by Scott, Laura
“I feel one coming.” The woman tried to struggle into a sitting position.
“Reese, help her sit up, will you?”
He quickly obeyed, doing his best to anchor the patient’s leg on the rail of the gurney before crawling in beside her, putting his hand beneath her back.
“Ow, it hurts,” she whimpered.
“I know, but you need to push. Come on, push hard.” Samantha kept her hand over the top of the baby’s head as the woman pushed. She heard Reese speaking to the woman in his low, husky voice, reassuring her about how great she was doing. Slowly, the head and face emerged. Sam gently guided the birth, turning the baby’s head to the side and using her index finger to make sure the umbilical cord wasn’t wrapped around the neck.
Thankfully, she couldn’t feel the cord. “Now push again. The baby is almost out. We only need to get past the shoulders. Come on, push.” Samantha was grateful for Reese’s help as he gave words of encouragement through the woman’s sobs while she pushed.
Tiny shoulders emerged from the birth canal, and the rest of the baby quickly followed. She felt Reese’s awed gaze on hers as Samantha held the tiny, slippery infant. She quickly used the portable suction from their equipment pack to clear the baby’s nose and mouth.
She did a quick mental Apgar score, estimating it to be in the six to seven range. As soon as she’d suctioned the baby’s mouth, the infant began to cry. Relief washed over her, and sudden tears made her blink. “A boy. You have a beautiful baby boy.”
“A boy!” The woman was sobbing in earnest now, but the radiant happiness on her features reassured Sam that these were tears of joy. “Is he all right? Please tell me he’s going to be all right.”
“He’s fine. Listen to him cry,” Reese said with a relieved smile. “He sounds like a healthy boy.”
Samantha used the blanket from the gurney to wrap around the infant, then placed the baby in the mother’s arms before tending to the umbilical cord. Using string from a sterile suture pack, she tied off the cord and then cut it with bandage scissors. The scissors weren’t sterile but clean enough, she hoped.
Birth was such a miracle. For long moments, she and Reese could only gaze at the mother holding her baby. When Reese’s eyes, full of wonder, met hers, she had to fight another surge of tears. The expression in Reese’s gaze mirrored her thoughts. Thank heavens, they’d gotten there when they had. Paramedics probably would’ve done fine, but her expertise, as little as it was, hadn’t hurt.
After the placenta was delivered, she asked Reese for help in placing the woman on the gurney.
“How in the world did you know what to do?” She glanced at him with appreciation as she made sure the mother and baby were comfortable. “Have you assisted with deliveries before?”
“Sort of. I had to step in and help out my sister when she gave birth to my nephew, Aiden, because her husband was overseas and couldn’t get back.” The tips of Reese’s ears burned bright red. “Breathing was the only thing I remember, the rest was a big blur. There are some things a brother shouldn’t watch.”
Samantha laughed. “Well, you helped tremendously. I’m so relieved they’re both doing fine.” With a guilty start, she remembered their other patient. She turned toward the opposite side of the car. “Have you heard anything about the driver?”
“No.”
“Stay here.” Samantha jogged over to where the driver was stretched out on the grass in the field. She kneeled beside Shelly and the paramedic. “How is he?”
“He’s not doing well.” Shelly glanced up with a frown. “Heavy bleeding internally, I suspect. We can’t get volume into him fast enough.”
Of the two, the driver needed to get to the hospital the fastest. Sam turned to the paramedic helping Shelly. “You guys need to take mom and baby to Trinity by ambulance. Reese? We need to take the driver in the chopper.”
“Gotcha.” The paramedic stood and headed back to where mother and baby were waiting. He quickly wheeled the gurney to the nearest waiting ambulance.
Samantha returned to the driver. Reese came to help them lift the male patient onto the Lifeline gurney. “Let’s get airborne. We can pump fluids into him en route. The only thing that will help him now is getting to the OR.”
With help from Reese’s strong muscles, they hauled their patient through the field into the waiting chopper. When they were finished storing their patient through the rear hatch, Reese climbed in beside Nate. Sam instructed Shelly to keep pumping fluids and blood into their patient while they flew to Trinity. She couldn’t imagine losing the woman’s husband, Eddie.
He deserved to see his newborn son.
“Hang on, Eddie,” she whispered, squeezing the unit of blood with her gloved hands to make it go faster. “You have a son who needs you. Hang on.”
“His blood pressure is only seventy systolic,” Shelly informed her.
“Keep the fluids going wide open,” Sam instructed. “Has all of our blood already been given?”
“Third unit of O Neg infusing now. It’s our last unit of blood.”
Sam’s stomach knotted with tension. They couldn’t lose Eddie. They just couldn’t.
“ETA four minutes,” Nate informed them.
The news brightened her spirits. It may just be enough time. “Reese? Call Trinity and request they have an OR trauma team ready to go.”
“Roger.”
She listened, keeping an eye on Eddie’s blood pressure as Reese did as she asked. By the time Nate landed, the ED crew was waiting for them. Within moments, they rushed Eddie into the operating room where the trauma surgical team was on standby, ready to explore the patient’s abdomen to find the source of the bleeding.
Samantha’s shoulders slumped as the doors shut behind them. There was nothing more to do. Eddie’s life was in good hands now. If the trauma surgeons at Trinity Medical Center couldn’t save him, no one could.
“Hey, I heard you delivered a baby boy.” Shelly smiled, her hand once again hovering over her abdomen. “I’m so glad you were there. I don’t think I could’ve delivered a baby.”
Sam tried to smile. “Let’s just hope he has a chance to know his dad.”
“I know.” Shelly’s expression clouded, and Sam wondered if she was thinking of the risks of her own career.
Sam knew they couldn’t save all their patients, no one could. Still, she couldn’t imagine how that poor wife would feel to know she had lost her husband in the process of gaining a son.
Up on the helipad, Nate and Reese waited to take them back to Lifeline. Samantha felt drained, too exhausted to feel nervous about flying. Shelly also remained quiet as they returned to Lifeline’s hangar.
Jared was waiting for them on the helipad when they landed. By the furrows creasing his brow, she could tell he was not happy.
Nate shut down the engine. Everyone jumped out of the chopper. Shelly headed straight for her husband, giving him a big hug. Jared returned the gesture, pressing a kiss to the top of his wife’s head, but his face remained grim.
“What’s up?” Nate wanted to know.
“Jared?” Reese approached more slowly. “I know I need to do a crash report. I’ll do it right now.”
“A crash report?” Shelly echoed. “What are you talking about? What happened?”
“A bird or something struck the chopper just as we were taking off,” Sam informed her. “Reese had to bring us down in an emergency landing.”
“Oh my goodness.” Shelley looked horrified. “I’ve read about others suffering hard landings, but I’ve never experienced one.”
Sam grimaced. She wouldn’t recommend the experience. “We were fine, thanks to Reese, but you should see the chopper. It’s in pretty bad shape.”
“I’m not concerned about the crash report.” Jared finally spoke, his words slow and deliberate as his gaze encompassed all of them. “But you need to know, the chopper wasn’t struck by a bird. Mitch found a bullet hole in the right side of the engine. Someone took a shot at you.�
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A wave of nausea washed over her. “Someone shot at us? You mean, on purpose?” She glanced at Reese, afraid to verbalize her thoughts out loud.
Because the only person she could imagine doing such a terrible thing was Dennis.
13
Samantha stared in horror at the round bullet hole Mitch obligingly showed her in the engine, trying to assimilate what the evidence so glaringly pointed out.
Had Dennis really done this? Could he have gone that far over the deep end?
Maybe there wasn’t any hard evidence pointing to Dennis as the culprit, but who else could it be? It wasn’t as if Lifeline made a lot of enemies that the bullet would be a random act of some disgruntled customer. In the middle of February, in the heart of the city, there was no chance of a freak hunting accident.
This must have been an intentional act.
The sick feeling in her stomach told her it was Dennis. He never owned a gun when they were together, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have one now. The smashed battery and the brick through her window already proved he was capable of violence. But this was worse. Much worse.
He’d almost killed the entire crew.
Think. She needed to think. “Have you notified the police?”
“Yes. I’ve already given them a statement.” Jared nodded toward the office. “They’re waiting for both of you.”
Reese fell into step beside her, but his dark gaze was difficult to read.
This entire mess was her fault, and she knew it. She’d caused Reese to be relive his worst nightmare. They’d almost crashed—had, in fact, suffered a hard landing. Reese must’ve thought he was about to end up like Valerie a dozen times. Sam should’ve tried much harder to convince Jared to find a replacement for her. Her request for reassignment had been token at best. With Brandon’s evidence, she’d honestly thought her problems with Dennis were over.
Obviously not.
“Have they arrested Dennis yet?” she asked as she and Reese made their way through the hangar toward Jared’s office.
Jared shook his head. “No, and I gave them a piece of my mind about that. How difficult can it be for the entire Milwaukee Police Department to find one man?”
Samantha held her tongue. Dennis had managed to slip through the fingers of the police for a long time. Personally, she had more faith in Brandon Rafter’s chances of bringing him in.
The door of Jared’s office was open, and there were two uniformed police officers seated inside. They stood when she and Reese entered.
Reese remained close to her, giving her a sense of security. He had every right to be angry with her, but she knew his protective instincts well enough to know he’d stick with her until Dennis was taken into custody. Guilt churned in her belly. Thanks to her, Reese had almost been killed. Andrew, too. The thought made her sick.
“This is Dr. Samantha Kearn.” Jared introduced her to the officers. “We have good reason to suspect her ex-husband is the one who fired at the helicopter.”
Sam recognized one of the officers as the same guy who’d come to investigate after the brick had been hurled through her bedroom window. She nodded at him in greeting.
“Dr. Kearn, we have a few questions for you.” The older of the two men gestured toward a vacant seat. “Please sit down.”
Because the trembling in her knees was so bad, she gratefully sat and folded her hands in her lap. “What do you need?”
“When was the last time you saw your ex-husband?” he wanted to know.
Sam tempered a flare of impatience. “I haven’t actually seen him at all.” She thought back over the flower delivery, the note under her door, and the brick through her window. After all of that, why would they think she’d spoken to him?
Wait a minute. She had seen Dennis. Abruptly, she straightened in her seat. In the lobby of Trinity Medical Center, she’d witnessed the brief meeting between Dennis and her boss, Dr. Ben Harris.
“Wait, that’s not true,” Sam admitted slowly. “I did see Dennis, the other day, in the lobby at Trinity Medical Center.”
“When?” Reese asked sharply.
She nearly winced. She hadn’t intended to keep this a big secret. “The day I went to do Andrew’s follow-up visits. I saw Dennis. He was dressed in a very nice suit, and he was shaking hands with Dr. Harris.”
“Ben Harris? The medical director of Trinity’s emergency department?” Jared asked.
“Yes. I was shocked when I saw them together, especially because, technically, Dr. Harris is my boss.” She turned toward the officers. “Dennis is a pharmaceutical sales rep. I assumed he was meeting with Dr. Harris on business.”
“Did Markowitz see you?” Reese asked, his voice was low, vibrating with anger.
“I don’t know.” She remembered her quick dash across the lobby, trying to hide her face in the collar of her Lifeline jacket. “We’d just got a call for a transfer, so I bolted through the front door without looking back.”
The older officer turned toward Jared. “Where exactly is Dr. Harris’s office?”
Jared gestured through the small window. In the medical staff office building, you can see the white building right there.” The office building was adjacent to Trinity Medical Center for the convenience of the physicians.
“We need to speak with him,” the younger officer said.
“I’m coming with you.” Sam quickly stood. She wanted to know for herself, too. Had she made things worse by not telling her boss the entire truth about Dennis? She couldn’t imagine Dennis was setting up a meeting with Ben Harris, giving him a sob story of the aggrieved ex-husband trying to reconcile with his wife. It seemed so farfetched. Ben certainly knew about her divorce, if not the gory details.
Reese stayed with her as they all walked over to the medical staff office building. Jared led the way to the seventh floor where all the emergency department staff physicians’ offices were located.
“Grace, tell Dr. Harris we need to see him,” Jared told the medical staff secretary seated in the outer office. “It’s important.”
“I would, Dr. O’Connor, but Dr. Harris is in Chicago, attending a trauma lecture.” Grace’s wide eyes flickered between the group, noting with interest the police officers standing behind Sam. “I can contact him, if needed.”
“Go ahead. Or maybe you can help us.” Jared stepped closer. “Do you know why Dr. Harris met with Dennis Markowitz?”
“Markowitz. The name rings a bell.” Grace went to work on the computer. “Oh, yes. I remember setting this meeting up. Dennis Markowitz requested a meeting with Dr. Harris regarding a business matter.” She peered at them over the top of her glasses and shrugged. “I don’t know anything more detailed, I’m afraid.”
“Did Dr. Harris often meet with sales reps?” Samantha asked.
Grace wrinkled her nose with distaste. “No, not often.”
“Get Harris on the line,” Jared instructed. “And can you let us into his office?”
“Sure.” Grace hastily stood, grabbed a set of keys off her desk, and led the way down the hall. “Dr. Harris’s office is the last one here, in the corner.”
She opened the door and gasped, taking a step back when a cold blast of air hit. “Good heavens! It’s so cold. Why, the window is open.”
Samantha edged inside, the sick feeling in her stomach twisting like a snake trying to get loose. The window was indeed open, not much, but enough to show someone had been in there. But that wasn’t what robbed her of speech. No, the worst part was that the fact that her boss’s office directly overlooked Lifeline’s helipad.
She barely listened as the questions started all over again.
“What time did you get in this morning?” the officers asked Grace. “How long has Dr. Ben Harris been gone?”
“He left yesterday, no, the day before.” The poor woman wrung her hands in distress. “I came in at the usual time, eight thirty this morning.”
“We were in flight by zero seven thirty,” Reese told the office
rs. “The shot came within minutes after takeoff.”
“How did Markowitz get in? Was the office locked this morning?”
Grace shook her head miserably. “Not the main office area. The attending physician on duty in the ED usually comes up early, prior to the start of their shift. They open the general office area, drop off their stuff, then go down to work. The individual offices are locked, though,” she added helpfully.
“He must’ve gotten in somehow.” Jared sounded distinctly annoyed. “We need to find him before he succeeds in doing something far worse.”
The officers agreed, and more assistance was requested to record the potential crime scene. From what Sam could tell, Dennis hadn’t left any evidence other than the open window.
Reese pulled Sam and Jared aside. “We need to make some decisions about future flights. Maybe we should remain grounded until he’s caught.”
Samantha sucked in a quick breath. The idea of refusing calls went against her nature. “Do you think that’s necessary? He isn’t here now. He’s too smart to hang around. I’m sure he’s long gone.”
“Maybe, but we don’t know where he is,” Reese argued.
“I have to agree.” Jared frowned. “All we can do is add pressure to get the police to capture him more quickly.”
“I think it would be best to let me resign.” Samantha couldn’t stand to be the cause of more grief. “The repairs on the chopper will take a while anyway. You won’t need two crews.”
“I won’t accept your resignation,” Jared said firmly. “But I agree you should remain grounded, at least until Markowitz is caught.”
Sam didn’t like it and vowed to find a way to resign. Arguing with Jared wasn’t going to help. She risked a glance at Reese. “What about Reese? It’s possible Dennis saw us together.” Her cheeks flamed, but she held her head up high. She wasn’t ashamed of anything she’d done. Kissing Reese wasn’t a crime. Yet if Dennis had seen them . . .
