I know. And I’m worried about him—he’s been climbing the walls, waiting for the doctors to let him get back to operating.”

  “Gina said they were letting him go back to work in the clinic next week?”

  “Thank God, he can finally stop driving me crazy.” Despite Nora’s words, Amanda knew she was more concerned about Seth than she wanted to admit. “It’s hard, you know.” Nora’s tone lowered and she stared at the elevator button as if confiding in it instead of Amanda. “We both want—need—to talk about it, but
neither of us wants to let the other know how bad . . . how close . . .”

  Her words trailed off. Amanda said nothing, instead just wrapped an arm around Nora and hugged her hard. Sometimes she felt guilty that she’d missed it all, taking care of a sick patient in the PICU, but then she’d see a shadow pass over one of her friends’ faces and realize how blessed she’d been. She only wished she knew how to help them better. Bringing Jerry pudding and stuffed animals seemed so trivial compared to what he and the others had faced.

  The elevator, which always seemed to have a mind of its own and was moving no faster than usual despite the paucity of people in the hospital, finally arrived. They stepped on, Amanda pressing five for the med-surg patient floor and Nora eight.

  “Where are you headed?” Amanda asked.

  “Summoned up to Tillman’s office.” Nora nervously patted her hair, as if her auburn strands weren’t already meticulously aligned.

  “I didn’t think the hospital CEO would be working on New Year’s Eve.”

  “He has to decide whether to call a snow emergency now and pay those of us trapped here for overtime, or if he should call the next shift in early and risk paying them overtime to sit around and do nothing.”

  “The snow isn’t that bad, is it? No way am I going to get trapped here. Not tonight.”

  “So you did get tonight off?”

  “Yes.” Amanda did a little twirl. “It’s off to the ball for this Cinderella. Gina is bringing me this killer dress and shoes to go with it. A real-life ball gown! You should see it, it’s silk and matches my eyes and—”

  “And Lucas agreed? To go to a fancy ball at Gina’s folks’ country club? That doesn’t sound like him.” Nora smiled and Amanda knew why: The thought of genius germophobe Lucas Stone trying to blend in with rich folks like Gina’s parents was kind of funny. “What’s he going to eat?”

  Lucas never ate anything touched by someone else’s hands. At least he hadn’t until he’d met Amanda and she’d won him over with her Southern charms—and cooking.

  “Hah! That’s my plan. If he can’t eat anything, he’ll get drunk all the faster.”

  “Why do you want to get Lucas drunk?”

  “Between this PICU rotation and his work we haven’t had a night together—and even if we did, ever since he met my folks, he’s acting all old-fashioned. Says no sex until after the wedding.”

  “The wedding’s not until May.”

  “Exactly. I’m sorry, but I have needs. So tonight’s the night. We’ll go to the ball, I’ll get him drunk, and”—she grinned a wicked grin—“I’ll have my way with him.” Amanda waggled her eyebrows like a silent-movie Dastardly Dan villain.

  Nora laughed. It was the first time Amanda had heard her laugh in weeks. “Poor Lucas. He doesn’t stand a chance.”

  LYDIA FIORE CARESSED THE TRIGGER OF THE TAURUS .357. Bam. Bam. A double-tap to the head followed by two more quick-fire shots as she nailed the nine-ring near the center of the target’s chest.

  Each recoil lanced up her left wrist, across her shoulders, and down her right side, the broken bones in her right arm screeching until her pulse twanged in her eardrums. She lowered the revolver, shifting her weight, her cast dragging her sling against the back of her neck.

  “Still feels shaky,” she said.

  Sandy McKenna, the range master, shook his head, laughing as he reeled in her target. “This fellow might disagree. Hate to think that’s your weak hand.”

  Pain and nausea squared off in Lydia’s gut, duking it out to see which could flatten her first. Pain, not just from her broken arm, but also from the memory that came with it: Just nineteen days ago she’d been forced to kill a man. Shoot him dead. Brain and blood and bits of skull splattering against her in an unholy ricochet.

  It was different from the deaths she’d encountered during her career as an emergency physician. In the ER, she used all her skills to fight death, and won many of those battles. But during the events nineteen days ago, she’d been forced to watch as a man sent to find and kill her targeted her friends. Just as eighteen years ago, she’d been forced to watch as another man killed her mother.

  The fact that when Detective Jerry Boyle had reopened the investigation into her mother’s murder, he had somehow—for reasons Lydia didn’t understand—summoned a killer to Pittsburgh, to her own hospital, made things worse. Not only did she have the blood of the man she’d killed on her conscience, but the blood of her friends haunted her as well.

  It wasn’t over yet. Whoever had sent the hit man—someone who obviously wasn’t worried about how many innocents died during his search for Lydia—was still out there. Somewhere.

  And she had no idea why he was hunting her.

  The unwanted taste of fear scratched at her throat as Lydia cleared the rounds and reloaded the snub-nosed revolver. It was hard with one hand, but she refused Sandy’s help. He’d been kind enough to give her the long-term loan of one of his own weapons—a kindness not taken lightly, not when the man doing the lending was a police officer and former army sniper. He’d chosen the titanium snub-nosed Taurus .357 because it was small enough for her to carry on her person and she wouldn’t have to mess with a manual safety or a slide. Still, she missed her Para-9, now safely ensconced in the bowels of the Pittsburgh Police Bureau’s evidence lockup.

  “Try the laser sights. Your Para doesn’t have those. Pretty sweet for such a tiny thing, ain’t she? Even if she does only carry five rounds.” Sandy activated the sights to demonstrate. “How’s Jerry doing? The guys been asking.”

  An image of Jerry’s goofy grin—he smiled more than anyone she knew; so strange for a cop, but then Jerry wasn’t like any cop Lydia had ever met before—flashed through her mind. Fast on its heels was the vision of him, covered in blood, one bullet through the head and one in the gut. He was lucky to be alive.

  Even if he might never be the same again. All because of her. Because he was her friend and had made the mistake of trying to help her find her mother’s killer.

  Lydia sucked in her breath and froze. Then she fiddled with the strap on her sling to cover. “I heard they’re getting ready to move him to rehab in a few days.”

  “That’s good.” Sandy paused, his gaze raking over her, taking in everything she wasn’t telling him. Zeroing in on her expression before she could shut it down, block her guilt. “You’re taking time off, right? Whenever us cops discharge our weapon, we’re benched until the headshrinker clears us. Not a bad idea, I guess.”

  His way of asking how she was doing.

  “I’m fine.” Other than the nightmares, pain, nausea, flashbacks, and constant dread of worse yet to come, it was the truth.

  Sandy’s look said he didn’t necessarily agree with her assessment of her well-being. “Never hurts to talk.”

  Great. Another worried man for her to deal with. Bad enough she had Trey hovering over her in between his shifts as district chief of Pittsburgh’s EMS. She’d sneaked out after he’d left for work, knowing he’d freak when she brought another gun into the house. But she felt naked without her Para-9. Like there was a bull’s-eye between her shoulder blades and no place to duck and cover.

  Shoving her fears aside, she slid the Taurus into the paddle holster at the small of her back, turned away from the targets, then whirled back, drawing and firing four shots in quick succession. Sandy whistled at the results. “Nice.”

  Lydia squinted downrange. The bullet holes were so close together they made one not-so-big hole between the eyes and another through the heart. Bingo.

  Ignoring the pain whipping her guts into a nauseated frenzy, she said, “Told you I was fine. I’d better get back home before Trey gets off work.”

  “Happy New Year’s, Lydia,” Sandy said as she turned to leave.

  Lydia stopped and glanced back. The pricking between her shoulder blades intensified. Gauzy blurs of her mother’s bloody body, of Jerry in the ICU, of the man she’d shot filled the void between her and Sandy, Technicolor ghosts
dancing in the gun smoke.

  “Happy New Year’s, Sandy.” The words emerged like a eulogy.

  Lydia walked away, the weight of the Taurus at her back more comforting than any holiday cheer.

  TWO

  NORA HALLORAN HAD NEVER BEEN CALLED TO THE principal’s office during all her years in school, but now she knew what it felt like. Oliver Tillman, the Angels of Mercy Medical Center’s CEO, kept her waiting for twenty minutes before he deigned to make an appearance.

  The visitors’ chairs in front of Tillman’s elevated desk were sleek Scandinavian designs that looked stylish but were painful to sit in. Nora would have preferred to stand but didn’t want to look nervous. So she sat, her butt falling asleep and a wooden dowel poking into her spine with every movement.

  Then the man himself arrived. A few inches shy of six feet, compensated for by a blond toupee puffed up to make him look taller, Oliver Tillman liked to describe himself as Pittsburgh’s answer to Donald Trump. As if his overbearing manners and tendency toward misogynism weren’t enough for Nora to have to put up with, he arrived accompanied by Jim Lazarov, the emergency medicine intern whose sole goal in life was to make Nora’s life hell.

  “Have a seat, Jim,” Tillman commanded, barely acknowledging Nora’s presence.

  Jim nodded, smirked, and perched on the edge of the other Scandinavian torture device, appearing ready to spring up at moment’s notice to kiss Tillman’s butt. He slanted a triumphant glance at Nora, and she had the sinking feeling he already knew what the outcome of this meeting would be, and it had nothing to do with nursing staffing or overtime.

  Great. She’d just gotten her life back together and now she was about to be fired.

  “Seems like you two have a problem,” Tillman started once he’d settled himself into his leather executive chair. “Which means I have a problem.” He paused.

  Jim kept nodding, a damn bobblehead, his foot tapping in time.