Warning Signs

by C. J. Lyons

  “They can’t come in until the scene is secure. You shouldn’t be here either.” He leveled a glare at her.

  Where was her Jerry? The kindhearted, understanding guy whose shoulder she could cry on? Although she had to admit, this take-charge warrior aspect of his was kind of sexy. Compelling.

  “I’m not leaving my patient.” As she spoke the words, for the first time in months she felt like a real doctor again. Not someone merely going through the motions.

  The uniformed cops thundered down the steps. “No one.”

  “Get the medics in here to help me,” Gina ordered. The cops looked to Jerry, who nodded his assent.

  “Where the hell is Lydia?” Jerry asked. “Dispatch said she made a nine-one-one call right after you called me.”

  A sharp crack of thunder sounded nearby. Jerry leaped to his feet, gun appearing in his hand without Gina even seeing him make a move toward it. A uniformed cop ran in, his gun also drawn.

  “Call for backup,” Jerry ordered. “Shots fired in the cemetery. Let them know a plainclothes officer is on the scene.”

  He was already yanking the French doors open. Gina glanced at him and realized he wasn’t wearing his vest—detectives rarely did.

  “Jerry, wait!”

  He didn’t turn back but did stop and look over his shoulder. His eyes had a distant look as if he were already planning tactics, thinking two steps ahead. She wanted to say so much. Tried to form the words and couldn’t. “Be careful.”

  The uniformed cop smirked, but Jerry ignored him, his expression softening the slightest bit, his gaze now focused solely on her even if only for the moment. “Always.”

  THERE WAS A SKITTER OF MOVEMENT ABOVE Faith. The roof. No help coming from that direction, Amanda realized, her hope sinking. Her leg was shaking; she wasn’t sure how much longer it would support her.

  If she fell, how could she protect the little boy?

  Faith took a step forward, leaving the shadows of the building, moonlight making her face seem unnaturally pale. She raised the gun.

  Amanda tried to push the boy away from her—what if the bullet went through her and hit him? But he clung to her, his arms wrapped around her waist from behind. She wasn’t sure who was supporting who, felt sure that without his weight anchoring her, she would have already fallen.

  “Faith, think about what you’re doing,” Amanda tried one last time. “Let me help you.”

  “You’ve done enough, Amanda.”

  A flurry of movement and something—or someone—launched itself from the roof onto Faith. The gun went off, shattering the night. A large, dark-colored animal fell to the ground, not moving.

  “Ginger Cat!” the boy wailed, abandoning Amanda to rush toward the cat.

  It looked like No Name, but Amanda didn’t have time to work out how the boy knew Lydia’s cat. Without the boy behind her, supporting her, her leg gave out and she crumpled to the ground.

  Faith was swearing, her words an incoherent muddle. Blood streamed from her face and arm where the cat had clawed her. Amanda crawled along the dew-slicked grass, desperate to reach the boy. Faith shook the blood from her eyes and raised her gun, this time aiming at the cat.

  “No!” the boy said, covering the cat with his own body.

  Amanda struggled, pulling her body along with her arms. “Faith, no! Look at me, Faith. It’s me you want to hurt—not him. He’s just a boy, Faith. Think of Joey. Think of how much you loved Joey.”

  Faith’s expression went from murderous to confused. The gun wavered, aimed at Amanda, then the boy, then back at Amanda.

  “Please, don’t hurt Ginger Cat,” the boy pleaded, his voice calmer than any of the adults’. “Don’t hurt Ginger Cat.” He huddled over the cat, staring up at Faith with wide eyes.

  Faith met his gaze, and her entire body began to tremble.

  “Joey?” she whispered, a faraway look in her eye as she remembered her baby.

  Good, it’s working, Amanda thought. She had to keep reminding Faith of the love she’d felt for Joey, try to get her to connect that feeling with the boy.

  The boy said nothing but seemed to realize that it was important not to break the spell. He nodded slowly.

  Amanda reached him and rolled onto her side to face Faith, putting the boy behind her once more. Lying on the ground with Faith standing over them didn’t exactly give her a strategic advantage, but at least she was between the gun and the boy.

  “Faith. You don’t want to hurt him. Put the gun down.”

  Faith didn’t take her eyes off the boy. Tears streamed down her cheeks, mixing with the blood there. The hand holding the gun was just a few feet away from Amanda, but with one leg dead and the other trembling with fasciculations, she couldn’t risk trying to lunge for it. So she used the only weapon she had: her voice.

  “Remember Joey? How small he was? Your precious baby boy. Remember how he barely fit into the palm of Dr. Nelson’s hand? He said it was because of Joey that he worked so hard, trying to save the world. Trying to help people.”

  Faith was weeping loudly but still held the gun, although it was no longer aimed at Amanda. Instead Faith dropped to her knees. “I did it all for him. For Norman. His work was all he had left after Joey—” She choked on her tears. “I had to protect his work.”

  “I know you did,” Amanda said, inching forward and pushing herself to a sitting position. She took Faith’s free hand in hers. “You did everything for Norman. Because you loved him.”

  “He was my whole world.”

  Amanda reached for Faith’s other hand, stroked Faith’s arm reassuringly, then held the hand with the gun. Faith didn’t resist, but merely dropped the gun into Amanda’s hand as she wept and rocked her body, embracing Amanda.

  “He’s gone. I’ve lost everything. They’re all gone.”

  The sound of footsteps and men shouting echoed through the night as the door to the tunnel opened. Lucas appeared, surgical tape hanging from his wrists and blood streaming from the side of his forehead, leading three security guards.

  “It’s okay,” Amanda told them. “Help the janitor, he’s been shot.”

  The guards grabbed Faith, hauling her away. Amanda sat in the grass holding the gun in her lap.

  “You okay?” she asked the boy.

  He scurried back, giving the cat room to breathe. “I’m okay. I think Ginger Cat is too—look.”

  The cat shook itself, gave the boy a stern look of reproach as if saying Of course I’m okay, didn’t need your help, don’t need nobody’s help, then began to walk around the boy, rubbing its body against the boy, who responded by stroking the cat.

  “Deon?” Lydia appeared from the back of the graveyard. She ran to the boy and hugged him. “Are you all right?”

  “Ginger Cat saved me,” the boy said with a wide grin.

  Lydia pulled back from the boy and looked at Amanda. “What the hell is going on?”

  FIFTY

  Saturday, 3:12 A.M.

  AMANDA’S FIRST HYPERBARIC TREATMENT HAD been a haze, time speeding by as Lucas stayed at her side, only the Lexan walls of the hyperbaric chamber separating them. The director of hyperbaric medicine arrived, a short, pudgy man who looked sleep-tousled and disgruntled.

  Until Jerry Boyle and Lydia cornered him. Amanda couldn’t hear what they were saying, but she could see them pressed into the far reaches of the room, talking earnestly. Finally the director had nodded and scuttled into the control room, shutting the door behind him.

  People buzzed all around: Jerry Boyle and other police officers interrupting to get on the headset and ask her more questions, Nora with an update on the janitor—who looked like he was going to make it—Lydia checking on her before she went home. But all Amanda remembered was Lucas and his voice, calming her, making the time and the walls confining her vanish.

  They had talked about everything: his family, her family, Dr. Nelson and Faith, Amanda’s dreams of becoming a pediatrician, her hopes to someday make her family proud e
ven if she wasn’t exactly the lady they expected her to be.

  The first treatment took a little longer than two hours, but by the end she showed definite improvement. Although her foot was still numb and she couldn’t properly flex it, she had regained sensation in her arm and upper leg. Best of all, the godawful fasciculations had stopped.

  At the end of the treatment Lucas had slid her from the chamber, his face beaming down on her like the sunrise over the ocean.

  “You did great,” he said. “I’m going to take you back to your room while they set up for Tracey’s treatment. After she’s done, we’ll do another treatment on you.”

  “Do you think it will work for Tracey?”

  “I think so, yes. I’m surprised you made this much improvement with one treatment.”

  “I can walk,” she insisted as he helped her into the wheelchair.

  “Let’s take it easy. Besides, this way I can keep an eye on you.” He crouched in front of her and raised her bare feet onto the footrests.

  Had his hands lingered a bit longer than necessary? She couldn’t be sure—even after everything they’d been through, she still couldn’t read him. But the fact that he had touched her spoke volumes.

  “I have a surprise for you,” he said as he wheeled her out of the chamber. Before she could reply, a familiar voice greeted her on the other side of the door.

  “Amanda, darling. How’s my favorite doctor?”

  “Daddy!” Tears poured from her as her father scooped her up into a big hug.

  He lifted her a few inches from the chair and squeezed her tight. Both arms were now almost back to full strength, she noticed, even though his speech was still a bit slurred compared to how it had been before the stroke. She didn’t care; it sounded wonderful to her ears. “Daddy, you came! I’m so glad you’re here.”

  “Of course we came,” Mama said from behind her father. “Put her down, Adam, you’re squeezing the life from her. We didn’t come so far just to have her drop on us, now did we?”

  He gently settled Amanda back into the chair. His nose was red and she sneaked a peek at his neck, checking his veins for any signs of the high blood pressure that had caused his stroke. Nope, they were flat. He wiped a hand across his face and she realized he was crying.

  Crying? Her daddy never, never cried, not even when any of her brothers got married or when Tony and Becca had their baby or … well, ever.

  Mama approached, looking impeccable and ready for anything in an ivory shirtwaist dress and salmon-colored jacket. She regarded Amanda with a discerning eye, then zeroed in on what was most important. “We really need to get you a better robe, Amanda. That pale gray, dumpy patient gown just does nothing for your color.”

  NORA PARKED HER CAR IN FRONT OF HER HOUSE and rested her forehead on the steering wheel. She’d finally hit her wall. Days without sleep, hours of answering questions, then worrying about Amanda, and the constant struggle to push the image of Dr. Nelson’s final moments from her mind all combined to ambush her.

  Tommy Z had tried to do the critical-incident stress debriefing thing with her, but Nora couldn’t handle that, not yet, so she’d sent him to help Lydia instead. She couldn’t face Lydia herself, she was too furious—Lydia had broken all the rules and it had almost gotten an innocent boy killed. Hell, she’d almost bitten off Lydia’s head earlier when she’d called, asking for help getting Deon into Emma’s room for the rest of the night.

  And Amanda! What in the hell had possessed her to ignore her symptoms, put her patients at risk like that? Look how that had spiraled out of control. And now there was blood on Nora’s hands.

  She held her hands up before her eyes. They were raw from scrubbing; she’d lost count of the number of times she’d washed them after trying in vain to save Dr. Nelson. Clicking on the overhead light, she flexed and stretched them. She couldn’t see any blood left, but she knew it was there.

  Maybe she could wash it off in the shower, wash everything away.

  She turned the light off, climbed out of the car, and trudged up the steps to her apartment. Her gaze was concentrated on ensuring that her feet actually hit each step; she was so exhausted she didn’t have the strength to look up.

  She almost kicked the latest bouquet of lavender daylilies before she saw them. She froze, staring at the small cellophane-wrapped bundle—breathed in, breathed out, not even having the will to summon anger. She just didn’t have anything left. All she wanted was to clean up and start over.

  Slowly, she bent and lifted the flowers. This time there was a card. She unlocked her door and brought them inside, turned the light on, and read it.

  I’m sorry. So sorry. Live a good life. Love always, Seth

  Time seemed to flow past her as she stood in her kitchen, one hand holding the flowers, the other the card. She stared at it so long her vision blurred. Then she sucked in a deep breath, straightening, letting it fill her up.

  She took down a vase from the cupboard, filled it with water, carefully trimmed the stems, and arranged the lilies. Setting them in the center of the table, she picked up the card. Live a good life. Typical of clumsy-with-words Seth. But she understood him. She’d always understood him.

  She left the flowers behind, took the card with her to her bedroom, and slid it into the corner of her dresser mirror, where she could see it every day. There were no tears—she’d cried them all already. No need for tears, anyway. She was starting over, starting fresh.

  Nora stripped naked and stepped into the shower, turning it as hot as it could go. As the water pummeled her, she realized she didn’t feel as empty or tired.

  She felt … ready.

  WHEN LYDIA HAD ARRIVED HOME AROUND TWO a.m., she’d collapsed onto the couch, determined to sleep all day. Nora and Tommy Z had persuaded the CCU charge nurse to allow Deon to stay with Emma, and suddenly the house seemed hollow and too quiet without him.

  But almost immediately after lying down, she sprang back up, pacing through the house, Ginger Cat shadowing her. She stripped the barely slept-in bed and cleaned the blood and fiberglass remnants—all that remained of her long board—from the dining room, but still she was filled with a restless energy. Finally she’d given in and had gone for a predawn run.

  With her schedule, she often ran in the night—she liked it that way. It was like a stealth attack, surveying her newly adopted city while it slept, absorbing its rhythms and cycles, making them her own. As if, by sneaking in under guard of night, she could take up residence without Pittsburgh or the people she was fast considering her friends and family noticing the stranger in their midst.

  Like a benign tumor that the body allowed to grow without mounting a defense against it—as long as it remained benign and didn’t cause any trouble. Which was exactly where her downfall lay. Tumult and chaos pretty much defined Lydia’s world. Look at what happened tonight when all she’d tried to do was give a kid a roof to sleep under.

  Lydia stubbed her toe on a curb and cursed. Tommy Z would call her fears of abandonment, her desperate need to be embraced by those around her, and her need to find a home all part of an adolescent’s need for acceptance. He’d tell her she wasn’t living very high up on Maslow’s hierarchy—although, compared to the struggle to merely survive that had colored her early years, she was slowly making progress.

  She shook her head as her feet pounded the pavement. Stray beads of salt water stung her eyes. What were these, tears? She never cried. She pushed her pace harder, trying to shake the feelings that stalked her.

  What would Tommy Z think of that, of her lying to herself? Hah. She was as bad as Gina, the reigning queen of denial and self-deception.

  Lydia turned the final corner, passing the cemetery. Her gaze settled on the soft glow of light that surrounded her front door, and she headed toward home.

  After her run, she’d found herself ravenous. She was in the kitchen stirring tomatoes and basil into a frittata when Trey entered through the dining room. She’d heard him come in the front door
and wondered at his formality, but she didn’t leave her cooking, certain he would find her. He always did.

  “I have a few hours before my shift starts. I heard about Deon, from Nora. Thought I’d see how you were doing.”

  She heard the slight rebuke in his tone. Should have called him herself.

  “I talked to my folks,” he continued, hovering in the doorway—also not like him. “They have an empty property. It’s within walking distance to the school. Would be perfect for Deon and his grandmother. Until they get back on their feet.”

  “Thank you.” The words came out hesitant, felt weak compared to the emotions roiling through her. Last night he’d been upset about her getting involved with Deon and Emma, yet still he had helped them. Help that was so much more valuable than her own pathetic attempts.

  He regarded her with a seriousness that was in contrast to his usual easygoing smile. “You’re welcome.”

  Silence swirled between them like an electrical current. So many things unsaid, so many things she didn’t have words to say.

  “Smells good.” He nodded toward the stove.

  “I’d offer you some, but I made it with chorizo.”

  Trey usually ate vegetarian to appease his mother’s worries after his dad’s heart attack. One of the things she loved about him—if any man was a born carnivore, it was Trey. Usually she tried her best not to tempt him, but how the hell was she supposed to know he’d be popping in?

  Irritation flared through her. It was her house, her kitchen. Was she supposed to stop cooking and eating what she liked merely on the off chance that he might be joining her?

  He seemed to read her thoughts—one of the things that most annoyed her about him—and stepped forward to wrap his arms around her from behind. “You don’t have to change anything for me.”

  Damn right she didn’t. She’d fought all her life to be independent, not needing anyone. So why was it that his arms around her felt exactly like what she needed? She leaned back against him, reveling in his warmth. A surge of heat flared in her pelvis and she wanted more than just his arms around her. She wanted him.