Chapter One
Denver University Hospital
Scarlet
I rush beneath the neon sign hanging over the ER department’s main entrance.It’s a relief to be out of the heat.On this particular midsummer night, sleeping would have been impossible in my small apartment with no air-con.I may as well be at work.
The chaos in the department might be routine but it is still visceral and as I duck toward the staff room my heart rate ramps up a notch.My body knows it is time for action, quick thinking, and life-and-death decisions.My adrenaline prepares itself.
“Hey.”Todd looks up from a carton of noodles.“Hot enough for you, Doctor Mesa?”
I blow out a breath.“Bit different from what I’m used to.”Todd is nice, he’s an experienced nurse and thinks and works fast.His smile is generously given to his colleagues and patients.
“Which is?”He pauses eating and studies me through his round glasses.“Where did you say you were from?”
“Oh ...East.”I flap my hand left even though I have no idea if that way is East.Why do people never give up asking probing questions?If I wanted to talk about my past, I would.“Looks crazy busy out there?”
“A scaffold collapse at a construction site, mostly sent to surgery, a ward, home, or the morgue now.”
“Nasty.”I open my locker, dump in my purse, and pull out my white coat.Once it’s on over my pale blue scrubs, I loop my stethoscope around my neck, check I have pens and torches in my pocket, and then steel myself, ready for action.
“Break a leg,” Todd calls after me as I enter the mayhem.
“Ah, Scarlet, can you just check this X-ray please?”The head nurse, Lynette, angles me toward a light box.“Pleural effusion, right?”
“Yes.”I nod.“He needs—”
“It removed, yes, aspiration or drain?”
“Aspiration, it’s not very big.Then get the medics down to find out why it’s there in the first place.”
“Will do.”She thrusts a form under my nose.“Can you sign this?Steroids for an asthma in bay two.”
I do as she asks.Lynette is very competent and if she says the patient needs steroids, I believe her.
“And there’s an abdo pain in four.Nothing obvious if you could—”
“I’m there.”I round the nurse’s station collecting a pager on the way and head to bay four.
The man is pale and sweating and holding a vomit bowl.It’s clear his abdomen is uncomfortably distended.I begin to examine him when he vomits profusely.Lynette arrives and changes his bowl, wipes his forehead.
“He needs a scan,” I say.“Stat.”
“What’s causing it?”she asks and looks at his huge belly.Poor guy appears pregnant.
“Omental torsion I think, which means we need a surgical team down here asap.”
“On it.”She nods and rushes off.
I smile at the man who looks at me with wide, scared eyes.“Your guts have gotten knotted but we can unknot them.Hang in there, I’ll get you some pain relief while we do our tests.”
“Thank you.”
The next few hours go by in a blur of examining patients, writing notes, checking results, and speaking to relatives.Just after 2:00 AM, I take myself outside for a breath of fresh air.
Denver has cooled slightly, but the air is hardly fresh.It smells of tarmac and restaurants and the stars look down on the city as it tries to rest in the heat.
Suddenly, to my right, there’s a screech of tires and the roar of a meaty engine.I push from the wall I’m leaning on as headlights dazzle me.“What the...?”
