Just another day on the streets of New York. And, oh Christ, the irony that I was worried about Queens, and she ends up getting stabbed half a block down from Des’s apartment!
I take her hand and examine the pale skin and bitten nails. I’ve watched these hands flicking through the pages of a book so often, nails being chewed when it gets to an exciting part. My chest tightens unbearably. I can’t lose Sadie now. She really is that quiet hero she laughed about so many weeks ago, and I’ve learned so much from her about how to be strong.
The paramedic tracks her vital signs on a monitor above the stretcher like a hawk, and then gestures at me to move back as he leans down and puts his ear against her lung.
“I think the lung’s collapsed,” he says. “Gotta let the air out.”
Oh shit, oh shit.
“How bad is that?” Why does my voice sound so thin and wavery?
He starts fiddling with the plastic seal that replaced Del’s tape. He shakes his head as he watches the monitors.
“Be fine once we get her there. We just gotta make sure her blood pressure doesn’t go too low.”
I don’t like the phrase “It’ll be fine once we get her there” in that sentence.
“Lung’s collapsed,” he shouts through to the guy driving the ambulance.
“Roger that. I’ll radio ahead,” the driver says. “Two minutes out.”
The paramedic glances at me and nods. “We deal with these every day,” he says.
Asking him how many people make it is on the tip of my tongue, but I don’t think I could handle the answer. Anxious seconds tick by while my eyes are glued to the monitor alongside his, except I have no idea what the numbers mean. Then we’re pulling into a bay at NYU Langone, and the doors open and a whole team swarms the back of the vehicle. My throat tightens as I take in their earnest faces. Sadie is off and out on her gurney,moving toward the ER, so I leap out after her as the paramedic moves fast, too, giving a raft of incomprehensible data to the doctor who’s leaning over Sadie.
As they wheel her through a set of double doors, a nurse gestures for me to stay back, and I come to a halt in the middle of the floor, blinking. The paramedic disappears with them. A second later, he emerges again, whistling. He stops in front of me.
“Don’t tell anyone I said so, but I think she’s going to be fine. They’ll stitch her up, put a line in to let the air out, and the lung will gradually reinflate. A couple of weeks’ recovery and she should be good.” He squeezes my shoulder.
I sink down into a chair in the waiting room.Fuck.Quiet heroes. That cop. The paramedic. They move through us like an invisible energy, the glue that holds everything together. George Lucas was wrong about The Force inStar Wars; it lives in these people, not in people like Darth Vader. I pull my phone out of my pocket—the one Sadie recovered for me—and press call on her mom’s number.
While I was lying in bed worrying last night, I decided I needed to find Sadie’s mom an admin job at Williams Security. She’s clearly organized and a hard worker, and I’m sure she could be extremely useful. Sadie was so quiet and unassuming when we first employed her, but she’s come out of her shell a bit recently and she has so many other talents beyond software.
“Hey, James, I’m sorry I can’t really talk right now,” her mom says in my ear. “They don’t like me …”
“I just called to let you know that Sadie’s in the hospital,” I say quietly. “I think she’s okay, but we’re not out of the woods yet.”
There’s a short silence and a sharply drawn breath. “What?”
“Jake turned up outside the apartment wanting money. He tried to take her hostage, and he had a knife.”
“A knife!”
“Darius, our doorman, saw them down the street and phoned me and then the cops. Jake stabbed Sadie and ran off.”
“Oh my God! Jesus Christ!” I can hear footsteps like she’s running followed by some voices in the background. “Stabbed! Stabbed! Where isshe? I have to come now.” The phone goes muffled, but I can hear her voice, rising in tone as she talks to someone.
“If you can’t leave, it’s okay. I’m here with her and …”
“Of course I’m coming! My beautiful daughter! That asshole! I’ve a good mind to turn up at our apartment and stabhim!” Her words rise in a shrill squeak.
“Fortunately, the police apprehended him, so he was caught before you could murder him, Mrs. Turner.”
“I gave him money! For years! I can’t believe I was so gullible. I’m giving that shit an earful when I see him. You tell the cops from me, I’ll testify against him. I’ll tell them whatever they want to know about him and his activities.”
Interesting. “I’m sure they’ll want to talk to you, Mrs. Turner.”
“Call me Bridget, James.”
