“Why don’t you update me on the investigation?” I swing her questions back at her, because I’ve spent all damn night watching Jane sleep. Wondering where the hell she came from, because Plainview is Plainview. Everyone knows everyone… but I don’t know her. “Do the police have a name yet? Did they find her purse on scene or anything?”
“No, I…” She gulps, shaking her head. “They’re not really telling me anything, either. I called your dad, but he?—”
“He’s retired now.”
“DoctorDarling.” My favorite nurse—Janine—moves around me to her desk, smirking and trading files, tossing one on a growing pile and grabbing another. With as little as a look, she mocks my bad luck at being stuck with Barbara, then she’s gone again, heading toward our teen in traction in the room at the end—he shredded his thigh and shattered his femur while ice skating. Wealsohave a little girl in prep, waiting for an endoscopy for a possible celiacs diagnosis, a new mom and her baby in another room, and an older gentleman in his last few weeks of life after a long, hard battle with cancer.
In Plainview, we don’t have separate wards focusing on a different specialty. We just haveaward, where everyone becomes friendly and infectious diseases arehopefullycaught and isolated early, before they wipe everyone else out.
“Please, Ollie.” Barbara’s eyes, pink and puffy, well with emotion. “Please tell mesomething.”
I feel bad for her. Ish. I feel worse for my patient. “Ramone released you without issue, right? You’re not being arrested or anything?”
“I’m not allowed to drive.” She hiccups. “And my car is at the impound lot until they figure all this out.”
“That’s fair, though. Don’t you think?”
“I mean…” She shrugs. “I guess. They made me do tests for drugs and alcohol. Like they think I would… I would…” Frustrated, she huffs. “I would never!”
“It’s routine.” I pat the back of her hand. “You know they have to check, but since we know you were sober, and this was just an accident, it’ll all work out.”
“Unless she dies.” She peeks past me, not-so-subtly spying each open door of my ward. “Will she die, Oliver?”
“Do you care because you care? Or because you don’t want to go to jail?”
Her eyes sling back to mine, flashing with bad attitude. Indignation. Even a whisper of shame. “Can’t it be both? I don’t want to be the reason she died, and I don’t want to get into trouble. I’ve lived longer than you—times three! Do you understand how horrible it is to make it to my age without a single blemish on my record, only to now have these people—you, and Billy and Ramone—stare at me like I’m a criminal?”
“No one is?—”
“Or an invalid,” she growls. “I had control of my car, Oliver. My eyesight is fine, and I wasn’t driving recklessly. I was coming home from dropping a casserole off at the Marons, since Judy isn’t feeling well. I was paying complete attention, but that girl… that…” She tears her hand from mine and gestures along the ward. “Sheran out in front ofme. If anyoneshould be in trouble, it’s her. Doesn’t she know how to cross the street safely?”
Well, sorry, Barb. But she’s still unconscious. Maybe we’ll save the tongue-lashing for later.
“Come on, Barbara.” One of her friends, another woman just as sour, small, and hunched as she is, latches on to her wrist. “Why don’t we head on down to the cafeteria? We could grab a nice cup of tea and find a seat.”
“Excellent idea.” I smile for the party of six. “It’s not appropriate for you to be here anyway. I’m sure the police asked you to stay away.”
“So she can tell them I did it on purpose? Because you know people are always looking for someone to blame.”
“I’m sure that’s not?—”
“What if she tries to sue me?” She shuffles and struggles, fighting her friend’s gentle tug. “I could lose my house. My pension. I could lose everything becausesheran out onto the road.”
“Not everyone is out to screw others over.” I snag Jane’s file from the desk behind me and peruse what little there is. Name:none.Date of birth:don’t know that either.Address:nope.Blood type:O negative.“Besides, the police’s job is to write a report that explores things like negligence or driving under the influence. Since you did neither—” I peek over the top of the file. “I’m sure everything will be okay. Plus, this is why we have insurance.”
“Come now, Barbara.” Her little old friend tows her around. “There’s no need to worry until we have something to worry about.”
“Besides!” another announces. “She’snotdead. He would’ve said if she was.”
Shaking my head, I watch them in my peripherals exit the way they entered, and while they go, I study Jane’s CT scans and glower at the bleed I hoped we wouldn’t find. It’s small, and, as it stands, doesn’t require surgical intervention. But the fact she’s still unconscious leaves me with an odd prickling in the base of my belly. A sense of dread I don’t typically experience, even in worse cases where a patient’s prognosis is much, much scarier.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, an incoming text vibrating against my thigh, so I grab the device and blindly unlock the screen.
Dara:
Hey. I’m coming off a twenty-four-hour shift in about three minutes, heading home, drowning myself in the tub, then loading up on melatonin and catching a nice, long sleep. But after that, I was thinking a beer and a burrito would hit exactly right. You wanna join me?
“Wait!Ma’am!” My nurse bolts into Jane’s room, only for the sound of crashing carts and an animalistic scream to follow. The latter curdles my blood. Code lights come on in the hall as I drop my phone into my pocket and shove away from the desk, Jane’s file still clutched in my hand and my sneakers skidding along the smooth flooring. I latch on to her doorframe and bound into the room, only to discover blood spray staining Janine’s scrubs—and the bed, and the floor—while the heart rate monitor drones a long, monotonous beep that normally indicates death.
