Code Triage

by Candace Calvert

  “No, it isn’t your fault. It’s mine.” He studied her face for a moment, thin as always, small shadows under her dove gray eyes. She’d been through a lot, he could tell, and it took all he had not to put his arms around her, tell her if she needed anything, he’d be there for her. But hugging his sister-in-law wasn’t an option anymore. He’d hurt her, too. “I was here on a call, saw you . . . thought I’d ask how things were going.”

  “How things are with me or with Leigh?” She didn’t wait for his answer. “She’s out at the stables more than she’s home. But when she’s there, she’s packing—boxes all over the house, job applications spread out on the breakfast bar. We’ve only been here a couple of months and already Leigh wants to leave so badly she can taste it.” Caroline watched his eyes for a moment, then took aim again. “You’d better come rescue that precious lemon tree of yours. She’s killing it.”

  The lemon tree. Our honeymoon in Capri. He resisted the urge to look toward where Leigh sat on the bench, imagining how she’d react when he told her that the Child Crisis investigator standing in her ER was the woman he’d taken to bed in a grief-induced blur of confusion, anger, and pain after Toby was killed. It wasn’t going to be easy. But leaving Leigh to discover Sam’s identity on her own wasn’t an option. He glanced at Caroline as she spoke again.

  “You were going to use the lemons for that Greek soup,” she said, her expression softening. “That one you always made . . . You know, with the eggs and rice.”

  “Avgolemono,” he said, memories hitting him full in the heart. The kitchen in their old Victorian fixer, always in stages of remodel. Black granite counters, stainless steel, Leigh standing barefoot on the hardwood floor watching him as he cooked, teasing him about being a macho SFPD cop with a whisk in his holster. He’d offer her a sip of the creamy soup from a wooden spoon. She’d murmur with passionate approval, then move into his arms, lifting her face for a kiss. Her lips would taste of lemons, and . . .

  He was surprised to see sudden tears in his sister-in-law’s eyes.

  “I believed in you two,” she said, her voice thick with emotion. “For the first time, I’d started to think that it was all possible. Love, marriage, family . . .”

  Oh, Lord, please . . .

  “Caroline.” He reached for her arm, seeing the pain behind her anger. “Listen to me. I wanted that too. I still do.”

  She yanked her arm away and stared at him. “I thought you did, Nick. I tried to believe it. But how can that ever happen with her around?” She looked over her shoulder toward the ER. “She was there when I drew that baby’s blood. I read her name badge: Samantha Gordon.” Caroline glanced toward Leigh. “This isn’t going to work. She’s leaving us both.”

  +++

  “Finn has pneumonia?” Kristi tightened her arms around her daughter, asleep in her arms with oxygen prongs in her nostrils. “How did that happen? He hasn’t had a cold, not even the sniffles.”

  Leigh glanced at Riley, grateful as always for her presence. “He’d been vomiting during the night,” she explained as gently as she could, but she saw the immediate guilt in the young mother’s eyes. When he was left all alone. “And the X-rays reveal that he breathed some of that in, causing what we call aspiration pneumonia. Normally a baby of his age would be able to protect his airway—spit the vomit out—but the gas fumes made him too drowsy to do that.”

  Kristi closed her eyes for a moment. “Will I be giving him medicines at home, then? antibiotics? I’ve done that before when he had an ear infection. It’s not a problem. He’s really good about taking them.” She blinked at Leigh, the look in her tired eyes not nearly as hopeful as her words.

  “No. We’ll need to keep Finn at Golden Gate Mercy. He’ll get the antibiotics intravenously, and he’ll stay on oxygen. I’ve consulted with a specialist, a pediatric intensive care physician who is very qualified. He’ll be overseeing things.” She exhaled slowly. “Unfortunately, apart from the pneumonia, the blood tests show that the carbon monoxide exposure was enough to pose problems. Borderline in terms of numbers, but still worrisome.”

  “No, oh . . . no.” Kristi’s eyes widened, the color draining from her face.

  “His vital signs are good,” Leigh assured her quickly. “But we won’t know for several days—perhaps weeks—if there will be any actual damage to his organs. In order to be safe, his treatment will need to be aggressive and start immediately. The specialist will explain his plans to you this afternoon.” She smiled. “He’s not only an excellent doctor; he’s very, very kind and caring. Your baby will be in good hands, Kristi.”

  “And Abby?” she asked, tears welling. “Is she okay?”

  “Yes. Both you and your daughter had normal carboxyhemoglobin levels and your chest X-rays are good.” Leigh’s heart tugged as a tear slid down Kristi’s face and splashed onto the stuffed pony in her daughter’s arms. “But we’ll want to keep you both in the hospital a day or two for observation.”

  Riley nodded. “We think we’ll be able to have you all in the same room. And I’d be happy to get you a phone or make some calls for you. Family, pastor?”

  “No. No family. And I’m new at my church.” Kristi lifted her chin as if willing them to understand. “I’ve been trying so hard to make a fresh start. To take care of my children. That’s why I took the extra job on nights; that’s why I wasn’t there last night when . . .” Her words dissolved into a painful moan. “Is Child Crisis going to take my children away?” She glanced toward the door, her body trembling. “Where’s Officer Nick? Maybe he’ll talk to her. He knows me; he knows how hard I’ve been trying. I haven’t seen my ex in months. There’s no drug deals going on in our apartment. Please get Officer Nick. He’s the only one I trust.” Tears gathered again. “This can’t be happening.”

  “I’ll get him,” Leigh said as Riley bent low to comfort the young mother. Leigh had trusted Nick too, but it hadn’t worked out. And if she hadn’t had the miscarriage, she could have been a single mother herself. Or would a baby have changed things? She’d never know now. “I’ll get him for you,” she said again over the lonely and heartbreaking sound of Kristi Johnson’s crying.

  +++

  “You mean someone broke in there?” Nick asked, leaning against the door of his car and holding the cell phone to his ear. “Did you check with the landlord? I wouldn’t put it past him to cause problems.”

  “Someone tossed it, big-time,” Colton said. “Busted the medicine cabinet clean off its hinges, cleaned it out, went through her closet and then threw her underwear all over the floor. Even emptied her refrigerator. Doubt the landlord would tear things up. He doesn’t want to spend a dime more than he has to on that building. The only thing keeping those moldy walls up is a million cockroaches holding hands.”

  “Was the door forced open?”

  “No. Landlord swears he locked it, but then he doesn’t look like Mr. Responsible to me. Anyway, that young lady’s not going to be happy when she goes back there. Her kids okay?”

  “I’m not sure yet,” Nick said, thinking that he’d bet the landlord wouldn’t object if he went into the apartment, put things back in order. He caught a glimpse of Leigh heading past the visitors’ gazebo and toward him. His throat tightened. “Doctor’s coming now. I’ll check with you later, Colton. Thanks for the heads-up.” He closed the phone and slid it into his pocket as she arrived beside him. She looked worn-out.

  “Cappy said you were out here,” she said, managing somehow not to look him directly in the eyes. “He was busy, so I thought I’d come out here myself.” She shook her head, and a strand of her hair snagged across her lips. He stopped himself from reaching out to brush it away. “My patient’s asking for you,” she said, swiping at the errant strands. “Kristi Johnson. Her baby’s blood shows the effects of the exposure, so we’re keeping him. She and her daughter will be staying for at least tonight.”

  Nick frowned. “It’s serious, then, for Finn?”

  “Could be. Brain damage is
a big concern. I didn’t mention it to her, but the peds team is thinking about hyperbaric treatment. At any rate, they’ll be aggressive.” She sighed. “Why on earth don’t they require carbon monoxide monitors in these old buildings? But then she shouldn’t have been using a camp stove. And should have called to be sure her babysitter arrived, not blindly trust . . .” Her words trailed off as she met Nick’s eyes for a brief second, then looked away.

  Like you shouldn’t have trusted me?

  “Anyway,” Leigh said, glancing at her watch, “she’s worried about the Child Crisis investigation. Apparently she’s had some trouble before, related to the children’s father. A drug problem, it sounded like. She said you know the situation, and maybe you could put in a word for her. She’s very insistent on talking with you.”

  “I’ll talk to her. But while I’m here, I wondered if we could sit down and talk about some things.” He watched her eyes, told himself to take a breath and keep going. “I know I promised to stay away, but we’ve never talked, really talked.” His chest constricted at the expression on her face. Leigh, don’t . . .

  “No. I’ve told you before, there’s no reason to talk. Even if there was, I don’t have time. I shouldn’t even be out here.” She glanced toward the ER entrance. “I need to get Mrs. Baldwin hooked up with psych services and send the Johnson baby upstairs to peds. Then I’ve got to try to find a minute to speak with that Child Crisis—” She stopped as he caught her arm.

  “You need to know something. I need to tell you . . .” He saw the wariness in her beautiful eyes, knew she was about to protest again. “It’s not about the divorce. It’s about that investigator.” He fought the memory of the moment he’d told Leigh about the affair. The hurt on her face and pain in her voice: “Who is she? What’s her name? Oh, God . . . who is she?”

  “The investigator is Sam,” he said, suddenly as dizzy as the moment he heard that Toby—Sam’s brother—was dead. “Samantha Gordon.” He watched the color drain from Leigh’s face, her pupils widen. “I’m sorry, Leigh. But it’s like she said: this was bound to happen someday because our work—mine, hers, yours—they intersect.” His eyes searched hers, willing her to understand that it wasn’t personal. It was work, nothing more. “She’s as uncomfortable with this as you are.”

  “Uncomfortable?” The color returned to Leigh’s cheeks. She crossed her arms, her body trembling. “Uncomfortable is what you say about a hangnail or a splinter. Or a stupid pebble in your shoe.” She flinched back as he tried to touch her again. “Don’t. Don’t touch me, Nick; don’t try to talk to me. And don’t use that calm, rational, police officer voice to tell me that your lover is standing in my ER, and that she’s as uncomfortable as I am.”

  “Leigh, wait.”

  “Leave me . . . alone!”

  +++

  Leigh whirled away, white coat flying and heart pounding so loudly in her ears that if a Code 3 ambulance raced in with sirens wailing, she’d never have heard it. She kept moving, jogging past the gazebo, gulping in air to clear the nausea, to push the frightening snarl of anger and humiliation away. And to get away from Nick. Because if she weakened and started to cry, or if she began pounding her fists on his chest and screaming—things she hadn’t done, depths she wouldn’t allow herself to sink to all these long, miserable months—he might think she wasn’t over him. That she wasn’t ready to move on, move away.

  She took another deep breath, slowed to a walk, and squared her shoulders. Kept her eyes on the doors to the ER and calmly tried to recall the only photo she’d seen of Samantha Gordon. Online, in an old San Francisco County newsletter, an employee picnic. A fuzzy black-and-white shot of her playing beach volleyball: wavy blonde hair, big sunglasses, square jaw, compact body, muscular calves . . . nothing memorable. Except that she’d taken Nick. That was unforgettable. And left Leigh slogging through a depression as dark, thick, and visceral as a gastric bleed before it threw her into a lethal backdraft of searing anger that frightened her soul-deep. Made her stop praying, stuff her clothes in a suitcase, load her horse in a trailer, and run. But now, nine months later, she was better; she could handle it. “Uncomfortable” or not.

  Leigh crossed the last few yards of parking lot and pushed the coded buttons to open the ambulance bay doors, stepping back as they whooshed open, and walked into her ER. She heard the familiar beeps and whirs of monitoring equipment, the far-off whine of a cast cutter, smelled the scents of iodine and surgical soap and someone’s breakfast of day-old pizza. The same, always.

  She was a physician who’d taken an oath to heal, and there were patients to see and medical decisions to be made. She was a seasoned professional who had handled plenty of tough things before. Difficult people. This was her turf, same as Nick’s Mission District neighborhoods were his. She breathed in through her nose, exhaled slowly, and forced a smile as she passed Cappy Thomas in the hallway. Nothing different about today.

  Except that in a hospital where she’d saved dozens of lives, she was about to face the one person that she’d killed over and over in her nightmares.

  Chapter Four

  Sam pulled a sheaf of papers from her briefcase, scanned the top few pages, and then glanced up at Kristi Johnson. “I see that you’ve been busy since we last met. You’ve been working, attended Narcotics Anonymous support meetings, taken some church-sponsored parenting classes?”

  “Everything I promised. All of it. You can ask Officer Nick if you don’t believe me.” Kristi peered over the top of her sleeping daughter’s head. She lifted her chin and tightened her arms protectively around her child.

  Sam wasn’t surprised by the look in the young mother’s eyes; she’d seen it with parents countless times before—defensive, frightened, hostile sometimes. It came with the territory. In her years with Child Crisis, she’d received threatening phone calls, had her county car vandalized, and been called every vile name in the book. Didn’t matter. Didn’t scare her. Sam’s job was to protect children, the way she wished someone had protected her when she was Abby Johnson’s age. Bottom line: she did whatever she had to do to get results. At everything. Professional and personal.

  “I did talk with Officer Stathos.” Sam thought of him, his fierce determination to protect his city, his “people,” so much like SFPD’s motto: Gold in peace, iron in war. Nick Stathos, same as Sam, had seen too much war in his life; he deserved some golden peace. So did she.

  “You certainly have an advocate in him, Kristi.” She met the mother’s gaze. “And in me, too. Please believe that. It’s my intention to keep children with their parents. As long as it’s a safe and loving environment. I understand how difficult it is to raise a child alone. I’m a single mother too.” She reached into a side pocket of her briefcase and produced a snapshot, brushing her fingertip across its surface. The worn image of a chubby two-year-old wearing her uncle’s police hat. “This is my Elisa.”

  She handed it to Kristi, the same way she’d done with countless other mothers before. Except that these days, these past months since Toby’s death, she thought of Nick whenever she did that. Of Nick taking Elisa from her arms at the funeral when Sam’s knees gave way and she sank down beside Toby’s flag-draped casket, her sobs mixing with the sad drone of bagpipes. And those other times, in the painful gray aftermath, when she sat, numb, in her brother’s lonely house and Nick kept her company. He put aside his own grief to make Elisa giggle, carried her on his shoulders, bought her a balloon at the zoo. Then awakened beside me in bed.

  But now, his guilt, his distance, the pain in his eyes . . . She glanced toward the doorway, at staff in scrubs in the distance. And at the female doctor in a white coat. She’s divorcing him. I can wait another week.

  “She’s cute,” Kristi said, the wariness in her eyes receding slightly. “When Abby was that age, her daddy took us to Disneyland, and . . .” She glanced down.

  Sam lifted a page of her report, the rustling sound deafening in the awkward silence. “The restraining order is still in effe
ct against Kurt Denton.”

  “I haven’t seen him. I swear.”

  Sam pulled her fingers through her hair, still surprised at the feel of the short tufts. “Having him in your home, around the children, is not an option. Having him deal methamphetamines out of that apartment, bringing strangers of all kinds into contact with those children—” she fought a shudder, ugly, shadowy memories of her own childhood trying to intrude again—“cannot happen. If I have even the smallest suspicion that it is—”

  “It’s not!” Kristie blurted, causing Abby to open her eyes and whimper. She shushed her gently. “I swear. And I’m clean; test me. Go ahead. Test me.”

  Sam smiled grimly. “They already did. And you are.” She spread her hands on top of the papers. “You’ve had no contact with Kurt Denton?”

  Kristi kissed her daughter’s temple, then tucked the stuffed pony under the gurney sheet. “No. He’s gone. I don’t even know where.” She raised her eyes to Sam’s again. “I’m trying, Miss Gordon. I’m trying every day, with everything I have, to make this work. To be a good mother, and . . .” Her voice broke, tears welling. “Last night was a horrible mistake. My girlfriend was supposed to be there. She called me just before you came, to explain. She was sick and left a message on my cell phone, but I didn’t get it. Because I ran out of minutes. I don’t have a credit card, and . . .”

  “You had to heat your apartment with a camp stove,” Sam added. It wasn’t the first time she’d heard something like that. It wouldn’t be the last. But excuses didn’t cut it.

  “I have the money now.” Kristi lifted her chin. “My girlfriend’s coming to get my check. She’ll have my power turned back on. And buy me a phone card. This won’t happen again.”

  “It can’t, Kristi. And even with your recent good efforts—your work record, the clean drug tests, parenting classes—I can’t promise what Child Crisis will decide. Your son remains in danger. And I still have to talk with Dr. Stathos.”