Code Triage (22 page)

Riley nodded, realizing her mouth had gone dry. Violence, even the threat of it, brought back too many memories.
Father, please . . .
“Be careful.”

“I will.” He winked. “Got to stay in one piece if I’m going to take my best girl out to the movies tonight.”

She watched from the desk as he joined a small group of staff outside the patient room, saw him knock on the door. The man inside responded with an obscene gesture. She wondered if she should go ahead and ask the staff to call the police, then noticed that the ward clerk had wandered down the hallway. The desk was empty.

Riley tried to remember if protocol dictated that she first call the hospital operator or if she could directly dial 911. Then she told herself she was being ridiculously paranoid. From what she could see, Sam Gordon was remaining calm. Cappy had managed to get a foot in the door, and—

Riley froze as the young man burst from the room, shoving Kristi Johnson ahead of him and shouting.

“Get back! All of you—out of my way!”

A male nurse tried to intervene, and the man kicked him in the chest, knocking him to the floor. “Get away!” He pointed at Cappy. “You too, old man. Don’t be stupid.”

Kristi cried out and stumbled, and he yanked her to her feet by her hair, herding her along the hallway toward the desk. Sam Gordon followed, staying close to Cappy. One of the staff slipped into the room with the crying children and closed the door.

No. Oh, please . . .
Riley scrambled, heart pounding, to get around the expanse of desk to a phone. Then she heard someone scream.

“A gun—he’s a got a gun!”

She froze. Then dropped down beside the desk and out of sight, as the man shouted again.

“Everybody get back in their rooms. Stay away from the elevators; touch a phone and I start killing people!”

The guard’s voice, low and calm, filled the terrified wake of silence. “Son . . . please, you don’t want to do that. Listen to old Cappy. Life is short. Nothing’s worth—”

There was a single deafening blast, followed by a chorus of screams.

Riley hunched low and ran, heart hammering in her ears, seeing nothing but the door to the stairs. She threw it open, fighting a dizzying wave of nausea, and ran down the steps. There was a phone outside the door onto the first floor. If she could only get there . . .
Stay with me, Lord.

+++

Leigh stepped out of the treatment room and stared at the speaker on the ceiling. She couldn’t have heard it right. It had almost sounded like—

“Code Silver,” the operator repeated, her voice audibly anxious. “Code Silver, second floor.”

Silver meant . . . Leigh’s breath caught.
Person with a weapon.

Chapter Sixteen

Nick slid behind the wheel of the patrol car and nodded to his partner, busy writing a report. “Let’s get out of here.”

“That was fast—thought you were going to check on that Child Crisis case.”

“It’s complicated. We’ll come back later.” Nick frowned.
After Sam’s gone. She called Leigh?

“Fine by me.”

Nick updated their status with dispatch, pulled out into traffic, and made it two blocks before a call came in: “All units in the vicinity of Fulton and Stanyan . . .”

Stanyan? What—?

“Be advised: You have a 417, Golden Gate Mercy Hospital. Man with gun. Shots fired.”

Pulse quickening, Nick pressed the car forward in traffic, searching for an opening; his partner grabbed the radio mike and hit the lights and siren as dispatch continued.

“Suspect described as white male, midtwenties, shoulder-length brown hair. Wearing dark hospital scrubs, gold jacket . . . Witness reports one shooting victim.”

One victim.
Nick cranked the wheel, whipped the car around, and, tires squealing, raced back to the hospital.
Lord . . . don’t let it be Leigh.

+++

“Don’t, Kurt. Stop! Oh, please . . . no. ” Sam stumbled backward, hands raised and trembling, barely hearing the screams of the staff over the thud of her own heart in her ears, still ringing from the bullet blast. Was that real? Did he really shoot? She stared, horrified, down at the floor—at the guard’s crumpled body near her feet, the widening expanse of pooling blood.
Run, run!

“No one move!” Kurt shouted, tightening his arm around Kristi’s throat until she gagged, eyes rolling back. “And you—” he took a step toward Sam, eyes wild—“you even breathe and I blast you clear to the gates of hell. You hear me, witch?”

Sam tried to nod, then startled as the wounded guard grabbed desperately for the hem of her skirt but sank back down, his hand sliding down her leg.

“Help,” he groaned, gargling a mouthful of blood.

“Please.” A nurse, crouched beside the desk, rose to her feet. “Please,” she begged again between sobs, “let me help Cappy. Let me just go to him.”

“Yes, Kurt,” Sam whispered, hearing her voice quaver. “Let us call for help. You don’t want him to die. You—”

“Don’t tell me what I want!” Kurt bellowed, throwing Kristi to the floor. He clawed at the zipper of his jacket, pulled out a second gun, and bit his lip so hard that blood welled. He sputtered, spit, and glared at Sam. “I’ll tell you what I want.” He whirled around, the muzzles of the guns sweeping over the terrified staff. “I want all of you to stop trying to keep me away from my kids. Stop calling the cops, writing reports. Stop saying I’m not man enough to—” He halted, eyes jerking toward the overhead speakers as they crackled to life again.

“Code Triage, Internal. All departments prepare for general lockdown. Code Triage, Internal. Prepare for hospital-wide lockdown.”

The fire doors slammed shut at the end of the corridor, and Kurt jumped, aimed both guns in that direction. His gaze darted around the area as he stepped up to where Kristi crouched. He kicked her hip. She whimpered, and he kicked her again. “You had a chance—but that’s over. I don’t care what you do anymore. I’m taking my kids. You’ll never see them again.”

“No. Please . . .”

He glared at her and whirled away, jogging toward the baby’s room.

“No!” Sam yelled after him, fear for the children overriding all else. “You can’t—”

There was a sharp explosion and her body jerked backward. She shook her head, confused.

What’s happening?
She heard a barrage of sounds:
crack
,
crack
, endless, like a long string of firecrackers. Then screams, keening wails followed by frantic footfalls and shouts. She staggered forward and gasped for breath, fighting a sudden, incapacitating wave of weakness, but lost the struggle and fell to her knees. She tried to stand again and finally felt the pain. Searing, bursting like a grenade, exploding across her belly.

She sat back and stared down in a daze, seeing the blood, a river of red soaking through her blouse, her skirt, and pooling in her lap, warm and sticky. She clutched her stomach, grabbed a fistful of the flimsy flowered fabric, tried to stanch the flow even as she realized everything around her was going gray and fading away.

She stretched out on the floor, curled up on her side, and found herself looking into Cappy’s face—eyes open, glazed, lifeless. She thought of Elisa, of Toby, and of Nick. Then wondered if it was too late to pray.

+++

Kurt shoved his shoulder against the door leading to the loading dock, dropped the Glock, grabbed it up, and rammed the door again.
Lockdown. Did that mean every stupid door was—
He shoved again, cursing, and almost fell through as it opened into the morning light. Sirens. They were coming. He had to make it to the car.

He hefted the guns, one in each fist, and ran toward the parking lot, heart pounding, muscles twitching, his mind beginning to stagger into prickly confusion. The thrill ride that had swept him into the hospital was gone. In its wake was something hollow and brittle, lonely. He pushed his legs faster, sucked in a breath, and smelled blood: acrid, coppery—condemning. He’d shot people. Watched them fall. Heard his children crying, screaming. Abby begging him.
My little girl.
Looking at him like she didn’t know him. Like he was monster, not a hero. How did that happen? That’s not what he’d wanted.

He heard a shout, then saw people standing around the MINI Cooper. Security guards. They pointed his way and crouched for cover. He stopped, guns dangling in his hands, mind staggering again. The steady drone of helicopter blades made him blink skyward. Cops. The sirens growing closer. If he shot the guards, got his car . . . Abby’s face filled his mind. Would she understand?

He gagged, remembering Kristi on the floor. He’d kicked her. Had Abby seen that, too? And Finn—was he too young to remember? Kurt froze at the sound of a car squealing to a stop. A patrol car, with officers exiting to hunch low behind the opened doors—guns pointed.
How did things get this far?

“Drop your weapons.”

He hesitated, watching the nearest officer’s dark eyes and knowing in a glance that the man was deadly serious. Would kill him without blinking.

“Drop them, now,” the cop repeated, raising his voice as more patrol cars surged in. “Don’t make us shoot. Let’s settle this peacefully.”

Peacefully.
Kurt thought of Finn’s face. Smiling in Kristi’s arms until his father stormed in and . . .
What have I done?

Kurt held the officers’ gaze as he took a step forward. He hesitated, held his breath . . . and pointed the guns. In eerie slow motion he saw the officers thrust theirs forward, heard a spray of gunfire—then felt a bullet hit hard against the top of his chest, jerking him sideways. Another grazed his side as his knees began to buckle. A third bullet blasted through his skull.

+++

“Suction!” Leigh ordered, straining to see through a frothy red tide of blood at the back of Cappy’s throat. “I can’t see the cords without . . .” She grabbed for the offered Yankauer tube and buried it deep in the pooling fluid, hearing it suck as it tried to clear the guard’s airway. She needed to see well enough to find the vocal cords, slide the endotracheal tube in place.

“Bag him,” she told the respiratory therapist holding an Ambu bag. “Continue cardiac compressions, give another round of epi, and then I’ll try again.”
Try to get him to the OR . . . not let him die here. Don’t die on me, Cappy.
The surreal sense of horror struck her as she glanced at the unconscious man on her gurney. Gunshot wound to left chest, massive blood loss, no heart activity. She fought against a sinking wave of dizziness, taking a deep breath.
Stay focused.

“Keep pumping the Ringer’s lactate—someone make sure the lab’s getting those blood products to the OR stat. The OR, not here.” She signaled the charge nurse. “When can surgery take him?”

“Any minute,” the nurse answered, expression stoic despite soot-dark tear smudges. “They’re taking Cappy first while the other team sets up for Samantha Gordon.”

Leigh’s throat constricted, the disbelief swirling again. She glanced toward the other trauma cubicle. “How’s she doing?”

“Conscious, but still really shocky. Dr. Bartle wants to explore her belly as soon as they can get her into the OR.” The charge nurse’s brows scrunched. “She’s worried about her little girl. Sounds like she has no one else.”

No one.
Leigh glanced toward the group of officers standing near the nurses’ desk, then shook the thought away. She turned to watch as the ER tech performed cardiac compressions. Cappy’s wife was at the beauty shop when they’d reached her; their pastor would drive her to the hospital. Leigh would talk with her, tell her that they’d done all they could to get him to the operating room as fast as they could. But . . .

“Halt compressions,” she ordered, watching the monitor as the tech stepped back.

“Looks the same, Dr. Stathos,” the nurse told her. “Wide complexes, slow rate.”

Leigh pressed her fingers deep into the flesh beneath Cappy’s pale jaw.
But no pulse.

“I’m ready,” she said, returning to the head of the gurney. “Let’s do this.”

She tilted Cappy’s head, positioned the laryngoscope and tube, and asked the therapist to apply gentle pressure on the Adam’s apple. Leigh peered down the lighted blade and got an adequate view of the cords. She slid the endotracheal tube in place, inflated its balloon, and checked the placement.

“Okay,” she instructed. “Continue compressions, one more round of epi, and get ready to roll him down to the OR.” She swallowed around the growing ache in her throat. “Let’s give this good man the only chance he has.”

Even before the next dose of epinephrine was due, the surgical crew, including anesthesiologist, arrived to wheel Cappy down the hallway to surgery. Leigh didn’t realize she was holding her breath until Riley appeared beside her. She exhaled, grateful for company that didn’t require her to give orders. Or bad news.

“How are you holding up, Leigh?”

“I’m not sure I’m holding up as much as holding on. Or trying to. I hear you were our Paul Revere. Got the word to the operator?”

Discomfort flickered across Riley’s face. “I was close to the stairs. Thank God.” She glanced toward the door of an exam area across the room. “Is Mr. Denton . . . ?”