Page 68

The glass patient tugged another shard of glass from her triceps. “Miss,” Holmes said, shouting over the sounds of the movie. “Please don’t remove those yourself.”

“Where were you Sunday morning between six and nine a.m.?” Josie asked.

Holmes’s brows rose in surprise. “What? You think I— You know what, it doesn’t matter. I was here. You saw me when you and your sister were brought in.”

“What time did your shift start?”

There was a split second of hesitation before he said, “Noon.”

Well after Sylvia’s time of death. Plenty of time for him to go home, get cleaned up, and report for his shift. “Where were you before your shift started?”

“Home,” he said tightly.

“Alone?”

“Yes. Will that be all?”

“How about today around ten this morning?” Gretchen asked.

He shook his head. “Honestly, this is ridiculous.”

“Just answer the question,” Josie told him.

“Fine. I was home. Miss! Miss!” He started toward the glass patient. Her finger pinched the large shard of glass poking out of her armpit. “Don’t!” Holmes’s voice held an urgency that immediately put Josie on edge.

“Don’t pull that out!” he yelled. “We don’t know how deep the wound goes and your axillary artery is⁠—”

It was too late. As Holmes crossed the hall, the woman pulled the glass out. Blood spurted from the wound. Her face paled as she watched, lips parted in shock. The spurting turned rhythmic as it spewed out of her body in time with her heartbeat. Bright red blood sprayed across Holmes’s white coat as he rushed toward her. Without thinking, Josie and Gretchen followed.

“I need some help over here!” Holmes bellowed.

From down the hall, the sounds of the action film grew louder.

Holmes cursed, rounding the bed and pushing the woman’s arm up over her head. “I need help in here!”

“I’ll find a nurse,” Gretchen said, sprinting away.

That left Josie alone with Holmes and a woman with an arterial bleed. Quickly, she stepped around him, moving to the head of the gurney to take the woman’s arm from him so he could find the wound. Hot, sticky blood slapped against Josie’s chest, then her face, her hair. The woman’s eyes rolled into the back of her head.

“Dammit,” Holmes said, pressing both his hands over the source of the geyser. Blood bubbled up between his fingers. He removed one hand so he could snatch a piece of gauze from the tray table and cover the source of the bleed. He moved it aside, poking a finger directly into the wound, trying to find the vessel. It didn’t work, and Josie knew there was no time for him to keep trying. The woman could bleed out in as little as two minutes, and it had probably already been close to thirty seconds.

Holmes resumed pressing both his hands against the wound. He shifted his body, trying to find the right angle that would allow him to put enough pressure on her armpit to compress the artery. The woman’s arm was slick with blood. Josie felt a series of pinches in her palms and realized it was the glass that hadn’t yet been removed now slicing into her skin. She pushed her own pain aside, moving the woman’s arm to try to accommodate Dr. Holmes’s efforts. The armpit was fantastically anatomically inconvenient when it came to stopping an arterial bleed. As she watched Dr. Holmes struggle, her heart galloped in her chest. Cool sweat broke out across her forehead.

“Get the bedrail down,” he barked.

Josie relinquished the woman’s arm and maneuvered around him, sliding one hand between him and the rail until she found the unlocking mechanism. As soon as it was out of the way, Holmes climbed onto the gurney, straddling the woman. With his hands stacked firmly over her exposed armpit, he leaned forward, letting the weight of his body lend the pressure needed to staunch the flow of blood.

“What do you need?” Josie asked.

“Hemostatic dressings,” he said. “There should be some in that cart.”

On the other side of the gurney was a rolling metal cart with several thin drawers. Josie rounded the bed and started yanking them open one by one until she found what she was looking for. “How many?”

“Whatever you’ve got. Bring them here. Start getting them out of their packaging. Let’s go, let’s go!”

Josie gathered up all the hemostatic dressing pouches in the drawer and dumped them on the gurney by the woman’s hip. She started tearing them open and handing them to Holmes, watching as he packed the wound before covering it with his hands again. “I’ve got to keep pressure on this for at least three minutes.”

It felt like it had been hours since the woman plucked the glass from her armpit but in reality it had probably been less than ninety seconds. Still, she said, “I’ll go see what’s taking so long to get someone else in here.”