‘He blamed your father for his violence, too,’ Lorena’s voice said gently. ‘Your father left Gundawin at twenty—and he met me in Melbourne four years later. I was an only child. I wanted to have an extended family. It took two years, but I convinced Neil to make peace with his father after you were born. It’s the greatest regret of my life.’
Danny’s eyes started to close. ‘Go on,’ he said, in an uneven voice.
‘Jeremiah ran me off Gundawin before I could take you with me. I wanted you to be safe from him.’
Danny seemed to have forgotten Elly existed. The child forever seeking approval, battering at the gate of belonging, belief and love without restrictions, had found it opened at last. For the first time, the door to Danny Spencer’s nightmare life was opening.
‘I left Gundawin three years ago …’ The question was beyond plaintive: he was imploring now.
Hurry, Elly begged Lorena Spencer in silence. Adam doesn’t have long.
‘Your grandfather had one of his crony’s companies hire me, then he accused me of embezzlement. I served three years. I was released a week ago, thanks to evidence given at the parole hearing by Senior Constable Mendham. Then he brought me here to wait for you. I never stole a cent from that man, Danny. And I’m not anything else he’s accused me of being.’ She sighed. ‘I’ve been alone for twenty-five years, longing for you every day. Your grandfather made me suffer all these years for not being the kind of faithless woman he expected me to be.’
‘You’re here,’ Danny whispered.
‘I am. I came for you, Danny. I’ve always loved you, and I always will. No matter what. You’re my beloved boy, my son.’
Elly felt her hands slipping in the blood pooling around them. This was it. If Lorena couldn’t connect to Danny, Adam would die.
‘What are you doing?’ Danny demanded, when Lorena stood in front of him, arms open.
‘Waiting,’ Lorena said simply. ‘You’ve been forced into too many things, Danny. I’m aching to hold you, but you tell me what you want.’
His eyes clouded over and his lip quivered. ‘Mama.’ He pronounced it as a small child would; with love, need, confusion, fury.
Lorena stepped up to Danny, put her arms around him, around the bloodied shoulders, and held them, creating a makeshift pressure bandage. ‘I’ve dreamed of this moment for twenty-five years.’ She stood up on tiptoe, kissed his cheek and mouth, so gently. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t save you from him, my darling. I’m sorry I couldn’t come to you before. But I’ll never leave you now we’re together. Never. No matter what.’
The crowd in the corridor held its breath. None dared move, or make a sound.
Elly looked at Rick. Then she turned to Schumacher, who was sitting in a plastic seat in front of the OR doors, staring in disbelief at the mad tableau before them all. Gurney. Stat.
He got up in shaky silence and went through the well-oiled swinging doors.
Danny lowered his head until it rested on his mother’s shoulder. ‘Mama.’ A world of suffering in a single word, all that Jeremiah Spencer had conditioned him not to say, not to want.
Lorena touched his face. ‘Darling Danny. Beautiful Danny. Mama’s here, Mama’s here.’
The sobs began, forced from his very soul: the torment that could never be erased.
Jonas stepped forward. ‘Come on, son, your mother and I can look after your wounds.’
Danny blinked. ‘Janie …’
Lorena Spencer pressed his wounds with her hands. She said, ‘Come, my darling, I’ll fix your wound. She doesn’t love you as I do. We don’t need her. She’s not worthy of you.’
Surrounded by police, Danny left with his mother without a single glance at Elly.
CHAPTER
20
For a second Elly just looked at the half-empty room. The blood on the ground, on the chairs, was the only evidence that her worst nightmare had been real.
The blood on her hands, on Rick’s hands, was the evidence that it wasn’t over yet.
‘Where’s that damn gurney? I need a sterile bandage, now!’
Two orderlies burst through the OR doors, accompanied by a nurse. On Elly’s count, they got Adam on a board and lifted him onto the trolley. ‘Keep holding the wound, Ricky, all the way into the OR. We’ve got to stop the bleeding as soon as possible.’ She looked up at the paramedics crowding around. ‘Tell triage to get the OR fully prepped, stat! Keep the other patients stable until I can get to them. Are the doctors here?’
‘Within the half-hour,’ Dr Schumacher reported tersely as he came through a side door, gloved and gowned.
She nodded. ‘Let’s go. Keep holding the wound until someone takes over in the OR, Ricky.’ She put her hands on top of Rick’s as his slipped, slick with blood, keeping her thumbs pushed above and below the wound to slow the pulsing. She pushed Rick’s hands back together, showing him how to cup them over with fingers holding stronger. ‘Dr Schumacher, assess the other patients. Operate on the less critical ones in the ER. Run!’ she snarled as he dithered. ‘I know you’ve been to hell and back today, but it’s over! Get inside and operate before someone dies. If you can’t, stabilise and prep the patients for the Flying Doctors to transfer, and keep the ORs clear for the critical patients. Do it now!’
The shaking doctor nodded, and ran for the emergency room.
The wailing of arriving emergency services vehicles sounded outside. Nurses and ward assistants bolted out to help the arriving doctors and nurses carry out the vital equipment they’d brought with them.
Rick straddled Adam’s body on the gurney, holding the wound closed with the pillowed part of the flak jacket as they ran for the operating room. One of the hospital staff brought Elly an opened sterile bandage when she asked again. With no time to clean her hands, she said to Rick, ‘Take the jacket off on my three. One, two, three.’ He pulled the jacket off and after a glance, she applied the bandage across the wound. ‘Take it, Ricky, hold it just like this, with softer pressure than the jacket. The bleeding has slowed a little.’
He nodded, and took over.
‘Don’t die, Adam,’ she whispered, tears streaming down her face as she kept applying pressure either side of the wound, keeping together his fragile hold on life. ‘I’ll do anything, pay any price, if you don’t die.’ But looking at him, she knew the price had already been paid, the sacrifice made.
She should have known it would end like this.
The OR was ready when the trolley crashed through the swinging doors.
‘This man has a grazed jugular vein. Apply a clean pressure bandage to his throat while I scrub.’
The anaesthetist took the pressure from Rick, pressing the wound with gentle urgency while the scrub nurse unrolled another bandage, and another inserted a cannula into Adam’s vein.
‘We’ve got it from here, officer,’ the nurse said. ‘Thank you.’
With a nod and a bloodied hand extended to Elly—quickly dropped when she shook her head, still scrubbing her hands—Rick left the room.
‘Is the bullet still in?’ the anaesthetist asked Elly.
‘I couldn’t feel it. He turned side-on just before it hit. I think it grazed the vein and passed through. Nurse, can you take off my helmet?’ Having washed her hands once, she coated her hands again with antiseptic solution, scrubbing to the elbow while one nurse removed the helmet and held out a gown, and another covered her head and face with a cap and surgical mask.
‘BP ninety on fifty, diastolic weak. Pulse one-oh-two and thready,’ the scout nurse called.
‘I can’t feel hardness in the throat,’ the anaesthetist reported. ‘There’s no puncture mark, only a long graze, and the nick. I think you’re right. The bullet passed by the vein, barely grazing it, and passed out again. A lot of the blood’s coming from the injury to the oesophagus rather than the vein.’
Elly sighed. ‘Thank God. Has the bleeding slowed yet?’
‘I think so.’ The anaesthetist’s eyes crinkled above the surgica
l mask as he smiled at her. ‘I’m Rod Cummings.’
‘Jane Larkins.’ She gazed at Adam’s still form. ‘But I answer to Elly.’
‘The Jane Larkins who disappeared from Moongallee Creek?’
Elly nodded. ‘Pack the base and crown of the neck in ice. Got a line in yet?’ she rapped at the scout nurse, who nodded and ran out the door to call for ice. ‘Use normal saline with an iron infusion until he’s stabilised, and the EPO’s here. He’s B negative. Dubbo and Broken Hill are probably empty from the MVA, and ten to one we don’t have anything but O and A positive in store. Let’s do what we can. Thank God it wasn’t the carotid, or we’d lose him.’ She sighed. ‘What I wouldn’t give for some Oxycyte, or whatever it’s called now.’
‘Bloody red tape,’ Rod muttered, referring to the legislation holding back the entry of perfluorochemicals—the life-saving non-blood fluids—into Australia. ‘It’d be a gift for doctors in isolated regions at times like this. Will you graft the graze?’
She nodded, calling for the appropriate equipment in a harsh tone to hide the wobble of fear. ‘Prepare his inner thigh for graft. Clean the wound around Dr Cumming’s fingers without losing pressure,’ she instructed the scrub nurse. ‘If only we were in Sydney!’
‘A laser and harmonic scalpel, and it’s over in half an hour.’ Rod shrugged, eyes still crinkled with a smile. ‘But we make a difference here, even if sometimes we use damned bush medicine, with twenty-year-old equipment and tactics.’
Her eyes smiled back at him. All the outback doctors she’d met had the same work ethic and belief. ‘Let’s concentrate on the equipment and the patient we have.’ She was proud of herself for calling Adam ‘the patient’, as if her heart weren’t pounding and her stomach sick with terror. She was Adam’s only chance now, and she had to be one hundred per cent doctor. ‘Suction to that blood! What’s the BP?’
‘Ninety on forty-five, pulse one-ten.’
Come on, Claudius, live! Fight! ‘Increase the drip rate to sixteen. Let’s expand what blood he has. Why the hell don’t we have a cell salvage machine here, or blood patches?’
‘The machine is being used on the young cop, and he also used all the patches we had,’ the scrub nurse said. ‘He wouldn’t stabilise.’
Simon. Another reason for guilt. Refusing to give in to it until she’d saved Adam, she turned to Rod. ‘Did you bring any?’
He nodded. ‘Not as many as we need, because the MVA happened first. I’ll call Stone, see what’s free, but they had to be used on those waiting for surgery.’
She nodded, sighing. ‘Where’s the damn ice?’
The scout nurse bolted to the door, took the ice packs from a ward assistant and applied them through sterile pads.
‘Can’t we slow his pulse?’ Elly snapped as the ice packs took only minimal effect. ‘For God’s sake, lower his temperature by ten degrees to buy some time! Every minute’s precious.’
Rod injected the IV, and the blood slowed to a sluggish pump. The sweat breaking Adam’s brow slowed.
She sighed. ‘Clean and suction. Anesthetise the wound before I tie it.’
‘Why? He’s totally out,’ Rod replied, looking puzzled. ‘He’s doped enough to sleep till tomorrow.’
Impatient with the nurse’s slowness, she swabbed the wound herself. ‘He woke up during his appendectomy, fully anesthetised.’
Rod frowned. ‘You know this guy. You know his blood type. I can see the fear in your eyes. You care about him.’
She held in all the words tumbling to her tongue, saying only, ‘He’s a childhood friend.’
‘Then you know the drill! You shouldn’t be here!’
‘Schumacher was kidnapped and held at gunpoint today. He has a heart condition. He isn’t qualified or up to anything but the minor injuries. Martin’s working on the brain haemorrhage, and Stone has enough to do with those in the ER. Adam’s better off with me than bleeding to death while he waits in line!’ Not giving Rod any more time to argue, she worked with furious speed on the vein graft, making meticulous tiny cuts, salvaging what blood Adam had left while she grafted the nick, tying up the blood vessels and rejoining them with minimal blood loss.
‘You were right,’ Rod said quietly an hour and a half later. ‘You’ve done it, and in bush record time. This guy will live. A fine job in a bloody difficult area, Elly. I don’t know anyone who could’ve done a better graft on a jugular graze.’
Elly drew in ragged breaths, limp and drained, as the nurse wiped sweat from her brow. ‘Thanks. I try.’
‘You try? Hell, girl, you’d have made a bloody fine surgeon! That’s as damned near a perfect job as any I’ve seen in any of the city teaching hospitals, and I’ve seen plenty. What are you doing hiding out here in no-man’s land?’
Drenched in perspiration from the effort of being detached, she wiped an errant curl away from her forehead. ‘Working with my heart. I’m a Koori girl. I love the bush, and treating my people.’
‘I’m telling you, you’ve missed your vocation,’ Rod insisted, watching her close the wound. ‘Poetry in motion, Elly. This guy will barely have a scar.’
No. I’m the one who’ll be scarred by what happened to him today. She looked down at Adam, so cold and grey. Her heart constricted.
‘Doctor, Detective Jepson’s retained blood will arrive from police headquarters in two hours,’ the nurse called.
Elly shook her head. ‘That time’s passed. Keep it back in case he needs it later. Right now his blood needs to stay thin until the graft strengthens. Finish up, and get him to recovery ward,’ she ordered the nurse. ‘Give him more EPO in four hours, and IV antibiotics for three days. The last thing he needs is an infection. We’ll see to the young cop now.’
With a last glance at Adam’s drawn face, she left the operating rooms for the ER, experiencing the rush of exhilaration she always felt at the end of a life-and-death situation, but tinged with added poignancy. If she’d put his life in danger, she’d just given him another chance at life.
The next six hours in theatre, operating on patient after patient, exhausted her. Simon was the hardest. Seeing him so pale and still, she remembered the teasing boy she’d met, but she pushed the thought away—guilt would only destroy her ability. The cell salvage machine had saved his life already—she only had to operate and clean the mess.
Praise God for that.
It was deep night by the time she left the OR on quivering legs, her eyes dry and stinging, her head pounding, but feeling something approaching peace. She’d done all she could to repair the damage she’d helped create. The haemorrhaging man from the carpark attack was still critical, but he’d live—and the others would live without permanent injury. That was all she could ask.
Jonas waited outside the ER, his kind eyes filled with compassion. ‘Come with me now, Elly. We’ll take your statement.’
She stumbled as she followed him out, but Rick was there. His arm moved around her waist. ‘Lean on me, Janie-jan.’
Fighting tears of exhaustion, she put her head on her brother’s shoulder, letting him lead her out. ‘I forgot you, but I never stopped missing you, Ricky,’ she whispered.
‘You’ll never have the chance to miss me again.’ He caressed her sweaty hair, holding her in the fierce protectiveness she at last understood, and welcomed.
At the station, Rick insisted on their giving statements together. The senior sergeant allowed his request. His questions for them were almost identical anyway—apart from the first one. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about your relationship to Elly, Mendham?’
Rick lifted his brows. ‘You know why. You pulled Adam off the case as soon as you knew they were friends. We needed all the police power we could get. And after a year of working on it, I had everything prepared.’
‘You could have included us,’ Jonas barked.
Rick shook his head. ‘Not likely, Sarge. I came to Macks Lake for one reason—to save my sister.’ He smiled at Elly. ‘I didn’t remember you either; I was adop
ted at five by the Mendhams. But one day I was processing a case, and the name Larkins came up. It struck a chord in me. After a few weeks of checking out why, I asked my mother about it. She’d already told me I was adopted when I was eighteen—but now she said I’d cried for Janie-jan for six months after I came to them, and insisted on being called Ricky-jim. Eventually she told me the whole truth—that our dad had sold me to them, and disappeared.’ He laughed. ‘No wonder she freaked out when I applied to become a cop.’
Disturbed more deeply than her exhaustion could show, she took his hand. ‘He sold you?’
Rick nodded. ‘The Mendhams lost five babies, and one living daughter. They wanted a son. I don’t know how our father heard of them, or how he arranged the adoption unless Mum signed the papers. I’ve been looking into it, but there’s some irregularities, and I had to put your case first.’ When she squeezed his hand in mute commiseration, he shrugged. ‘I applied for my birth certificate—and under the pretence of it being part of the investigation, I got yours, too. When I did your background check, I found out about Adam. I talked to his brother Jared, and his great-aunt Harriet about the case. They both told me how much he meant to you. I reckoned you’d show up sooner or later, so I applied to come here.’
‘You did more than that,’ Jonas remarked, writing it all down. ‘A lot more, I’d say, son, considering you knew that Jen Collins and the Mirakis had been paid by Jeremiah Spencer. And bringing Lorena Spencer here was absolute genius.’
‘Yes, it was. Lorena Spencer’s loss was probably a central trigger to Danny’s mental problems. She was central, critical,’ Elly said softly, squeezing Rick’s hand.
‘And nobody even thought of it but you,’ Jonas added. ‘Excellent work, Mendham.’
Rick shrugged again, face flushed. ‘I had a year to prepare for this, and it seemed nobody was looking into Jeremiah Spencer’s acts. The killing of animals had been going on long before Danny was old enough to have done it, and half-a-dozen jackaroos disappeared after Danny left. Their families suddenly had their debts paid off—as did the Mirakis and Jen Collins. And the case against Lorena Spencer was too thin. Her former boss had miraculously cleared all her debts, and the judge in the case had a new apartment on Magnetic Island. Once they both knew I was looking into how they managed that with money they hadn’t had before the Spencer case—and that I’d sent copies of all the information to the anti-corruption commission—they quit their jobs and disappeared. After that, getting Lorena out of prison was easy.’
Beneath the Skin Page 30
