by CJ Lyons
“How could you?” His voice thundered through her. Jason, the desk clerk, jerked his head up and spun out of his chair to stand beside Nora as if she needed protection. Tillman’s face flushed scarlet, and he spoke as if Nora had injured him personally. “What is wrong with you that you could be so incompetent, so careless? Answer me!”
Nora had no answers. No matter how much logic told her otherwise, she couldn’t help but feel that her lies and secrets were as much the cause of Karen’s death as the killer’s blade. Worse, she felt powerless—like she had three years ago, waking up in the freezing cold.
Lydia emerged from a patient’s room. “Mr. Tillman,” she said, chiseling herself between Nora and the administrator. “Can I help you?”
“I had to come down and see in person the woman who—”
“The woman who fought to save another nurse’s life? Nora did a commendable job. I wonder how many others walked past that cemetery and chose not to get involved?” Lydia wasn’t much taller than Nora’s own five-three, yet she seemed larger as she stood up to Tillman’s fury.
“A nurse who is dead. She lost the damn rape kit.” Tillman’s voice dropped to a dangerous rumble, surprising Nora with the force of his emotion. Tillman was a jerk, but usually a slick, back-stabbing jerk. Last time she’d seen him this upset was when he was trying to get Lydia fired. “Then she left the body unattended.”
“I’m sure your concerns focus on the safety of the staff.” Lydia’s tone had an edge to it. “You’re not accusing my nurse of any involvement in this vicious crime, are you, Mr. Tillman?”
“I’m accusing your nurse of incompetence. That’s enough to warrant an investigation.”
“I’m certain your investigation will find no evidence of incompetence or wrongdoing. Nora is one of the best nurses I’ve had the pleasure to work with.”
Nora barely heard the war of words being fought over her head. She was drowning, being dragged down, with no energy to fight her way back up to the surface.
“We’ll see about that,” Tillman snapped, firing his parting salvo. His footsteps echoed down the hallway as Lydia crossed around to Nora’s side of the counter.
“Come on,” she said, taking Nora’s elbow. Nora was surprised to find herself standing under her own power. Lydia escorted her away from the many staring eyes at the nurses’ station and down the empty hallway behind the trauma rooms.
“Gina’s here,” Lydia said. “She’s going to take you home, stay with you.”
Nora somehow found the strength to shake herself free. “I’m fine. Really. I can finish my shift.”
“No, you can’t. You can either sit here and let everyone stare at you, feeling sorry for yourself, or you can go with Gina.”
“Lydia, I said I was fine. I can rest tomorrow on my day off, but today I need to work.”
“This isn’t about what you need, it’s about what’s best for the patients. Think about it, Nora; you’ll see I’m right.”
Nora opened her mouth to protest, then reconsidered. Lydia stood, arms akimbo, as unyielding as granite. “Fine. Whatever,” Nora conceded. “But don’t bother Gina. I’m going to head on home.”
“Then Gina can drive you there.”
Normally, Nora would have rebelled against anyone taking control of her life like Lydia had. Normally, she was the one in charge, the one giving the orders. But today she felt anything but normal.
Jim Lazarov sauntered around the corner, interrupting them. “Did they ever find that rape kit, Nora?” he asked with a too-innocent expression.
Lydia dismissed him with a wave of her hand, her gaze never leaving Nora’s face. “Not now, Jim.”
“What the hell?” he asked. “She’s only a nurse, but she’s allowed to jump all over me when I make the slightest slipup. You know what your problem is?” he said to Nora, who was trying her best to ignore his sneer. “You’re obsessed by these sexual assault cases. Seeing abuse everywhere you look.”
“I don’t care,” Lydia said, now bringing the weight of her glare onto the intern. “This is not the time or place. Go see a patient.”
“Yeah, right. At least you won’t have to worry about my killing them,” Jim said, his tone triumphant.
Nora felt the blood rush away from her body, her cheeks suddenly burning with cold.
“No wonder Tillman says she’s incompetent,” Jim continued. “I heard her tell Seth Cochran that she killed Karen.”
Nora lashed out without thinking. She shoved Jim against the wall, cracking his head against the tile. “That’s not what I meant, and you know it, you eavesdropping little—”
Amanda and Gina turned the corner and came to an abrupt halt as Lydia pulled Nora off Jim, who stood looking at her with wild eyes.
“You all are witnesses,” he said. “She assaulted me. Without provocation. I’m calling a lawyer.”
Nora stumbled back, alarmed by what she had done.
“I didn’t see anything,” Lydia said.
“Neither did I,” Amanda said.
“Don’t look at me,” Gina chimed in. “But if you want a lawyer, my dad’s one of the best in the country. Uh-oh, sorry, he’ll probably be the one suing your ass.”
Gina and Amanda closed ranks on either side of Nora.
Jim glowered at them, then speared Nora with a glare. “You’re going to regret this.”
“No one is going to regret anything,” Lydia said, stepping between Jim and Nora. “This has been a bad day for everyone. Jim, you go see your next patient. And Nora, let’s get you out of here.” Hands on her hips, she stared at Jim until the intern grudgingly left them and moved on to his next patient.
“I can’t wait until I have to give him an evaluation,” Gina said.
Amanda pursed her lips, watching the intern turn the corner. “Think he could have taken the rape kit? He’s had it in for Nora ever since he started.”
Nora shook her head. “Why? What good would it do him?”
“It would make you look bad. Especially if he got word to the right people, like Tillman,” Lydia replied.
“What rape kit?” Gina piped up, obviously peeved at missing a good scandal. “And what does the hospital CEO have to do with anything?”
11
“So, what’d I miss?” Gina asked as she walked Nora over to the employee parking garage. Seemed a long way to go. Gina usually snared a spot in the closer patient garage, even though it was against the rules.
Unlike the patient garage, the employee one was fully automated, accessible only via employee IDs. The atmosphere was dark and stifling once they passed beyond the outside walls. Their footsteps echoed eerily as they trudged up the concrete staircase illuminated only by a flickering, low-wattage bulb at the top of each flight.
Nora looked even paler than normal in the dim light, her freckles pronounced, her eyes red-rimmed, with sagging circles beneath them. Gina wondered if maybe she needed a spa day more than a shoulder to cry on. Actually a spa day wasn’t a bad idea all around—Gina was past due for a pedicure, and her hair was crying out for Antonio’s magic touch. God, she was going to look awful at that damn ceremony Saturday night. . . .
They arrived at Nora’s Accord, and still Nora remained silent as she grudgingly handed Gina her keys.
“You don’t have to tell me,” Gina said, starting the car and revving the engine before backing it out of the slot. “I can ask Jim Lazarov. He seemed to know everything.”
Nora straightened and sent her a glare that Gina deflected with a grin as she slid on her sunglasses. The Accord jetted out the exit, barely missing the barrier gate as it swung open, and then turned out onto the street.
“I found Karen Chisholm in the cemetery this morning,” Nora finally answered, her voice a monotone that struggled to reach Gina over the sounds of traffic. “She’d been raped and stabbed. She died in room thirteen.”
“No shit. You’re the one who found her? You’re okay, aren’t you?”
Nora didn’t answer. Gina turned to
give her a quick once-over. She looked numb. Lifeless. Sign-her-up-for-the-next-zombie-movie-casting-call dazed. “Karen, the nurse anesthetist? The same chick who was screwing Seth?”
Nora opened her mouth, then closed it again, merely nodding.
“What’s the deal about a lost rape kit?” Gina pressed as the light turned green and the Accord surged forward. Not bad for an economy car. Still, she’d rather be behind the wheel of her BMW.
“Seth and I left the body unattended . . . I should have seen, known better.”
“Right, of course. I forgot, you’re a charge nurse, you see all, know all.”
Nora didn’t rise to the bait like she usually would have. Instead she curled farther back into the passenger seat. “The police can’t use any evidence found on the body. And the rape kit I did went missing.”
“Lazarov was there?”
“Lots of people were there; that’s the problem. Tillman even came down to the ER, implying that I’d lost the kit on purpose.”
“Tillman’s an idiot.” If anyone in the ER had stolen that kit, it had to be Jim Lazarov. He and Nora had been waging a war of wills ever since he’d started at Angels. For some reason, the intern couldn’t seem to understand that the charge nurses didn’t just run the ER, they owned it. Even the attendings bowed to their authority.
Gina glanced once more in Nora’s direction and made an executive decision, deciding on a detour to Antonio’s. Nothing like a little pampering to purge your mind of a bad day. And it sounded like Nora had had a hell of a bad day already.
Her decision was reaffirmed as she drove. Nora jumped every time they stopped, looking around her as if expecting the killer to spring out from every alley they passed. When Gina finally arrived at Antonio’s, Nora didn’t get out of the car until after Gina handed the keys to the valet and came around to open her door.
Even then Nora hesitated, craning her head to look over her shoulder, down Walnut Street. “I think that black SUV followed us here.”
Gina restrained herself from rolling her eyes. “It’s Walnut Street, the week before Christmas. Everyone and their mother is down here. Relax, Nora. It’s not like this guy is after you.”
Amanda returned to the PICU in time to help the respiratory therapist suction Zachary’s lungs. It was a tricky procedure, threading the catheter down his tiny endotracheal tube, taking care not to dislodge it, instilling a small amount of hypertonic saline to irrigate his damaged bronchi, and then suctioning the resulting sloughed-off debris back out. Zachary needed the procedure done every few hours so that the dead tissue wouldn’t accumulate and cause further damage. As more and more of the lining of his lungs was removed, Amanda could only hope that new, healthy lung tissue was left behind.
Afterward, she went and told his family how the procedure had gone, leaving the gory details out, and escorted his parents back to his bedside to continue their vigil.
“Do you need anything?” she asked them, wishing there were something she could do to give them the answers they desired. Mr. Miller didn’t appear to hear her. His wife answered with a weary shake of her head.
“Hey. I need something. Hey!”
Amanda whipped around to spot a teenage boy pushing an IV pole as he left the glass-walled isolation room.
“Get back inside,” she ordered, keeping her voice low. He looked very healthy for a PICU patient. The other patients’ parents noticed, looking up at the unruly intruder.
“Where are your parents?” She escorted him back inside the room and closed the door. According to the sign, he was under respiratory precautions. She grabbed a mask.
“Dad’s out of town; Mom went to track down that other doctor. The foxy black chick who came with the ambulance.”
Gina. So this was the patient who had stolen Narolie’s ICU bed. “Dr. Freeman.”
“Yeah, whatever.” He plopped down on the bed. “I’m a prisoner. But even a prisoner has rights.”
“You need to stay inside here. You’re contagious and the other patients have compromised immune systems; you don’t want to risk getting them sick.”
“What do I care?” he said sullenly. “They all look like they’re going to kick anyway.”
His words had to be born of fear and frustration—no one could be that callous, not at such a young age and not here, surrounded by all these critically ill children sustained by medical miracles and hope.
“Stop that,” she snapped. “Every one of those patients and their families and their doctors and nurses are fighting for their lives. You do not get to sit here, able to walk and talk, and say things like that.”
“So my life’s not worth fighting for?” He slumped back, challenging her with his insolent gaze.
“You wouldn’t be here if that were true and you know it.” She sat on his bed and paid him her full attention. “What’s your name?”
“Tank.” He glared at her in defiance.
“Tank. I’m Amanda. So what are you in for?”
“Don’t know. No one tells me anything. They keep asking me about some rash”—he rolled his eyes—“like having a few spots was the end of the world or something.”
“Can I see it?”
“Sure, I guess.” He held out his arm and pulled up the sleeve of the too-large patient gown to show her a scattering of dark red and purple dots. Amanda pressed on them; they were slightly raised and didn’t blanch, but a few looked like they had a fine scale, as if irritated.
“When did they start?” she asked, getting up to wash her hands.
“How am I supposed to know? Jeezit, you’re just like them. Look, all I want is my freaking Game Boy. The Nazi nurses out there took it away. Are you going to help me or not?”
“You can’t use it here. It interferes with the equipment, and someone could get hurt.”
He flounced back on the bed as if she’d given him a death sentence. “C’mon. One little Game Boy isn’t gonna hurt anyone.”
“I’m sorry. But the child life department has some video game consoles that are safe to use. Want me to see if I can get you one of those?”
He closed his eyes, but his fists were clenching the sheet tight. “Whatever.”
From his tone, it was clear that the audience was over. Amanda left, the isolation doors swishing closed behind her. She stopped at the desk and put in a request for child life to come by and see Tank.
“Don’t know if they can,” the clerk said with an exasperated tone. “His mother left strict orders that no one other than medical personnel is allowed to see him. Not sure if that includes child life or not; I’ll have to check with Dr. Frantz.” She didn’t look too happy at the prospect. “You’d think that boy was some Hollywood star hiding out from the paparazzi or something, the way they act.”
Amanda glanced across the ICU to Tank’s glassed-in cubicle. “No. He’s just a lonely teenager. Needs someone to talk to.”
“Well, according to his mother, he’s not supposed to talk to anyone. Got the feeling it wasn’t about protecting him, though—more about protecting her reputation or something. She seems embarrassed he’s here, like it’s some kind of secret.”
Amanda sighed, glancing at the clock. Narolie should be back from CT. This running to and from pediatrics to take care of her was going to get old real fast. But if she didn’t do it, who would? Certainly not Dr. Frantz. “Just see what you can do, please?”
“Sure thing, Amanda. But you owe me one,” the clerk said with a smile as she grabbed the phone.
“Thanks.”
“Lydia, can we talk?” Seth Cochran was waiting for Lydia as she emerged from a patient’s room, looking more weary and distraught than she’d ever seen him before.
“Sure, let’s use Mark’s office.” She told Jason where she was going and led Seth down the hall to the emergency department chief’s office. Once inside, she closed the door for privacy and turned to Seth. “Does it have something to do with Nora?”
“How’d you know?”
“The only time
you look that miserable is when it has something to do with Nora.”
“Oh.” He began twirling a pair of hemostats around his index finger, thinking hard. “How well do you know Tommy Z?”
“I don’t know him at all.” Lydia tried to keep her disdain from her voice.
“So you don’t trust him?”
No, but she didn’t say so out loud. Tommy Z and Glen Bakker were both on her radar—stooges for Tillman. And whatever the CEO had in mind, it had nothing to do with patient care or the welfare of her staff. “Why?”
“Tillman sent him up to the OR to talk to me, pulled me out of a case. ‘Stress debriefing’ he called it, said it was mandatory. But I’m thinking Tillman wanted something else—knew something, something I’d told Tommy Z a while ago.”
“You lost me.”
He stared at her, assessing her. Lydia met his gaze without difficulty—she knew him well enough to know he’d talk if she just kept her silence. Most people did, especially people with something weighing heavily on them.
“You need to keep this in confidence,” he started. “But I don’t know who else to trust and I don’t know what to do—”
Lydia said nothing, still waiting, then he blurted out, “Tillman was sleeping with Karen.”
She blinked. Just like the megalomaniac Tillman to chase after a nurse. “How do you know?”
“Karen told me herself. Wanted to make me jealous or something. But I think it’s worse; I think Tillman made Tommy Z tell him something—something I told him in confidence, something that might be bad for Nora.”
“Why are you telling me?”
“Nora won’t let me help her—hell, she won’t even let me talk to her. I was hoping that maybe you could.” He sank back against the desk, shoulders hunched. “Nora was attacked three years ago. Today she told me it was by the same man who killed Karen.”
Lydia froze, processing the information. It explained so much—Nora’s need to protect those close to her, her work with sexual assault patients, her rigid need for structure, control. Damn, she should have seen it.
