“What is it?”
“One-oh-five point two.”
“We need to get her to a doctor,” Noelle said calmly. Inside, she was in a panic. “Why don’t you get some ice, and I’ll call the front desk and find out where the nearest hospital is? We’ve got to get her temperature down.”
Sean was on his way out to the hall, where he spoke to the agent. She heard them talking, and then the agent spoke into a cell phone. Sean returned and found a clean garbage bag in a cabinet. “Can you run some tepid water in the tub while I get ice from the machine down the hall? Don’t worry about calling the front desk. The agent is getting a doctor.”
As she started for the bathroom, the agent called from the door. “Doctor is on the way. He said to get her into a tub of tepid water.”
“Way ahead of you,” she said and continued into the bathroom.
The wait was excruciating. Sean paced the floor while Noelle tried to console a very irritated child. Minutes seemed like hours. Twice Sean relieved Noelle at the tub, each time threatening to go directly to a hospital.
An hour passed and finally a knock on the door. Noelle could barely hear it over protests from Raine. The little girl wasn’t at all happy sitting in a tub of water. Sean had wrapped her in two thick towels to shield the shock of the water, but it just served to make her more uncomfortable. Sean managed to get a reading on her fever, but the cool water had only brought it down to one hundred three. He relayed this as the doctor walked into the bathroom and introduced himself. He looked as though he had literally just stepped from bed.
“Miss Sampson, I’m Dr. Parlow.” He pulled her to an upright position. “Let’s get you sitting up—” He stopped abruptly and stared at the back of the tub, his hand examining Raine’s underarm. He turned to Sean. “How long has she had this lump under her left arm?”
Noelle’s heart sank. All the color drained from Sean’s face as he whispered, “Lump?”
The doctor didn’t answer and instead took a depressor from his bag and asked Raine to open up. With a pin light, he looked at her throat, into her ears, and at her eyes. He then pressed the inside of her lower thighs, her calves, and the side of her throat.
“Dr. Parlow, what lump?” Sean’s voice shook as Noelle took his hand.
“Mr. Sampson, we need to get this little lady to a hospital.”
“Doc, what’s going on?” With every unanswered question, Sean’s voice grew more impatient.
“Mr. Sampson, the swelling in her underarm is a lymph node. Could be due to the high fever. I don’t know. We need to do some tests. We need to get her to a better place to begin some treatment to get the temperature down.”
“Lymph node?” Sean practically dragged the doctor outside the bathroom. Noelle followed close behind, keeping her eye on Raine from the doorway. “What do you mean her lymph node is swollen? What does that mean?”
The doctor smiled. “Dad, it might not mean anything. It simply indicates the need for further examination. Nodes can swell because of an infection. But first we need to isolate the infection and get her fever down and quickly. And I think you will agree this isn’t the place to get that accomplished.” As he spoke, he wrote something on a script pad. “Take her to the Children’s National Emergency Room. Give your greeter this note—it will cut through a whole lot of red tape and get her right into the system.”
He looked directly at Sean, as Sean put the note in his pocket.
“Mr. Sampson, relax.” He patted Sean’s arm and smiled. “It’s probably an infection or twenty-four hour viral event. I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about. I’ll call Mr. Sanders—”
“You work for the NSA?”
“Oh, no, sir. I’m one of the first family’s pediatricians. But you needn’t worry. Some of the best pediatricians in the world are on duty as we speak at Children’s. You won’t find a better place to take your daughter. Oh, and by the way, your daughter is a delightful young lady. Been hearing a lot of good things about her. I’m sure she’ll be fine.”
Noelle wasn’t encouraged. All she could think about was the day not so long ago in Raine’s room, and how Sean had related the word he saw displayed on her laptop.
Lymphoma.
Chapter Nineteen
Like a lost child, Sean exuded a vulnerability that broke Noelle’s heart. He looked numb as he held tight to his daughter in the back seat of the SUV. She wanted to take them both into her arms and tell them it would be okay. Instead, the words refused to come, because she feared she night burst into tears. She was often around stressful situations concerning children. But this time, it was personal. She felt a very real connection to the man and child sitting next to her. Like Sean, she felt helpless. For now, all she could do was hold his hand. Someone had to stay strong, not only for the short ride to the hospital, but for the duration of what could possibly be a long, bumpy ride.
An attendant awaited the SUV when it pulled up to the emergency entrance. She was a dark-skinned woman with a clipboard and a smile. She opened the door before the driver had a chance to come to a full stop. “Mr. Sampson?”
Sean nodded.
“And you must be Raine.” The woman’s face lit up, which caught Noelle by surprise. She was a beacon of brightness amid a sea of sour expressions. “My, but aren’t you a beautiful young lady!”
Raine was awake now but seemed as subdued as her father. She managed a smile, which was quickly shaken away by a wrack of shivers. Sean drew her closer and tucked the blanket in around her.
“My name is Sheila, and I’m gonna make sure you get the best of care, little lady. In fact, we’re gonna take such good care of you, the short time you’ll be here will fly by.”
“Thank you,” Raine said. It was the first coherent words that had come from her mouth since going to bed hours earlier.
Hours earlier? It seemed like eons ago. And it seemed even longer since Noelle made love with Sean. Stress could stretch time to a breaking point. Noelle had been in similar situations in the past. And she was aware how easily elation can give way to fear and uncertainty with little warning. Cruelly, a high can slide so quickly to a new low and can change the playing field to a vast wasteland of uncertainty, crushing the mere memory of joy in the wink of an eye.
In spite of the late hour, the emergency room hummed with activity. One child’s sobbing was lost in the hurting moan of another. They followed Sheila to a bed inside a curtained area near the end of a row of cubicles. A team of health care professionals entered and went to work. Before Sean could dress Raine in the provided gown, a nurse had taken her temperature, blood pressure, and pulse, jabbering to her the entire time. It all seemed staged to Noelle, a well-rehearsed scene delivered by well-trained actors in a sleight-of-hand effort to distract from the tension of being sick.
Noelle managed to catch at least part of the thermometer display. Although the nurse pasted her best poker face on while she wrote the numbers onto a clipboard, Noelle could tell that the number was a four-digit one. A simple nod to an assistant quickly brought on a metal box on wheels, which the technician plugged into a nearby socket before extracting a bulky sheet from inside. Frosty air escaped as he pulled out the fabric and placed it on top of thick towels and then over Raine. He gently pulled her arms from under the cool blanket, placing them on another layer of towels.
“Has the child recently been given any medication?” another attendant directed toward Sean. For a moment, Sean seemed confused, unable to remember. Noelle quickly responded.
“About an hour ago, we gave her one teaspoon of children’s ibuprofen.”
The nurse smiled and spoke softly to another assistant. “Let’s give her—how much does she weigh?”
“Thirty-two pounds,” Sean managed.
“The doctors says we can give her ten milliliters of pain reliever. The ibuprofen doesn’t seem to be having much effect.” After Raine swallowed the liquid, the nurse returned to her with a cup. “Sweetie, I want you to drink as much of this water as you
can.” She lifted Raine’s head and held the cup to her lips. The little girl tried to swallow, but choked and gagged and spat it back out. The nurse grabbed a small tray and held Raine’s hair while she lost the contents of her stomach, including the red medicine she had taken.
A clown with a red rubber nose and large, floppy shoes bounded into the room. “I’m Dr. Wendell Wells,” he announced. He approached Raine. “Hi, I understand you’re not feeling so well.”
Raine was hardly amused by his apparel. He glanced at the chart and, after the nurse filled him in, began examining Raine, similar to the manner in which Dr. Parlow had.
When he was done, he turned to the nurse. “Let’s get her started on an IV…” He paused and studied the clipboard, flipping sheets, and then turned to Sean. “Any allergies?”
“No, none that I know of.” Sean stepped up to the bed, moved a strand of hair from Raine’s face, and gave her a smile. Noelle wanted to cry at the little girl’s vacant expression.
The doctor gave the staff in the room instructions for a myriad of treatments and tests, including blood work. As quickly as he had arrived, he moved out into the hallway with the only indication of his presence the flapping of noisy shoes.
Noelle glanced at Sean, who was doing his best to stand back and let the medical team handle the situation. He swallowed hard and watched them but continued to look lost. As strong as he appeared, she wondered if he was hanging onto the edge by a thread. She placed her arm around his waist. His startled look suggested he wasn’t expecting the gesture. He forced a smile.
“She’s going to be fine.” She squeezed his slim waist. He draped his arm around her shoulder and leaned his head onto hers. As they continued to look at his daughter, she couldn’t help but say another prayer, one of many she had said during the long night. As she did, Raine closed her eyes and the smallest of smiles brightened her pale lips.
“Daddy and Mommy, I think this little gal is ready for some rest now.” The nurse stripped her latex gloves and tossed them in a garbage bin. “Give her a night-night kiss, and I’ll grab the doctor. He’ll meet you outside to chat.”
The nurse’s mistaken assumption she was Raine’s mother took her by surprise, but it was true she couldn’t have loved the child or worried about her more if she were her own.
So this was what it felt like to be a mother.
“How soon do we get the results of these tests, Doctor?” Noelle took the lead as Sean sat in the waiting room, elbows on his knees and head in hand. Before the doctor could respond, Sean looked up. The doctor’s left hand worked nervously on the red nose he had pulled from his face.
“Doctor,” Sean said. “I hear them talk about all these tests, and I understand why you are doing them, but I want to know what you think. Why is her lymph node swollen, and what does it mean? And why have the ibuprofen and pain reliever not helped with her fever?”
The doctor hesitated for a moment and took another look at Raine’s chart. He pursed his lips, pinched the bridge of his nose, and cleared his throat. After a moment, he placed the chart on a table in the empty waiting room and sat down next to Sean.
“Mr. Sampson, first of all, ibuprofen and acetaminophen are not always one hundred percent effective. Secondly, many conditions can cause the swelling of a lymph node, most of which are benign. It’s far too early to speculate which of these conditions are affecting your daughter.”
“Your best guess, doc. That’s all I’m asking for right now. With her symptoms, and based on what you know about them, what can this indicate? I need to know if this could be serious.” Sean lowered his head for a moment to gain his composure. “Her mother died of lymphoma. Patty wasn’t my daughter’s biological mother, but as you might imagine, this is a concern for me.”
When Sean mentioned Raine’s mother, the doc glanced toward Noelle but didn’t comment. The doctor took a deep breath and fidgeted. “Mr. Sampson, we can’t rule anything out at this point. I’m sorry to give you a short answer, but unfortunately, any number of factors could be causing any one or more of your daughter’s symptoms. Now, it will take around twenty-four hours to get all the test results back, at which time we hopefully can give you a better picture of what’s going on. That’s really the best I can offer at this point.”
During the entire statement, Sean stared at the floor. He folded his hands in front of his face, as if in prayer. He rubbed his face and looked up, his eyes wet with tears.
“Thank you,” he said and lowered his head again.
“I will be in touch the very moment I learn anything from the tests.”
Sean nodded but didn’t look up.
The doctor walked away slowly, as if trying to minimize the noise from his shoes.
****
Raine rested well for the remainder of the night, despite the traffic in and out of the room constantly, and considering Raine’s left arm was secured to a padded metal rail so as not to compromise the IV. Getting the small needle into her arm was fairly painless. Raine fell into and out of sleep during the short process. The process seemed to pain Sean more than it hurt Raine. He went to great lengths to ensure the nurse didn’t hurt her, to the point where the nurse was getting visibly nervous and annoyed. Afterwards, Sean looked worn out.
Noelle made him take a break around five a.m. Raine was sleeping, and his stomach was making enough noise to wake her and to strongly dispute his claim he wasn’t hungry. She assured him she would not leave Raine’s side while he found something to eat and convinced him he needed to go so he could bring back something for her to eat. She wasn’t hungry either, but this sweet man needed a break. Who knew how long their vigil would continue? At the rate he was going he wouldn’t last twenty-four hours, not without some serious rest. Rest was not something that could easily be procured for him, not when he reacted to every movement and sound from his daughter’s bed.
Noelle schemed to find a way to get him to at least consider a shift arrangement for staying with his daughter, although something told her he wouldn’t venture far away for very long, under any circumstances.
Minutes after he left in search for food, Raine stirred. She tossed and turned, hampered somewhat by the restraints on her arm, and began mumbling. Noelle moved closer to try to decipher what she was saying.
“At the beach, Daddy…can I have some more of those…it’s a boat…where is the sand castle?” Raine thrashed around, restrained only by the IV splint.
In her sleep, Raine went through the motions of eating. She rambled about shrimp, crab, and other seafood. Most of her mumbling was not unpleasant. However, at times she sounded fearful, as if she were running away from something or someone.
“Daddy, help me, Daddy,” she called. “Miss Noelle.”
Noelle moved closer. Taking Raine’s hand, she stroked her hair and talked calmly, reassuring her that everything was all right. Raine quieted down for a few moments and even smiled, soothed by Noelle’s voice.
Just when Noelle thought she had drifted back into sleep, Raine opened her eyes. Her face was wild with alarm. She squeezed Noelle’s hand tightly and looked directly into her eyes, yet straight through her. “Please tell them about the Castle Man. Please,” she said in a whisper.
A chill went down Noelle’s spine. Before she could say a word, Raine closed her eyes and fell asleep once again. During these few seconds, she was aware of someone entering the room. Deep in thought about Raine’s words, she flinched as someone touched her shoulder. She jerked her head around to see Sean standing beside her.
“Did you hear?”
“The Castle Man?”
“Yes.”
They stood silently next to her bed, as she searched for the right words to explain her apprehension. She dug deep, calling on all her expertise and studies for something to explain Raine’s obsession with the Castle Man. There had to be a reason why.
She could think of none.
****
It wasn’t hard for James to spot the agent. The big man was never ve
ry far from the little girl or her doctor and father. He had to give it to him—he was good. He, and the other two who relieved him, made sure none of those he was protecting knew he was around. Whether behind a newspaper or in the floor waiting room, they blended in nicely.
Not to James. He could spot the law a mile away. God knew he had experience with their type. He was, as far as he knew, still on probation, so he would need to lie low.
But it didn’t matter. The cause was much more important than the possibility of spending more time behind bars. The risk was worth it. Taking out the Chinese kid would serve a couple of purposes. First and foremost, it would avenge the damage she had done by exposing the senator and getting him arrested. True, he had no proof that it was the little girl, but it just made sense, the more he thought about it. She had been waiting to come on that morning show and would have at least seen the senator before he bugged out. He wasn’t sure how the kid had found out about what Blane was doing, but it didn’t matter. The damage was done. And taking her out would go a long way to deter others from messing with the Cause.
And he sure wasn’t about to let no little brat get away with it. She and her dad and doctor would pay, and pay dearly. Nobody stands in the way of the Cause and lives to tell about it.
Especially a foreigner.
But first he had to deal with the agent.
****
“Daddy?”
Sean jumped from his chair and took her fragile hand in his. “What, sweetie?”
“I’m hungry.”
He smiled. As he reached to touch her face, he found her hair soaking wet. Her fever had broken! At some time while he dozed, the cold blanket had been removed, and fresh, clean linens and blankets were on her bed. A chilled paper container of apple juice sat on the tray next to her bed. He picked it up and forced the straw into the top. She practically ripped it from his hand and began sipping it.
“Easy now, sweetie. Your stomach is empty. Too much in it, too fast, might not be so good.” For a moment, he could barely speak through the lump in his throat. Her eyes were so bright, and color had returned to her face. Her forehead was warm, not hot. And she was hungry! He pushed the call button. A voice answered quickly. He informed the nurse his daughter was awake, soaking wet, and ravenous. The nurse assured him food and dry linens would soon be there.
Time for Raine Page 22
