Trauma Plan, page 9
Riley shifted the scrubs in her arms. “So . . . I change in the bathroom?”
“Second door on the right.”
“Thanks. I think I’ll go on to the ER. See how she’s doing.”
“Yeah, well . . .” Jack dragged his fingers across his jaw, met her gaze. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but that’s probably a good idea. I’m afraid our Jane Doe is going to need a chaplain much more than a doctor.”
Heart cramping, Riley turned away and walked toward the inner hallway.
“Riley?”
She paused.
“This isn’t our normal day. But all things considered, will you be back? To work?”
“I . . .” Riley was quiet for a moment, hearing the distant, clattering sound of Bandy in the kitchen making another pot of coffee for the investigating officers. She glanced at her jacket sleeve, stiff with blood, before meeting Jack’s gaze. “I’ll be back to return the scrubs. I’ll let you know then.”
* * *
Thank heaven . . .
Vesta followed the fire truck with her binoculars—a limited glimpse, but long enough to see that it was heading back to the station. The truck’s short turnaround time and the fact that she hadn’t smelled smoke on the trek around her secluded yard meant fire wasn’t an issue this time. The crew had no doubt been dispatched as first responders . . . for that poor girl. Oh, dear Lord.
Vesta set the binoculars on the windowsill and fought a chill. Attempted murder half a block away. According to the action committee. She glanced at the screen of her laptop, the urgent mass mailing from Andrea Nichols still open:
Bluffs neighbors:
I feel it my duty to inform you that today a teenage girl was beaten and left near death at the free clinic. It’s entirely possible that this victim suffered her critical injuries on that property, as did the vagrant who was burned only a few days ago. I’m sure none of you need to be reminded how close the property is to our homes. Our safety is at risk. As are the tender psyches of our children. Dr. Jack Travis treated this girl on the clinic porch in full view of impressionable Bluffs youngsters! Yet another example of his reckless insensitivity. I urge you to be present at the upcoming special city council meeting, which will convene to hear arguments in favor of closing the clinic. I will be sending out reminders. Remember, too, that tickets are still available for Fashion Fiesta, the spring style show featuring clothing and accessories from Bunny Merrit’s darling new dress shop. A portion of the proceeds will benefit local charities. A worthy cause, dear neighbors.
Vesta closed the laptop, groaning at the obvious, sad irony.
She settled into the rose plaid chair near the window, reached for her tea, and then glimpsed a colorful flurry of feathers in the redbud tree. She snatched up her binoculars and adjusted the focus. She hoped it was a painted bunting—vivid scarlet beneath, blue head, brilliant yellow-green on top, black wing bars, red-circled eyes. In her opinion, the most beautiful of Texas birds. Vesta needed that joy right now, because . . .
No. Don’t remember.
She shoved the ugly images down, refusing to let them bring suffocating panic again. She shifted the glasses, switched her focus to another graceful tree branch, and scanned its lush, round foliage, still needing the bunting’s jewel-bright and elusive joy. And a merciful distraction from the frightening truth: today’s incident wasn’t Jack Travis’s first brush with murderous violence.
* * *
Riley parked the car and headed to one of the hospital’s side doors, the same entrance she’d used the day she made a fool of herself shrieking at the grackles . . . and at Jack Travis. That had been only two days ago, but it seemed so much longer. Especially after all that had happened today. She glanced toward the emergency department’s ambulance bay and saw the advanced-life-support rig parked close, metal scoop stretcher leaning against its open back doors. A medic she recognized from the clinic sprayed it with a bottle of disinfectant, scrubbing away the blood. Two SAPD patrol cars were parked nearby, officers still hoping to ID the young victim, no doubt. And waiting to see if her assailant could be charged with murder.
If they ever catch him. . . . They don’t always catch them.
Riley shivered and entered the door’s security code. In moments she’d covered the stretch of corridors leading to the ER to find Kate outside the trauma room. Her expression was grim, and she did a double take when she saw Riley.
“Scrubs?”
“I was at the clinic when . . .” Riley glanced toward the trauma room’s closed double doors, heard the telltale whoosh-sigh of a ventilator, monitor beeps, and a chorus of staff voices, some reporting numbers, others barking curt orders. “I went there for a tour. Ended up helping with the resuscitation. I changed my clothes afterward because—” Riley stopped short, noticing the deepening distress in the charge nurse’s expression. “Are you okay?”
“Fine,” Kate said quickly, dragging her fingers through her short hair. “Completely.” She forced a smile that did nothing to dispel the troubled look in her eyes. “Skipped lunch. I’ll grab some coffee after we finish in there—rough case. But we’ve got it under control.”
“What have you found?”
Kate’s lips pinched together. “Still unresponsive, Glasgow scale maybe 5 at best. Neck’s not fractured. So we reintubated her, put her on the vent. Doctor says he found an area on her scalp that’s ‘mushy as a ripe melon.’ Depressed skull fracture, he thinks. And probably an extensive brain injury. The neurosurgeon’s champing at the bit, but things are doubly complicated because—” Kate winced—“there’s a live baby despite the belly trauma. And it’s stressed with all that bleeding. The perinatologist wants that baby out, stat. So the plan is—” She stopped as the trauma doors slammed open behind them.
“Let’s roll, guys. Coming through!” an ER tech shouted.
Riley stepped aside and Kate moved to help as the gurney, squeaking and clattering, burst from the room. A respiratory therapist squeezed the Ambu bag, and IVs swung above pole-mounted pumps—one infusing dark blood. Riley watched as a flurry of scrubs followed, a faded rainbow of colors representing ER, OR, OB, neurosurgery, and neonatal ICU. All focused on the nameless patient, no more than a child, deathly pale, deeply unconscious . . . and barely clinging to life.
She turned as Kate reappeared beside her. “Emergency cesarean?”
“Yes. And then she goes immediately into the hands of neurosurgery.”
And God. “Did the police make an identification?”
“Still Jane Doe so far. They said they’d get fingerprints, DNA. The TV news will broadcast a general description, and the police are going door to door in neighborhoods adjacent to the clinic.”
The Bluffs residents will love that. “Jack thinks she’s a runaway.”
“Mmm.” Kate cleared her throat, then tugged at her wispy hairline, face paling enough to make her freckles stand out.
“Whoa there.” Riley touched her arm. “You don’t look so good. Let’s go to the lounge and sit down for a few minutes. Find you something to eat.”
“No.” Kate’s hand fluttered across her stomach. “Couldn’t eat anything. Not now. And I should check on the rest of the staff.”
“Kate, I want to do something to help you. Let me.”
“You can’t. Really. I’m fine.”
“Well . . .” Riley hesitated, telling herself not to push her stoic friend. “I’ll bring you some coffee—with enough cream and sugar to qualify as Southern pudding.” She smiled gently. “Now don’t you argue with Rah-lee, hear?”
“I hear,” Kate said, trying to smile.
Riley squeezed her friend’s hand, then turned toward the hallway. She hadn’t taken more than a few steps when Kate called her name.
“Maybe you can do something.”
“Anything—name it.”
“Pray they find that girl’s family. She’s just a kid. And no matter how badly she’s screwed up her life, no matter what she’s done . . .” Kate shivered. “That little baby shouldn’t be handed over to strangers . . . tossed away like table scraps. He should have a chance to know his family.”
Tossed away? Riley had no idea where that had come from but knew she should tread carefully. She wanted to fold Kate into a hug, but her friend would resist just as stubbornly as she was fighting to hold back the tears shimmering in her eyes. Riley nodded. “I’ll go to the chapel—right after I bring that coffee.”
“Thank you.” Kate took a deep breath, adjusted her stethoscope, and walked back toward the ER nurses’ station.
Fifteen minutes later, through the doors of the chapel, Riley heard the PA system play a few bars of Brahms’s Lullaby. Alamo Grace Hospital’s announcement of a baby’s birth.
* * *
Jack opened his condo’s front door, made somewhat difficult because he’d neglected to change the burned-out porch light for weeks now and had to fumble in the dark every time he came home late. Which was maybe six out of seven days. Unlike his neighbors, he wasn’t much for security systems and motion sensor lights. He smiled, thinking of what Bandy had said about the newly mounted lights at the clinic blinding Andrea Nichols’s Persian cat when it came slumming onto the property. Then he realized, as always when he came back to his dark residence, that he was envious of Bandy settling down for the night at the clinic. In his long johns and worn-out cowhide slippers, with a mug of tea—Jack chuckled—and a smuggled donut, probably. He’d do one last round to check the doors, then climb into the office’s lumpy sofa bed and put one of his gospel albums in Jack’s CD player. The old bull rider had called the ramshackle clinic building home for nearly a year now.
Home. It felt like that to Jack, too, more than he cared to admit to anyone. He’d picked this condo because it was an easy commute to both the clinic and the hospitals and because it had a secure garage for the Hummer and his sports gear, but apart from that . . . He switched on the entry light and frowned at the condo’s glass, chrome, and battleship-gray interior. Furnished, cold, anonymous. It didn’t help that in a year of living there he’d never completely unpacked; he fell asleep most nights fully clothed atop the bed in front of cable news.
Jack glanced at his duffel and briefcase tossed on an end table, still untouched after his Reserve weekend, thinking he should gather things up so the cleaning service could dust. He scraped his hand across his beard-stubbled chin, heard his stomach growl. It had been a long day. And he had no doubt he’d be seeing the worst parts of it replayed on the late-night news. He dropped his keys on the entry table and headed for the refrigerator, remembering what Rob Melton had said—that tire tracks on the clinic’s patchy lawn and damage to the lower step of the porch suggested a car had pulled up as close as possible in order to dump Jane Doe. Barefoot, brain-injured . . . pregnant, hemorrhaging, hardly breathing, and—
Jack slammed his palm against the refrigerator door. “Oxygen-wasting bottom-feeder!”
He let out a ragged breath, asking the questions that had made his gut wrench too many times to count in the past fifteen years: Where was a merciful God in something like that? Are you even there anymore?
He shook his head, then stooped to retrieve a magnet that he’d knocked to the floor along with the clinic’s monthly volunteer calendar—he’d penciled in dates for the skydiving appointment, mountain biking with Rob, a second rock-climbing lesson in Fort Davis. He had them all logged into his BlackBerry, but he liked having them here too. A concrete list of the few things he looked forward to, that made him feel alive—besides the clinic. And who knew how long that would last after the incidents with Gilbert and the girl? He’d go before the clinic board again, prepare his defense for the city council meeting, and rally the few volunteers he had left.
Volunteers . . .
Jack pulled his phone from his pocket and touched its screen, searched the stored contacts. They’d exchanged cell numbers. He found it and tapped to connect.
“Um . . . hi.” Riley’s voice sounded wary.
“Hi. I wondered if you had an update on Jane Doe.” Besides the one I got an hour ago.
Riley sighed. “She survived the craniectomy, barely. The injury is extensive, and they expect a lot of swelling. They’re keeping her in a drug-induced coma. The police are still trying to identify her and find family. Baby Girl Doe is doing better than expected—five pounds, three ounces. I saw her.” There was a soft groan. “What a horrific . . .” Riley’s voice faded off.
He nodded, remembering the shell-shocked look on her face as she stood in the clinic after the ambulance pulled away. “Riley?”
“I’m here. Was there something else?”
“I . . .” His brain fumbled. “I want to pay for your dry cleaning. Make that right.” Let me make something right today.
“Thank you. But that’s really not necessary.”
“Look, you only came to the clinic because I badgered you into it. Everything that happened wasn’t supposed to. It was a mess. I’m sorry about that. But . . . you did good.”
It sounded like her breath caught.
“Let me pay for your dry cleaning, Chaplain.” He waited for what seemed like forever.
“I’ll keep the scrubs instead.”
Huh?
“They fit,” she explained. “And I can wear them when I come back to work. Friday afternoon?”
His jaw went slack. “Ah . . . sure. Great.”
“See you then.”
Jack disconnected, shoved the phone in his pocket, then reached for the refrigerator door. The calendar slid and he secured it with another magnet . . . resisting a sudden, irrational urge to pencil in Riley at the clinic somewhere between rock climbing and skydiving.
10
Riley reached for Vesta Calder’s door knocker, a pewter woodpecker, but paused and glanced back toward the yard. The guest cottage sat in a lush and private woodland glen with lantern-lit granite pathways, a modest trickling-water feature, and more bird feeders than she’d ever seen in one place. Built with dark limestone to match the hill country style of the main house, it had a standing-seam metal roof and quaint beveled glass windows trimmed in red—the exact shade of a Texas cardinal. It was a complete contrast to the peeling birthday cake of a building that housed Jack’s clinic, only half a block away.
Riley breathed a soft prayer, the same as before all of her chaplain’s visits, then set the pewter woodpecker to tapping against the carved door. She wasn’t sure what to expect. At their last meeting, Vesta was an escaped ER patient, bleeding, hyperventilating, and nearly catatonic with panic.
The impeccably dressed and warmly gracious woman who opened the door in no way resembled that frightened patient.
“I’m so glad you came,” she said, ushering Riley toward a pair of pink plaid chairs by the bay window. A large set of binoculars rested on the windowsill next to an open birding guide, one of hundreds of books tucked into ceiling-high shelves covering three walls of the cozy exposed-stone room. A graying cedar cross graced the wall behind Vesta’s chair, along with a myriad of framed photos.
“You look well,” Riley told her, feeling a rush of relief. She hadn’t realized until this moment how much she’d dreaded discovering that her initial suspicions were true. She’d feared that Vesta’s panic disorder—perhaps a hospital phobia—could put her health, her sanity, and even her life at risk. Seeing her this way soothed Riley’s soul, especially in light of Jane Doe’s situation. The sad case had deeply affected the hospital staff, and Riley had concerns that a few were showing signs of stress. It had been a painful week all around. Riley needed some good news today.
“You seem well-rested and strong, Vesta,” she observed happily. “Have your blood sugar readings been stable?”
“Fairly stable. For me.” Vesta’s smile displayed almost-girlish dimples. She swept a stray wisp of hair off her forehead. “My diabetes has always tended toward brittle. I was diagnosed at age eleven.”
“Wow.” Riley winced. “That’s a lot of needle sticks.”
“Not so bad, except for finding new injection sites. That’s always a challenge. After I was married, my husband gave me my insulin. He was an incurable adventurer and we were always traveling . . . climbing this mountain and hiking into that wild and woolly forest.” She chuckled. “But he always kept an eye on my health first. Quite the taskmaster about diet, rest, and fitness. Military man, my colonel.” Her wistful smile was replaced with a flicker of sadness. “He’s been gone sixteen years now.”
“I’m sorry, Vesta.”
“I am too. But I don’t dwell on it—the colonel would hate that. ‘Don’t wallow in sorrow when you have legs to dance!’ he’d say.” She sighed and then lifted her brows. “Where are my manners? I made tea.” She rose.
“May I help you?”
“No, you stay comfortable,” Vesta instructed. “I’ve got everything ready in the kitchen.” She smiled. “My diabetes journal is on the table by the chair if you want something scintillating to read.”
Vesta disappeared down the hallway, and in moments Riley heard the soft clatter of dishes blending with the sound of distant music.
She sank back into the overstuffed chair, letting her gaze drift to the colorful array of photos on the wall. It was a collage of a well-lived life and proof indeed that Vesta’s colonel had been an adventurer. The romantic travelogue offered photos of the smiling couple in a hot-air balloon, posing atop Yosemite’s Half Dome, on the rail of a cruise ship at sunset . . . even one of Vesta wearing a fur-lined parka in the snow, laughing as she waved from a dogsled. All evidence that, despite some episodes of anxiety, Vesta was strong, independent, and she—
A sharp rapping at the door interrupted her thoughts.
“Delivery!” a voice boomed from the porch. “I have your groceries, Mrs. Calder.”
Riley stood, glanced toward the kitchen. “Shall I get the—?”
The pewter woodpecker pecked again.
“Mrs. Calder, it’s Gordy from Central Market. Everything okeydokey in there, ma’am?”
Riley opened the door to a young man in a tropical-print shirt and backward ball cap, holding a grocery sack. A single gerbera daisy rose cheerily from the top of it.
