Warning Signs

by C. J. Lyons

  “Just a little Versed to calm you down,” Lucas whispered in her ear. “You’re doing fine. We’re not going to have to intubate.”

  Not yet. The words remained unspoken.

  Despair crashed down on Amanda. Was she going to end up paralyzed, trapped in her own body, like Tracey?

  Then the drugs took effect and washed her away on a wave of numb denial …

  “GINA, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING? WAIT for backup.” Trey’s voice sliced through the air in a tone of command.

  Gina stopped halfway to the house, her boots sinking into the mud. “You and Lydia keep telling me I have to think of my patients first, forget everything else. So here I go—be sure to include it in your report to Lydia if I get killed.”

  It took Trey only three long-legged steps to reach her. The clouds parted, a stray shaft of light streaming down between them. “Stop being childish. We clear the scene first.”

  Gina was sick and tired of people telling her how to act and what to do—and even more tired of feeling afraid and uncertain and cowardly. Fear and panic whiplashed through her. “If someone inside there needs help, we’re here, let’s do it. I’m not gonna stand around out here twiddling my thumbs. C’mon, Trey, you’re a tough guy; let’s go risk our lives for whatever strung-out, skanky crack whore lives here. It’s what heroes do, right?”

  Trey gave his head a quick shake as if her words needed straightening out. Maybe they did. Gina was on full-tilt mode, not quite sure of what she was saying until she heard the words sputter from her mouth. To hell with words. What good had ever come of talking stuff to death? Gina spun on her heel and stalked toward the house.

  There was a screech of brakes behind her, followed by the sound of car doors slamming just as she hit the front porch. Trey stayed with her; he probably would have tackled her or shoved her aside if he’d seen any hint of danger.

  “The cops are here. Let them do their job, Gina.” He laid his hand on her shoulder, adding to the weight of her bulletproof vest.

  Her bravado was spent. But not her anger. That was growing, churning like the storm clouds overhead, waiting for lightning to spark.

  She stood sweating beneath her layers of Kevlar as the uniformed officers jogged up and pounded on the door. They opened the wrought-iron screen door, revealing a large yellow sticker slathered across the opening edge of the inner door.

  “What the hell,” the first officer said. “Looks like the detectives sealed this place not three hours ago. Seal’s broken now.”

  The second officer was on his radio. “Major Crimes was here—dug up a few bodies in the backyard yesterday.”

  Oh yeah, Gina thought, remembering Jerry’s case. So this was where Jerry spent last night. Didn’t look like a serial killer’s house—didn’t they all live in creepy Victorians with rocking chairs silhouetted by cobwebs?

  The officer looked up again, reholstering his radio. “Dispatch confirms this is the address of the nine-one-one call. Unresponsive female, probable drug OD.”

  The first one frowned. He drew his gun. “You two, back to the curb. We’ll check it out.”

  Trey grabbed Gina’s arm, giving her no choice. She allowed him to lead her into the yard as the officers busted through the door, shouting at any inhabitants to show their hands. A few minutes later the second one poked his head out through the doorway.

  “It’s clear. There’s a woman down—needle beside her—she’s alive, I think.”

  They followed him inside, Gecko joining them with the airway and drug bags. The interior of the house was a contrast to the dilapidated condition of the outside. Shiny gold wallpaper flocked with red velvet covered the foyer walls; the front room had an actual chandelier hanging from the ceiling and was crowded with overstuffed leather furniture, as well as a bar in the corner with a widescreen TV.

  All the other rooms had been converted from their original purposes into bedrooms. Some had been sectioned off from larger rooms, such as the former dining room, into small worklike cubicles each containing a bed, mirrored walls, and a single straight-back chair.

  Gina guessed the front room represented the courtship phase where the customer was wined and dined, separated from his money, and offered his selection of girls. After that it was all work, no play. Gina’s boot got tangled in a discarded fake-silk kimono, and she paused to shake it free, not wanting to touch the walls to keep her balance, not wanting to touch anything here. The entire house reeked of cheap perfume, booze, marijuana, and sex.

  She caught a reflection of herself in one of the many mirrors that lined the haphazard arrangement of rooms. Dumpy cargo pants, baggy T-shirt, bulky vest, clunky boots; she looked fat and ugly. If she worked here, no man would choose her—hell, she’d probably have to pay to sleep with them.

  “She’s back here.” The first cop appeared in front of where the partitions took a crazy turn.

  The house was a maze of mirrors. She’d never find her way back out of here again. Trey and Gecko moved faster than she did through the labyrinth. By the time she turned the corner, they were already bagging oxygen into a skinny black girl and starting an IV. The cop hovered a few feet away, keeping his distance. He held a small plastic bag containing rubber tubing used as a tourniquet and a syringe.

  “She must have waited for the detectives to leave and come back to get her stash,” Gina surmised.

  “Nope. They cleared the house with the K-9 drug unit before they left,” the cop said. “She brought it herself.”

  “Or someone brought it for her,” Trey said. “Look, bruises on her arm. Someone held her down and shot her up.” He reached for the Narcan from the drug box. “I can’t get a vein. Gina, keep looking while I give her the Narcan IM.”

  Narcan was the universal antidote for opioid overdoses like heroin. It worked very fast, reversing the effects of the drugs. Sometimes too fast.

  Gina knelt beside the patient as Trey injected her thigh with the Narcan. As Gina searched for a vein on the too-skinny arm scarred with old track marks, the patient suddenly sat up, pushing Gecko and the breathing mask aside in one violent movement—like a mummy coming to life.

  “Don’t you hurt my baby, you goddamned bitch!” she screamed, smashing her fist into Gina’s face.

  The cop and Gecko leaped forward to pin the girl’s arms down while Trey held her thrashing legs. Gina lashed out, pure adrenaline-fueled reflex, and raised her hand as if to strike back at her assailant. She stopped herself, pain and fear and anger all surging through her hand, freezing it in midair.

  “Gina,” Trey shouted, now kneeling on the girl’s legs. “Give us a hand here.”

  “My baby, don’t hurt my baby,” the girl was moaning, tears streaming from her face.

  Gina rocked back and scuttled away to sit on the floor, one palm pressed against her jaw. She wasn’t sure whether she was more frightened of being hit or the fact that she had come perilously close to striking back.

  Nausea surged through her, but she clenched her jaws tight, refusing to surrender to it. She’d never hit anyone before, had never come that close to committing any kind of violence.

  And she’d never been hit before, not by her parents, not by anyone, certainly not punched in the face with a closed fist. Pain stabbed through her jaw and cheek. Cautiously, she opened her mouth, slid her jaw side to side. Nothing broken, no loose teeth. But goddamn, it hurt.

  The girl was calm now; the men had released her. She was sobbing and talking quietly, nodding at something Trey said.

  “It was Chevette,” she said. “She told me Yancy had money stashed here—she ought to know, she ran this place for him. Said she’d split it with me if I helped her come get it. But when we got here, she hit me, held me down, shot me up.” A strangled cry escaped her, and she grabbed onto Trey’s arm. “My baby, did she kill my baby?”

  Gecko sidled past Gina, not even looking at her, as he left to get the stretcher. The weeping girl was now fully entangled in Trey’s arms, tears and snot staining his uniform.
But he didn’t push her away; instead he held her as if she were a child and let her cry.

  “It’s okay, Tanesha. We’re going to Angels; the doctors will check you and your baby. Everything’s going to be okay.”

  “She—she tried to kill me.”

  The cop was on the radio, giving Chevette’s description to the dispatcher as Gecko and the second cop returned with the stretcher and loaded Tanesha onto it. As they wheeled her out, she still clung to Trey’s arm. The cops followed, and Gina was left alone in the empty room, swimming in the scent of stale sex and fear.

  THIRTY-SIX

  Friday, 3:57 P.M.

  “IS YOUR FRIEND GOING TO BE ALL RIGHT?” Deon asked when Lydia returned to Mark’s office. He’d done what she asked—stayed put while she and Nora ran down to the ER to check on Amanda.

  “I hope so,” she said, wishing she could give a more definite answer. She bent over his shoulder to examine his work.

  “I finished the puzzle,” he told her, smiling as he spread the schedule in front of her. Not only had he finished it, he had adorned the outer margins with pictures of stars and comets and spaceships blasting off.

  “Wow, nice job.”

  “Do you think Miss Nora will like it?”

  “I think she’ll love it. Let’s pack up your stuff.”

  He said nothing, but merely carefully folded Nora’s schedule and presented it to Lydia, then hopped off the chair and swiftly gathered his pencils and books into his knapsack. “Your friend, she’s really sick, isn’t she?”

  “Yes, she is.” Lydia supposed she should have lied to him, painted a pretty picture, but it just felt wrong.

  “I thought so. You look scared.”

  She knelt down beside him on the floor, taking his hand in hers. “I am. A little. But she has really good doctors taking care of her.”

  “Doctors like the ones taking care of Gram?”

  “Just as good. And”—she straightened, lifting his knapsack onto her own shoulder—“that’s the reason why I’m back. I got a call. Your gram is out of surgery. She did great. Want to go see her?”

  His face lit up with a smile that was blinding in intensity. “Yes!”

  “All right then, let’s go.”

  He slid his hand into hers, in a trusting gesture that threatened to break her heart—or at least dent it a bit. She guided them along the back hallway to the elevator bank, the long way around but away from the ER’s R-rated hustle and bustle.

  “So she has a machine instead of a heart now?” he asked, his face squinched up as he imagined it. “Like the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz? Will I have to wind it up and stuff?”

  They climbed onboard the elevator, joining a couple arguing about paying the bills and a sad old man.

  “Not instead of her heart, to help her heart,” Lydia corrected. She’d shown him pictures and explained everything. She knew he was just letting his imagination wander free. “And everything’s inside her; you won’t see any machine.”

  He nodded, an impish smile on his face. “But if it was windup, then I could forget to wind it on Saturday nights, and we could sleep in on Sunday instead of going to church.”

  “No, you go to church with your gram and you listen.” Strange words from someone who was an atheist four days out of seven. But Emma had done a wonderful thing raising Deon; the kid was bright and articulate and kind and thoughtful. Lydia didn’t want to undermine her.

  “You sound just like Gram,” he said, tugging on her arm as the elevator doors opened on the fourth floor. “Cardiac care unit,” he read the sign, “this way.”

  They turned down the hallway. The pediatric ICU was between them and the CCU. In front of it paced an angry man, flailing his arms as he muttered to himself. Alice Kazmierko’s father.

  Kazmierko caught sight of Lydia and froze, his foot planted in front of him like a bull ready to charge. “You,” he shouted. “Are you happy now? Your little experiment killed my daughter!”

  Lydia’s fists clenched as she stepped into a fighting stance. Her instincts were to face Kazmierko head on. But she had Deon with her. She pulled the boy behind her, urging him backward toward the elevators.

  “I want to see Gram,” Deon said, as close to a whine as she’d heard him make.

  “In a few minutes,” she said, gauging her options. “Go wait by the elevator. Count the angels in the cemetery.”

  Deon resisted but then obeyed. Just in time, because Kazmierko was now striding down the hallway, his fists held at his waist, arms bent, ready to swing. She’d almost love to see him try something—she was certain she could take him, and it would give her an excuse to have him locked up. But she didn’t want any violence in front of Deon.

  Kazmierko’s face was slick with tears. He was crying unabashedly, his nose red, choking with sobs so that his words were almost incomprehensible. “She’s dead, my baby’s dead because of you, bitch. What are you going to do about that?”

  What could she do? She wasn’t God. If there was a God.

  She stood still, weight balanced in a fighting stance just in case. Kazmierko kept coming, closer, closer, until he finally pulled up short, just inches away. He still wore the same clothes from yesterday, still reeked of Southern Comfort.

  “It’s all your fault,” he was sputtering. “You’re going to pay for this, I’m going to see to it. You killed my baby. Do you understand me? You killed my beautiful little baby girl!”

  Lydia had no words to offer the grief-stricken man—no one did. All she could do was to stand there and let him vent his rage.

  That seemed to be enough, because after a few moments he caught his breath and raised his fists to swipe away his tears. He stood, eyes covered by his fists, swaying. “She’s dead, my baby’s dead, she’s dead.”

  Lydia risked reaching a hand out to him, placing it on his arm. He shrugged it off, pivoted on his heel, and staggered away, still mumbling. She watched until he vanished into the PICU family room and then dared to turn her back on him.

  “I can see eight angels,” Deon said when she joined him at the large picture window overlooking the cemetery. “I was praying to all of them. To watch over that man and his little girl.”

  Lydia crouched down and pulled Deon into a tight hug. He let her squeeze him tight for a long moment before pushing away. “Can I go see Gram now?”

  AMANDA WOKE TO THE SOUND OF VOICES. SHE couldn’t see anything. Panic overtook her, flooding her with adrenaline that left a copper taste in her mouth and thundered through her head. Then she realized someone had put lubricant ointment into her eyes and taped her eyelids shut while she was asleep.

  If she couldn’t see, she was totally cut off. Trapped. Back in the darkness of that attic trunk where Andy had trapped her as a kid. Her skin crawled as she imagined unseen insects creeping over her naked flesh.

  She tried moving, tried speaking. No sounds emerged no matter how hard she tried to force her lips and tongue to make them. But she could move her lips and tongue—that was definite progress. And at least they hadn’t needed to intubate her.

  Then she realized someone had placed a Foley catheter into her bladder. Oh God, had Lucas watched? She had never understood before the indignity of being a patient, stripped of all privacy.

  Unable to see or move, she focused on the voices. It was Nora. Speaking in a hushed whisper, over in the corner of the room it sounded like from the way her voice echoed.

  “If anything happens to her under your care,” Nora was saying, “they’ll crucify you.”

  “Nothing’s going to happen,” Lucas protested. “I’m going to get to the bottom of this.”

  “In time to save her? Or Tracey Parker?”

  Silence. Amanda could almost see Lucas jamming his hands into his pockets, shoulders hunched, frowning so hard that the little worry knot bulged out in his forehead. It was obvious that whatever was happening to her and Tracey, what had killed Becky and Michelle, was a complex and rare disease process, out of the realm of ordinary
medical diagnostics.

  She wished she could tell him this, reassure Lucas that she had faith in him. She strained to bring her mouth under her command and was rewarded by creating a choking noise that sounded like a frog getting its neck wrung. As she struggled, she found she was able to move her fingers and rattle the pulse ox probe that was attached to one finger, making the monitor alarm.

  “Amanda.” Footsteps rushed to her side. Lucas pried the tape from her eyes and she was able to open her eyelids—a major triumph.

  “You’re moving,” Nora said, reaching beyond Amanda to shut off the monitor.

  “Try to move your feet,” Lucas commanded, pulling back the sheet and leaving her legs exposed to the chilly air conditioning.

  As Amanda strained, she raised her head, but her vision was too blurred from the ointment to see beyond a few inches. She focused on her feet, trying to wiggle them, and felt the sheet brush against her right foot, followed by Lucas’s reflex hammer as he thumped on her Achilles tendon. Her left leg remained frozen, numb like a chunk of dead wood.

  “That’s good, that’s very good.”

  Nora appeared in her vision. “You’re going to be all right, Amanda. Lucas is taking good care of you.”

  “No.” The word was barely a strangled whisper. She stopped and gathered her strength. It was like trying to talk after the dentist shot you up with Novocain; everything felt heavy. “Not Lucas. I want Dr. Nelson. He’s my doctor.”

  “Amanda, are you sure?” Nora asked, her face filling Amanda’s entire field of vision.

  It was like looking through the wrong end of a pair of binoculars; everything felt small and wavy and so far away.

  “I don’t want Lucas taking care of me.” She swallowed; it was hard work. Almost as difficult as rejecting Lucas and his help. But the best way to protect Lucas, no matter what happened to her, was to keep him off her case. That way if something went wrong, he wouldn’t be blamed.