Code Triage (23 page)

“Alive. In a coma. The chest wound was high—no lung or vascular injury, looks like. The wound in the torso was superficial. But the head wound . . .” She shook her head. “He’s gone down for a brain CT with a fleet of officers in tow. And the neurosurgeon’s on his way in. But I’m fairly certain the injury is devastating.” She frowned, uncomfortable with the mix of feelings his prognosis stirred.
He’s killed Cappy.

“It was your husband who made that shot.”

“Or maybe his partner,” Leigh answered, then realized it had been a statement, not a question. “You’ve seen Nick since the shooting?”

“Yes . . .” Riley paused, as if considering her words. “He was in with Sam Gordon.”

Leigh began stripping off her gloves, wishing her emotions were as easy to shed.
If I ever doubted that you’ve given up on me, God . . .

“I’m going to meet with social services this afternoon,” Riley said, glancing around the littered ER and toward the nurses gathered at the desk. “We’ll need to start doing some individual peer counseling and set up a full hospital debriefing for the affected staff, probably a few days from now.”

Leigh thought of last spring’s pesticide disaster in Pacific Point. Her friend, nurse Erin Quinn, had done the peer counseling then.

“Unfortunately,” Riley continued, “this incident today made Golden Gate Mercy the poster child for Critical Incident Stress. And it’s not over. We’ve got Cappy in surgery with an uncertain outcome.” She winced at the prognosis on Leigh’s face. “There’s a Child Crisis investigator going to surgery as well, a pregnant pediatrics nurse with a bullet in her calf, Kristi upstairs in a state of emotional shock, staff trying to keep it all together in the face of their own trauma. And then we have the man responsible for it all. Somehow we’re going to have to find a way to care for him. To the best of our ability.”

Leigh brushed her hair back, sighing. “I’ve never had this happen. In all my experience in the ER, I’ve never been required to treat an assailant whose victims I know. And—” the shock of it struck her again—“who was shot by my husband. How can this be happening?”

She scanned the emergency department, strangely vacant in the wake of Cappy’s departure because the patients being treated prior to the incident had been moved to the adjacent clinic. “I’m just grateful I had a surgeon here, a cardiothoracic surgeon on call, and that two of our other docs were close by.” She nodded at Riley. “We’re handling it. We’ll get through it.” She heard a deep groan in the distance and knew it was Sam.
I’ll get through all of this, somehow.

“Yes,” Riley agreed. “We’ll survive. Although—” she glanced toward the ambulance bay doors—“things will get pretty crazy when we’re officially off lockdown. It seems calm right now, but that’s because we’re in the eye of the storm. The operators are fielding hundreds of calls; the media is chomping at the bit to converge on us. And the officers are already scrambling to identify visitors trying to get in to check on family members.”

“One of those will be my sister.” Leigh fought a shiver. “Caro will be frantic to get in. I’m going to try to get a message to her, but I’ve got to use this temporary lull now to reassess where we stand with the patients I have here.”

“Meaning Sam Gordon?”

“Yes. Although Dr. Bartle’s directing her treatment.” Leigh glanced toward the other trauma cubicle. “I was busy with Cappy, and her wounds required a surgeon.”

“Would you like me to go with you? to see Sam?”

“No,” Leigh said quickly, telling herself Riley’s offer was part of the job, proof of her kindness.
Not because she can read my mind. How do I do this? How do I shut off all these awful feelings?

“Page me if you need me,” Riley said gently. “For anything. I’m going back upstairs to check on Kristi Johnson and the staff. Then I’m going to set up the chapel as a respite area, have the cafeteria prepare a small table with some snacks, make it comfortable and welcoming for anyone who needs support. Or prayer.” She smiled. “Doctors too.”

“I’ll let people know.”

“I meant you. You’re welcome there, Leigh.”

She bit back a response. How could she explain to this chaplain that she was the last person on God’s comfort list?

“I’m good—no problem.” Leigh glanced up as the PA speaker crackled.

“Chaplain Hale, call social services, please. Public Information officer, report to main lobby. Nursing supervisor, report to main lobby. . . .”

Riley sighed. “It seems our lull is already ending.”

Leigh watched Riley walk back through the ER, then glanced around the trauma room at the clutter and debris remaining from the resuscitation. Crash cart drawers open, empty epinephrine syringes lying on top, dangling cardiac electrodes, the laryngoscope, and suction tubing, filled with frothy blood and still making futile, soft sucking noises. She crossed to the machine and turned the knob, silencing it. Her eyes caught on Cappy’s cutaway clothing lying in the corner. Bloodstained shirt, trousers with his belt, a cluster of keys with the worn, plastic charm holding photos of his grandchildren. Her throat squeezed and the thought came again—just as she’d asked Riley.
How can this be happening?

“Dr. Stathos?”

Leigh glanced at the nurse. “Need me?”

“Dr. Bartle’s gone ahead to the OR. Can you peek in on Miss Gordon? We’re just about to hang the first unit of blood.”

“Sure. I’m on my way.” Out of the lull, back into the storm.
That God wants me to battle alone.

+++

Sam closed her eyes, swallowing around the rigid tube threaded through her nostril and down the back of her throat. She tried not to gag or think about how much of the dark fluid siphoning back was blood. Then she shuddered at something so much worse—the terrifying image of Kurt Denton aiming the gun.
How did this happen?

Through a floating haze of morphine that kept the pain in her belly barely below screaming level, she heard a voice at the doorway. “Nick?”

“No. It’s Leigh Stathos.”

Chapter Seventeen

Leigh scanned the monitor’s display of vital signs: BP 92 over 48, pulse 104, respirations 22, pulse oximetry 98 percent. Then she glanced down at Sam’s face. She was pale, deathly pale, making the incredible lilac eyes shocking in contrast. Her lips were sallow, nasal folds as white as a fish belly, all signs of critical blood loss. She’d suffered a penetrating wound to the lower abdomen—intestinal most likely. Beneath an oxygen cannula, a nasogastric tube emerged from her nostril, dark as an eel with blood and bile. Three IVs and a unit of fresh frozen plasma hung from metal hooks overhead. Sam’s flowered skirt, stained and cut to shreds, was draped over the garbage bin. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I’ve been shot in the gut.”

Leigh wrestled a bitter urge to say she knew how that felt. “On a scale of one to ten, how’s the pain? I can order something for you.”

Sam’s eyes drifted upward, and Leigh glanced quickly at the monitor. No change. “Sam?”

“Where’s Dr. Bartle?”

“He’s in the OR; we’ll be moving you there in a few minutes. He’s really the one directing your care.”

“Because you don’t want to.”

Leigh made herself take a slow breath. “You needed a surgeon. I had a patient under CPR.”

“The guard. How is he?”

“In surgery.”

“I saw his eyes . . . all that blood.” Sam’s fingers fluttered to her throat, IV tubing dangling from her wrist.

Leigh thought of Riley’s words, that Golden Gate Mercy was the “poster child for Critical Incident Stress.” Sam Gordon looked stressed as well as gut shot.

Her bloodless lips pressed together. “Kurt Denton’s still alive?”

“Yes.” Leigh glanced toward his assigned room. He hadn’t returned from CT. “I can’t really discuss his condition.”

“I’m not asking you to,” Sam said, gasping against an apparent stab of pain. “Nick will tell me what I want to know.”

Don’t, Leigh. Let it go.

“Where is he?” Sam asked, glancing toward the door.

“I don’t know. And I’m leaving,” Leigh said, catching sight of the nurse outside the door. “I have to see my other patients. If you want anything, have the nurse call me.”

“The only thing I want is . . .” Sam smiled weakly, her gaze focusing beyond Leigh. “There he is.”

Leigh turned to see Nick standing against the wall outside the trauma room. He lifted his hand and it took her a few seconds to realize that he was gesturing to her, not Sam. But it took less than an instant to realize the truth. His critically injured lover had nailed it: Leigh hadn’t wanted to treat her. The truth was that she’d asked Bartle to take over because, in the confusing and chaotic moment that Sam was rushed, bleeding and helpless, into the ER, Leigh had remembered:
I killed her in my dreams again last night.
The memory had horrified her. A doctor dreaming of murder—how could that be?

She walked over to her husband, wondering when God would stop playing with her like a dead mouse in the paws of a barn cat.

+++

Nick looked at Leigh and wondered if his appearance was as bad: sleepless, exhausted, and shell-shocked. He cleared his throat.

“How are you doing?” he asked, wishing he’d pulled Leigh away somewhere out of Sam’s sight.

“I should ask you the same thing.”

He wanted to believe she cared. He wanted to go back to Sunday night, a year ago, do it all over again. Do it right. “I’m okay.” His gut twisted, proving it wasn’t true. “I want to go up to talk with Kristi Johnson, but it’s against regulations.”

“Our side or yours?”

“Mine. They’ve exchanged my weapon, taken an initial statement. Then there’s the post-shooting debriefing, and I have to meet with the department psychologist.” He met Leigh’s eyes. “Any word on Denton’s condition?”

“No. But the head wound looked devastating.”

“And Cappy?”

“In the OR.” Sadness filled her eyes. “I couldn’t get a pulse.”

He glanced toward the door to Sam’s room, saw her watching. “And . . . ?”

“Sam?”

“Will she be okay?”

“Dr. Bartle’s handling her case—because he’s a surgeon and I had my hands full with Cappy.”

Nick caught the inflection in her voice. She was defending herself, felt the need to do that.
Help us, Lord. Please. This is such a mess.

“She’s lost a lot of blood,” Leigh continued, “but we’re replacing it. And her vital signs are encouraging. They’ll know more when they get her opened up, and . . .” She hesitated at his obvious discomfort. “Once she stabilizes, controlling infection will be the real battle. She . . . You . . . It will be a long haul for everyone.” Leigh glanced away.

Guilt jabbed again as he remembered less than two hours ago, when he’d had nothing on his mind, in his heart, but Leigh.

“The nurse said she was asking for her daughter,” Leigh added. “There’s no other family?”

Nick checked his watch. “Elisa gets out of preschool at two. I told Sam I’d pick her up. She knows me.” He saw the reaction in Leigh’s eyes and felt sick. “Her babysitter doesn’t drive. I’ll get her there. And then I’ll try to contact Elisa’s aunt Tina, Toby’s ex, in Sunnyvale. She and Sam are still friendly. That’s really all the family there is.”

“I’m sure you’ll do your best for them.”

God, please.
He reached for her hand. “Leigh, listen. It’s complicated right now—it’s ungodly complicated—but it doesn’t change things. Not really. It doesn’t mean—”

“It means,” she said, pulling her hand away, “that Sam needs you. And things are going to stay very complicated. It’s good we didn’t make the mistake of fooling ourselves into something that can never be.”

Mistake.
He started to say something, anything, but halted as a nurse stepped up beside them. Her eyes were red-rimmed.

“Surgery called. Cappy died on the table. His wife and pastor are waiting in the lounge. Riley’s with them. The surgeon asked if you could be there when he breaks the news.”

Leigh squeezed her eyes closed for a moment, then squared her shoulders and walked toward the nurses’ station. Nick knew she’d handle whatever happened. She always did. Even if she was hurting on the inside—and he knew she was; he could see it in her eyes. Still, she’d do what had to be done and move on. The way she’d loaded Frisco into a trailer and driven off to Pacific Point last December. Leaving him behind. And the way she’d tossed out their lemon tree; he’d seen that it was missing Sunday night. Now she was just as determined to pull the plug on any chance they had to reclaim their future. He had no doubt she’d done the same with God. Given up on him, too.

But then Nick knew something the very sharp and very determined Dr. Stathos didn’t. God would never give up on her.

+++

Riley held the Kleenex box, wishing it were more. She was glad that Esther Thomas’s pastor had driven her to the hospital. The stunned new widow leaned heavily on his arm, her mouth sagging in despair, the back of her hair still wrapped in rollers.

“You couldn’t sew up the bullet hole?” she asked, tears ready to spill over. “Do some kind of a graft? I’ve seen such miracles on TV.”