Between Friends

by Lolita Lopez

  “Christ!” Eddie shook his head. This was exactly the kind of bullshit Rambo-wannabe response that put innocent lives at risk and got officers killed. His jaw clenched. O’Halloran had to go.

  “Oh, fuck.” Danny’s distraught voice echoed in the lobby. “Here’s a fourth civilian. She’s hurt real bad.”

  Eddie glanced over to his rookie team member and watched as he dragged a dead robber off another person. There was a wounded civilian pinned underneath, so he started over to help. His gaze drifted to the orange pumps on the victim’s feet. They seemed so familiar. God, he really needed to quit reading over Whitney’s shoulder. All those fashion magazines were finally starting to take over his head.

  And that dress, he thought, as the brown and pink and burnt-orange paisley print came into view. He’d seen that dress somewhere.

  Danny crouched down next to the female victim and looked up at Eddie with pain in his eyes. “Oh hell, boss. It’s your girl.”

  Eddie stumbled over his feet as Danny’s words registered. His gaze snapped to the woman’s face. Bloody and bruised, but there was no mistaking her. “Whitney!”

  Eddie fell to his knees beside her battered body and gathered her into his arms. She breathed raggedly and was only just conscious. Blood seeped from the wounds in her belly, chest, and shoulder.

  “Boss, lay her out flat.” Danny’s take-charge voice snapped Eddie out of his panic. Danny immediately put his hands on the shoulder and chest wound and pressed hard. “We need EMS. Now!”

  Eddie put his hand on the gushing belly wound and added pressure. “Whitney, sugar, can you hear me?”

  “Eddie,” she whispered, her eyes wide and lips ghostly pale. “They sh-sh-shot me.”

  “I know, sweetheart, but we’re going to get you all better, okay? Just hang on, sugar.”

  Craig skidded in next to them and dropped an emergency kit. “EMS is a minute or two out.” He ripped open trauma dressing packages and tossed them onto Whitney’s body. Eddie grabbed one and pushed it against her belly. Danny did the same with two others.

  “Old man,” Whitney said, her shaking hand trying to point somewhere over Eddie’s shoulder. “Tried to help me. Gun butt to the head.”

  “Okay, sugar,” Eddie said. “We’ll make sure someone gets to him.” Eddie glanced over his shoulder and saw one of O’Halloran’s guys dealing with an elderly man. “He’s okay,” Eddie assured Whitney.

  Her teeth chattered. “Co-co-cold.”

  Eddie’s heart clenched. He knew shock when he saw it. There was just so much blood. It pooled around her body, soaking her silky blonde hair and turning her dress a shocking maroon color. “We’ll get you warm as soon as we get you in an ambulance.”

  “Sleepy,” she murmured, her eyelids drifting together.

  “No! No, Whitney.” Eddie stroked her face with his blood-stained fingers. “Stay awake, honey. I need to you to focus on me and stay awake, all right?”

  “Ca-ca-can’t,” Whitney replied so softly he barely heard her. “Tired.”

  The wail of ambulance sirens lowered Eddie’s skyrocketing blood pressure a few degrees. Help had arrived. A pair of medics rushed in with a jump bag and dropped down beside Eddie and Danny. Craig backed away to give them room. Eddie reluctantly turned over care of Whitney to the female medic and her male partner.

  He held Whitney’s disturbingly cold hand and looked into her eyes. Her lips started to move as if she was trying to tell him something. He couldn’t make out the words. Her eyes flashed with such seriousness. Whatever it was, she was desperate for him to understand.

  The exertion took its toll. She coughed loudly a few times and then gurgled. Eddie’s heart skipped a few beats as he watched frothy blood bubbles dribble from the corners of her mouth. He sat back on his heels, paralyzed with horror as the medics suctioned bloody fluid from her mouth and intubated. A fireman appeared with a gurney, and Whitney was quickly tossed onto the stretcher.

  Danny pulled Eddie to his feet and took Eddie’s rifle. “Go, boss. Go with your girl.”

  Nodding, Eddie cast a quick glance at Craig. The other man gave him a reassuring look. He’d deal with everything here.

  Eddie trailed the stretcher and medics to the ambulance. The female paramedic stopped him as he tried to climb into the back of the ambulance. “Are you family?”

  “Closest thing she has to it.”

  “Fiancé?” The medic guessed.

  “Yes.” He didn’t hesitate. It wasn’t a lie, really. He loved her, wanted her as his wife, and would ask her as soon as possible.

  “Get in, but stay out of my way.”

  Eddie’s estimation of the paramedic rose even higher. A take-no-bullshit attitude like that? Usually a sign of competence. He’d take that over wishy-washy any day.

  He settled onto the bench seat at the end closest to the double doors to stay clear of the two medics working on Whitney. While the male medic compressed the blue bag attached to the intubation equipment and delivered breaths, the woman cut the front of Whitney’s dress enough to bare her chest. She cut through the bra and removed the pieces of lingerie before attaching leads to Whitney’s chest. She punched the keys on the heart monitor. Eddie’s gut clenched at the sight of the very weak heartbeat.

  “Where we going, Tamara?” The fireman poked his head through the small window between the cab and the box.

  “Take her to Mick,” Eddie instructed.

  “Mick?” Tamara glanced at him and frowned. “You mean Dr. O’Loughlin?”

  “He’s our roommate and…friend,” Eddie answered. God, Whitney was right. It was sticky as hell trying to explain their relationship to others. “His hospital is closest, isn’t it?”

  “Sure is,” Tamara said. “Best goddamn trauma surgeon in this city.”

  She gave the fireman his driving orders, and they sped out of the parking lot. Eddie braced his foot against the gurney to keep from sliding around in the back of the box. He desperately wanted to help, but there was nothing for him to do. Tamara and her partner had things under control, and Whitney was holding on-for now.

  Eddie slipped his hand in his pocket and pulled out his phone. His finger trembled as he punched in Mick’s speed dial key and tried to figure out how the hell he was going to tell the man he loved the woman they both wanted as their wife had been shot.

  * * * *

  Mick plastered a smile on his face as his colleagues bullshitted around the lunch table in the cafeteria. He poked at the salad on his plate. Lately everything seemed unappetizing. He missed dinner with Whitney and Eddie so much. He’d tried to have a simple bowl of cereal with Whitney the other morning, but it had been disastrous.

  Something had to change. Whitney and Eddie were both so stubborn. He’d have to be the one to make the first move. Stage a Come-to-Jesus meeting or something similar. They needed to sit down and talk and figure out a way to move on-together.

  Mick truly believed the three of them could make it work, but they were probably going to have to make some hard decisions. Whitney was correct. She couldn’t marry both of them, but she could marry one of them legally. Which one was up to her, of course. The non-legal spouse could be married to the other two in a private commitment ceremony of sorts.

  But first, he had to get Eddie and Whitney in the same room again and keep them there long enough to say his piece.

  “Well, hell,” Joe Edgemont said with a sigh as he stared at his phone. The Pediatric Emergency Medicine specialist shook his head. “There’s another robbery in progress according to the news. Shots fired. Lots of police and ambulances on the scene.” Joe scrolled down on the screen and rolled his eyes. “Shit, we’re the closest trauma center to this one.”

  Mick groaned and shoved back from the table. His colleagues grumbled and did the same. They’d been slammed the last week with a rash of gunshot victims from a gang turf war. It seemed that every summer the old feuds were reignited. One-hundred-plus-degree temps and bad tempers did not mix.

  All
at once, the pagers clipped on the waistbands and pockets of Mick and his other emergency-room colleagues beeped. He tossed his uneaten salad in the trash and checked his pager. Three gunshot victims, two critical, with an ETA of four to seven minutes.

  As Mick fell into step behind Joe, his cell phone rang. He fished it out of his pocket and saw Eddie’s name. A ripple of panic burned his belly. God, what if Eddie had been called to the scene? Was he one of the victims? They never separated perpetrators from victims in the pages or radio reports.

  He slid his finger down over the screen to answer. “Eddie, are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.” Eddie’s voice sounded unnaturally tight and thick. “It’s Whitney.”

  Mick’s stomach dropped. “What happened to Whitney?”

  “They shot her, Mick.” Eddie’s voice cracked. “It’s bad.”

  Mick placed his hand on the nearest wall to steady himself. Whitney? Shot? What the hell was she doing at that bank? Not that the details mattered at the moment. “How bad?”

  “A round to the chest, another to the belly, and one to the shoulder. She was conscious when I got there, but she faded fast and there was so much blood, Mick. It was even coming out of her mouth.”

  Mick’s gut lurched at that last bit. Had the bullet punctured a lung or worse? The fear in Eddie’s voice only heightened his anxiety. “Are you in the ambulance?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can the medic take the phone?”

  “Uh, hang on.” There was a shuffling sound, and a few seconds later a female voice came across the line. “Yeah?”

  Mick recognized the woman’s voice immediately. “Tamara?”

  “Dr. O’Loughlin?”

  “Oh, thank god it’s you.” Mick breathed a bit easier. Tamara was one of the best paramedics in the whole damn city. She’d served in Afghanistan and Iraq and had saved lives out on the mean streets of LA that shocked even Mick. Girl had mad skills, and he was grateful she was using them on Whitney. “Give me a rundown of my-the patient’s-injuries.”

  Mick listened intently as he hurried to the emergency room. Phone squeezed between his ear and shoulder, he gowned up and grabbed some gloves. He snatched a pair of safety glasses from the bin, too. His stomach heaved as Tamara mentioned Whitney’s down-trending vitals. She didn’t have to say anything more. Whitney was circling the drain.

  “We’ll be on your doorstep in less than a minute.”

  “Yeah, I hear you,” Mick replied, the wail of a nearing siren bouncing off the nearby buildings. He snapped his phone shut and stuffed it in his pocket. Turning to the charge nurse, he said, “Page Allison. I’m going to need my cardio goddess on this one.”

  From Tamara’s description, Mick felt sure Whitney’s lungs were collapsing. They’d probably sustained some kind of damage from a ricocheting bullet. If Whitney’s chest had to be cracked, he wanted Allison to be the one to do it. She had the magic hands, after all.

  Mick slipped on his safety glasses and tugged on the gloves as the ambulance pulled into the bay. He followed Sally and Desiree out the doors and met the stretcher on the sidewalk. Eddie’s ghostly white face was bad, but the sight of Whitney’s limp, bloody body struck him hard. For a few moments, all he could do was stare at the sight of the woman he loved so much.

  Shaking himself from the stupor of surprise, Mick took charge. He issued commands to get an OR prepped while they stabilized and got the stretcher rushed into the nearest trauma room. As he did his initial assessment, Tamara gave her report again, and Sally cut off Whitney’s clothing. Mick ordered the necessary X-rays and other tests while Desiree established a second IV line.

  “Lots of bleeding here, Doc.” Sally shook her head as she wiped at Whitney’s belly with gauze squares. “Should I page Dr. Cardenas?”

  At Sally’s prompting, he glanced at Whitney’s abdomen. Paging an obstetrician-gynecologist suddenly sounded like an excellent idea. “Yes.”

  There was just so much blood. Mick worried about what he’d find once he got her belly open. With that amount of hemorrhaging, there had to be a major vessel involved or something very vascular…like the uterus.

  His gaze moved back to the monitors. Her blood pressure was tanking. She had decreased breath sounds on the right, and her oxygen saturation levels were uncomfortably low. He didn’t like it one bit.

  “Not good,” Allison said as she strode into the trauma room, her focus on the monitors. She unlooped the stethoscope from around her neck and stuck the ear pieces in place. She listened to Whitney’s chest and made a face. “I don’t like this, Mick. What are the wound trajectories like?”

  “Three entrance wounds on the front,” Mick said, judging the angle of the wounds. “Let’s roll her so we can count exit wounds.” He needed to know how many bullets were possibly embedded in her tissues or organs.

  Mick, the nurses, and Allison took hold of Whitney and rolled her onto her left side. Almost immediately, alarms clanged. Whitney’s blood pressure plummeted, and her heart rate took off wildly. He quickly scanned her naked back for exit wounds and found only one. “Belly wound was through and through. The other two are still in there somewhere.”

  They dropped her back down, but her blood pressure and heart rate remained at dangerous levels. Allison listened to her chest again. “This lung is collapsing. Get me a chest tube tray.”

  Mick assisted Allison as she placed a tube in Whitney’s chest to relieve the building pressure of free blood. A gush of dark red blood filled the tube and poured into the attached container. Although there was some immediate relief, it wasn’t enough. Whitney’s lungs were in bad shape.

  “I need to get in there as soon as possible,” Allison decided. “Get those X-rays, and meet me in the OR.” She gestured with her head to the adjacent trauma room as she stripped out of her bloody gloves and yellow gown. “Let me check this guy out and I’ll be on my way up, okay?”

  Mick nodded and turned his full attention on keeping Whitney stable. Alarms continued to clang. Blood flow eased up a bit in the chest tube but not by much. He ordered packed red cells and hoped she would hold on just a little bit longer.

  Sally picked up the ringing phone and spoke for a few seconds before hanging up. “Dr. Cardenas is heading into the OR for an emergency C-section, but she’ll pop into your OR when she’s finished. Lancaster is up on the L &D floor if you need him before then.”

  Mick preferred Daniela, but Lancaster would do in a pinch. “Thanks, Sally.”

  Another nurse popped her head into the room. “OR three is ready.”

  “Let’s go.” Mick kicked the brakes on his side of the gurney and waited for his team of nurses to get the equipment ready to go. As they rushed out of the room, he caught sight of Eddie hovering in the doorway. He couldn’t ever remember seeing Eddie look so scared. Mick paused just long enough to catch Eddie’s gaze. He desperately wanted to reach out and touch his arm, but his gloves were bloody.

  “She won’t die.” Eddie’s jaw clenched and released. “She can’t leave us.”

  “I’ll do my best.” Mick couldn’t promise anything more. He’d seen patients come into his operating room in far worse shape than Whitney and walk out of the hospital two weeks later. At the same time, he’d seen patients come into the ER talking and laughing and leave the hospital in a body bag a few hours later. Nothing was certain inside the walls of this place.

  Eddie nodded and stepped aside. Mick continued on with the gurney but cast one final glance at the man he’d loved so long, before stepping through the double doors leading to the staff elevator. Their gazes held a moment before Eddie shoved off the wall and headed out of Mick’s line of sight. He said a silent prayer for Eddie’s well-being and then added another for Whitney.

  God, guide my hands, he thought as he stepped into the elevator. Let her live.

  Chapter Twelve

  Eddie shifted slowly in the uncomfortable chair so as not to wake Mick. He’d drifted off an hour earlier, finally succumbing to exhaustion, and
snored softly. The rhythmic beep of a heart monitor and the hiss, click, and suck of a ventilator filled the room. Whitney lay motionless in the ICU bed. There were tubes and wires everywhere. IV bags, some close to empty and others full, hung from poles. Automated machines controlled the speed at which the fluids dripped into Whitney.

  Eddie just stared at her. Mick had said the first twenty-four hours were the most critical. So far, all had gone well. Eddie had to believe she would remain stable. To consider anything else was too painful.

  Mick twitched and made a strange noise. Eddie put his hand on Mick’s forearm and patted him as one might settle a sleeping child. His gaze flicked to Mick’s haggard face. He’d worked so hard to save Whitney’s life and then turned right around to save the life of one of the bastards who had taken her hostage.

  Renewed rage burned through Eddie. He’d nearly puked as Danny and Craig recounted the witness statements. One of those pigs had tried to rape Whitney. His fists curled in his lap at the disturbing image of Whitney, scared and screaming, being dragged across the bank. Thank god for Elmer Sanderson!

  Eddie had tracked the older man down in the emergency room to shake his hand and thank him for standing up for Whitney. The old codger came from a different era, a time when men took chivalry seriously. Eddie could only hope he’d be full of piss and vinegar when he reached his eighties.

  A shooting pain lanced through his hand. He unclenched his fingers and stared at the bruised knuckles of his right hand. O’Halloran’s jaw had been harder than he’d expected. The pain of purple, swollen knuckles was worth it, though.

  When Mick had shown him the bullets pulled from Whitney’s body, he’d seen red. All his life, he’d heard that description, but until that moment he’d never experienced such blinding fury. Instead of matching the rounds used by the gunmen, the bullets taken from Whitney’s body matched those issued by the department. She’d been hit by friendly fire.