Warning Signs

by C. J. Lyons

  “I need the answer to a question.” Gina finally broke the silence. He inclined his head in a regal nod, granting her permission to continue.

  “Why?” She began, then paused, trying to gather her thoughts, strip them of all emotion. “When those gang-bangers shot up that car and it crashed, you risked your life running out to try to save the driver even though it was pretty certain that he was a goner. I need—” No, the last thing she wanted was to admit that she needed anything. “I would like to know why.”

  Ken finally blinked, slowly, like a cat. He tilted his head, skewering her with his emotionless gaze as if she were one of his lab rats. “Why did you run after me? Men shooting guns, and you leave the ambulance to run after me.”

  “That was different. Don’t avoid the point.”

  He pushed away from the desk, took two steps forward, and stopped, hovering just beyond reach. “It’s the same question, Gina. Answer one and you’ll answer the other.”

  Music crashed through the door as he opened it and stepped through. He closed it behind him, leaving Gina alone.

  She stood frozen in indecision. She hated this feeling, spinning her wheels, out of control. She was used to being in control; she needed to be in control—of her patients, her choices, her fate.

  “Goddamnsonofabitch!” she shouted into the empty office.

  The door cracked open again and Ken poked his head inside. “I thought you wanted some answers. You coming or not?”

  NORA OFTEN FELT AS IF SHE NEEDED A PASSPORT when transporting patients down the hallway for X-rays. Like most of the nurses she knew, she had a love/hate relationship with radiology. They performed an irreplaceable service for her patients, yet they also often kept patients waiting, cooped up in tiny holding areas with no privacy, often returning them to the ER without having a procedure done only to wait some more until it was convenient for the radiology staff to fit them into their schedule.

  The worst thing about this strange land of radiology was that people died here. There was rarely anyone around to help when you needed them. Mix sick people in tiny spaces far from anyone who had the equipment and know-how to help them, and it was a recipe for disaster. Nora’s greatest patient care nightmare was trying to run a code or resuscitate a patient in the tiny confines of the CT scanner or, even worse, the MRI, where the magnetic field was never turned off and so you couldn’t even approach the room with anything metallic on your body.

  The trip to radiology did little to calm Tanesha. She gripped Nora’s hand so hard it was quickly drained of blood. As they waited in the patient holding area, Janet Kwon wisely held back, hovering just out of sight but listening closely.

  “I’m dead, I’m dead, I’m dead. Just like the others, he’s gonna kill me.” Tanesha’s voice had faded to a low chant.

  Janet nudged Nora’s rib cage. Nora sat on a plywood coffee table facing Tanesha. “What others, Tanesha?” Nora asked, matching her voice to the scared girl’s plaintive whisper, not loud enough to rustle the air between them.

  “The ones buried in the backyard.” Tanesha was rocking, her gaze fixed on an invisible point beyond the walls of the waiting room. “He’s gonna kill me just like he did them.”

  Behind Tanesha, Janet straightened with excitement, circling her hand in a “more, more” motion. Nora knew the detective was eager for details, but the state Tanesha was in, it was going to take patience and finesse, not bullying and scare tactics.

  Before she could ask more, the radiology tech emerged from the back. She pulled down the blanket Tanesha was wrapped in to check Tanesha’s ID bracelet against the computerized orders and nodded. “Pregnancy test?” she asked with a frown. “I don’t see it documented.”

  Damn, Nora had meant to get a urine specimen from Tanesha before they left the ER but Jerry had distracted her. “We haven’t gotten one yet.”

  “Well then, I’ll need you to pee in a cup for us,” the tech told Tanesha, looking askance at the teen’s clothing. “Nora, you can help her with that, right?” The tech’s tone made it clear that she wasn’t about to touch Tanesha or get anywhere near her body fluids.

  “No need.” Tanesha’s voice was louder, filled with anguish. “I’m pregnant. That’s why I’m going to die—Yancy’s gonna kill me and my baby.”

  “It’ll be all right, Tanesha,” Nora said, taking both of Tanesha’s hands in hers.

  “No. No, it won’t.” Tanesha was crying now, scaring the tech back into the dark caverns of radiology. “I saw him—I saw him kill Angie. He’s gonna do me as well.”

  Janet couldn’t hold back. She stepped forward, inserting herself into the teen’s field of vision. “What did you see, Tanesha?”

  Tanesha gulped and snuffled back some tears. Nora extracted one of her hands long enough to grab a tissue from the box on the table beside them. Tanesha blew her nose, shoved the dirty tissue into Nora’s hand, and finally met Janet’s gaze.

  “We all knew he was mad at Angie for letting herself get pregnant. Told her if she didn’t get rid of it, he would do it for her. Then a few nights later, I snuck back home to grab a”—she faltered, glancing at the detective—“a smoke, and I saw them. Yancy carrying Angie out to the backyard. She was floppy like a rag doll. He dumped her on the ground and grabbed a shovel, started digging. And that’s when I knew she was dead.”

  Tanesha hung her head, rocking again, refusing to look up at Nora. Janet’s eyes had gone wide with excitement as she grabbed her cell phone. “Man, if she’s right,” she said breathlessly, “I’d better tell Boyle to cancel any plans he has for tonight.”

  THIRTEEN

  Thursday, 1:37 P.M.

  LYDIA LEFT BOYLE IN THE GOOD HANDS OF ONE of the nurses and walked into the hallway with Trey. She wanted to ask him if Gina had called him about missing her shift, and because Boyle still thought Gina had made it to her ride-along, she couldn’t do it in front of the detective.

  She hated this lying and misdirection. Hated even more how easily lying came to her.

  Trey led her into the stairwell and shut the door, bracing his back against it. With a glance to make sure no one was coming down from above, he snagged her by the waist and pressed her against the cement block wall for a quick kiss before she could say anything.

  “We still on for our dance lesson tonight?” he asked when they parted.

  Lydia brushed her lips against his again. “Can’t. Promised Nora she could come over—she’s worried about some patients, wants me to review their charts.”

  He did a shuffle step. “You’re choosing charts over learning how to cha-cha?”

  In addition to his job as a district chief for Advanced Life Support, Trey moonlighted as a dance instructor for his sister’s studio, just as he also worked as a handyman for his mother’s real estate firm. He didn’t give Lydia a chance to reply, but instead nuzzled her neck, his palms pressed against her hips, the heat of his touch radiating through her scrubs. “I thought after, maybe we could finally break in that new bed of yours.”

  Lydia laughed as he reached the sensitive spot behind her ear, his tongue tickling her. They’d had sex on pretty much every horizontal surface in her house and a goodly sampling of the vertical ones as well. But even she hadn’t slept in her new bed or used the bedroom yet, preferring the couch.

  Her house was fourteen hundred square feet, more than twice as large as any place she’d ever lived before. She still wasn’t used to all that space. It felt claustrophobic at times—as if too much space could imprison you as much as too little.

  “Did Gina talk to you about missing her shift today?” She didn’t want to break the mood—wished there were more time for fun—but they both needed to get back to work. And, she hated to admit, she was worried about Gina.

  Trey’s hands remained on her waist, but he straightened to his full six feet, nodding solemnly. “No, she did not. What the hell’s going on with her anyway?”

  “A lot of things—getting shot at didn’t help any.”

  “
She’s not the type to talk. She’ll try to keep it bottled up inside.” He lowered his forehead so it touched hers. “A lot like someone else I know.”

  Lydia shrugged that small reproach aside, instead grabbing his impeccable uniform shirt in her fist and tugging him closer, planting her lips against his, savoring his warmth. The kiss deepened, his thumbs sliding up, flicking across her breasts, raising her nipples as heat surged through her.

  One of them made a noise deep in their throat; Lydia thought maybe it was her. She rubbed her ankle up the back of his leg, feeling his hard muscles through the polyester of his uniform slacks. Finally they parted for air.

  “I’d better be going,” she said, wondering at the hint of regret in her voice.

  This thing she and Trey had, it was tricky, hard for her to define, falling somewhere between the no-man’s-land of lust and the dangerous shoals of something more serious. At times the intensity of her response to a single glance from him made her feel as if she were drowning, pulled down by a riptide and unable to come up for air.

  “Sorry about tonight.”

  “Hmmm.” Trey pulled his hands away, shoving them into his pants pockets and slouching his shoulders. “I guess I’ll just go home to my swinging bachelor pad, call up one of my other girls—”

  She punched him in the shoulder, hard enough to rock him back.

  “Er, I mean, take a cold shower and microwave a dinner.” Then he smiled. “Better yet, I’ll head over to Mom and Dad’s—nice weather like this, Dad will have steaks going.”

  “If I know your mom, more likely it will be soy burgers. Guess you won’t be missing me at all.”

  He took his time, looking her up and down and up again, his gaze settling on her mouth. “Who me? Mr. Independent? Nah, won’t miss you at all.”

  “Liar.” She walked with him out to the city-owned Suburban he drove when on duty. The SUV was white with yellow and red stripes and was as polished as Trey’s shoes and badge. “Can you do me a favor tomorrow?”

  “Maybe.” He pulled her in for another quick kiss. “It’ll cost you.”

  “Name your price, Chief.”

  AMANDA APPROACHED THE DISTRAUGHT MAN AT Alice’s bedside warily. She’d heard about what happened in the ER—the guy had tried to punch Lydia Fiore. He was lucky Lydia hadn’t hit back.

  Nancy, the charge nurse, sidled up to her. “The cops couldn’t keep him—he posted bail. I called security, but I’m thinking a guy in uniform is just going to set him off again. His wife is no help, made things worse—said she’s taking the other kids and leaving him.”

  “Great. So you called me.”

  “Your beeper number is on the chart. I have a page in to your attending as well.” She shrugged. “Just give him some of that Southern charm, sweet-talk him. As long as he’s calm and no danger to my staff or his daughter, he’s welcome to stay. If he follows the rules.”

  “Right.” Amanda heaved out a breath and straightened. Looked like her vending-machine lunch would have to wait.

  She walked over to Alice’s bed, trying to look casual. Standing at the foot of it, she took in the monitor readings and saw that the baby was stable, normal—if being in a medically induced coma with your body temperature dropped to thirty-four degrees Celsius could be considered “normal.”

  “You can touch her, if you want,” she said in a soft voice, demonstrating by rubbing Alice’s toes between her fingers, stroking them gently.

  Mr. Kazmierko drew back, shaking his head vehemently. “No. She feels cold, dead.” He turned red-rimmed, sunken eyes on Amanda. “She is dead, isn’t she? I heard them talking—that ER doctor, she killed her, you all are just keeping her heart beating so that doctor won’t be blamed. Probably want to sell her organs or something. And then when she’s gone, I’m the one everyone is going to blame.”

  Amanda had to bolster herself against the force of the father’s accusations. “Dr. Fiore is trying to help Alice. Cooling her body is the best way to try to save brain function—if any can be saved. You must understand how sensitive a baby’s brain is to any lack of oxygen—”

  “I understand that you all are trying to save yourselves from a lawsuit. The cops just want to pin everything on me.”

  “Mr. Kazmierko—”

  “This wasn’t my fault—I’m a good father, I would never do anything to hurt my baby girl.” He was pleading now, a stray tear slipping unnoticed from his eye. “This wasn’t my fault.”

  “No one said it was.”

  “It’s that ER doctor, she’s the one. Trying an experimental treatment on my little girl—someone needs to stop her, she shouldn’t be allowed to keep treating patients.” His voice rose, and the charge nurse glared at them. He hung his head and lowered his voice, his palms gripping the edge of the Lucite panels that surrounded Alice’s tiny crib. “It’s her fault, not mine. She killed my baby.”

  Amanda laid a hand against his shoulder and felt the rhythm of his jagged sighs move through his body. “How’s your other daughter?” she asked, hoping to distract him from Alice’s uncertain and precarious condition.

  “Fine. My wife took her home—won’t let me see her, got an emergency restraining order. She’s going to leave me. I can’t make it alone, I can’t. Why is this happening?” He raised his head, the odor of Southern Comfort wafting off him. He looked to Amanda as if she had the answers. “Why me? First that stupid driver who cut me off, then that ER doctor, now I have nothing …”

  “We’re doing everything we can for Alice,” she said uncertainly, knowing it wasn’t the answer he wanted.

  He glared at her, his eyes narrowing to sharp slits. “You doctors. You’re all the same. Always protecting each other. Just leave me alone. Leave me and my baby alone.”

  Amanda’s mouth went dry as she searched for an answer to his accusations. Finally she simply gave Alice’s foot another squeeze and stepped away.

  “There you are.” Jim Lazarov’s accusing voice greeted her as he burst through the PICU doors. “Should have known you’d be here with all the pygmy patients. Did you get those results Stone wanted?”

  “I need to get them organized.” She pulled the thick sheaf of papers from her pocket. “Unless you want to.”

  “God, no. That’s scut-monkey work. Just let me know the highlights so I can present them to Stone on rounds this afternoon.”

  Maybe it was hunger, frustration over her visit with Dr. Nelson, or her encounter with Mr. Kazmierko’s despair, but Amanda was sick and tired of being pushed around. “I can present them.”

  “No, I have something better for you to do. In fact”—he gave her a superior smile—“you’re going to thank me for it. A consult came in—kid on peds, needs his seizure meds double-checked. I know how much you love hanging out with the other pygmy docs.”

  She started to protest, then thought better of it. Spending the day down on pediatrics would keep her far away from Lucas and the unnerving attention he paid to her every fumble and misstep. Not to mention prevent him from asking her questions about her symptoms—they were the last thing she wanted to think about. And it would give her time to go through Becky’s results and maybe even do some research on hypothermia and hypoxic brain ischemia.

  “Okay,” she told Jim, who looked pleased at her acquiescence. They both knew that whoever got the consult page was the one who was supposed to do the work.

  “Great. Here’s the info.” He handed her a piece of paper, and she started back toward the PICU doors. “Hey! Don’t forget to call me with those results before Stone and I make rounds.”

  Right. Like hell she would. If she found anything important in Becky’s results, she’d call Lucas herself. Even if it meant making Jim look bad in front of the attending—if he did his own work, he wouldn’t have to worry about it.

  With one last look at Alice Kazmierko and her father, who had already given her up as dead, Amanda left the PICU.

  FOURTEEN

  Thursday, 2:02 P.M.

  “CAN YOU WALK I
N THOSE SHOES?” KEN ASKED as they rode the elevator down from his lab.

  Gina raised a foot, inspecting her Jimmy Choo open-toe wedges. “These shoes cost six hundred dollars.”

  “That doesn’t answer my question. I ride a bike to work, so it’s either walk or double up on my handlebars.”

  “What’s wrong with my car?” She refused to ask where they were going—refused to expose any weakness.

  “No way am I going to waste gas and pollute the environment to travel less than a mile and a half.” He held his arms out as if steering a bicycle. “So which is it? Walk or ride?”

  She scowled at him, but it took an effort. She wasn’t really angry. In fact, the knot that had taken up permanent residence in her stomach was beginning to relax for the first time in months. “You are the strangest man I’ve ever met.”

  “Okay, walk it is.” The doors opened and he led her out of the building. The air was hot and muggy, the sun dimmed by hazy clouds trapping the heat below them.

  The route he led them on took them past the ER entrance and ambulance bay. Gina sped up, hoping no one was stepping outside for a cigarette break. Good idea. She reached for her own cigarettes, but Ken stilled her hand with a touch and shook his head. She obeyed without protest—something that sparked another wave of irritation at him. Damn the man.

  “You haven’t been sleeping much, have you?” he asked, as if talking about the weather. “And having nightmares when you do, right?”

  She opened her mouth, ready to lie, but instead she just shrugged, picking up her pace despite the fact that her feet were already pinching and feeling rubbed raw. He caught up easily, his long legs matching her stride effortlessly.

  “Have you been back to work since the shooting?”

  “In the ER,” she found herself answering. “But I’m supposed to be out on the streets doing my EMS rotation. I just, I can’t. I’m—” She stopped herself before she said the dreaded word.