Code Triage (25 page)

Riley stopped by the nurses’ station and got a list of the day’s staff from the ward clerk, then headed toward the ICU’s exit. When she reached for the door, she saw that she was trembling. She thought of the charge nurse’s words:
“I keep remembering the photos . . .”
Riley understood. Right now, she was seeing her own frightening collage of images: Cappy marching toward the Johnson baby’s room. Kurt Denton, eyes wild, shoving Kristi from the room. The gun . . . and the shadowy image of the man on those parking lot stairs in Houston.

She fought a wave of nausea. She’d told Barbara she’d be getting help for the staff; she promised. But now she wasn’t sure how she’d do that because suddenly she felt like a victim all over again. Not like someone who should be offering help, but a woman with a paralyzed arm . . . who’d had to suck up all the courage she had left just to open the door to that stairwell.

Lord, are you there? Can I do this?

Riley took a deep breath and opened the door. Nick Stathos was talking to the police officer guarding the exit. He looked as undone as Riley felt.

+++

Sam dragged her tongue across her lips, tasting the lemony residue of the swab the SICU nurse had used to moisten her mouth. She cleared her throat, wincing at a grating stab of pain from the breathing tube they’d removed in the recovery room. It made the stomach tube, still in place, even more aggravating. She pressed the button on her medication pump and felt an instantaneous sensation of floating as the analgesic infused into her veins.

“Thank you for coming,” she whispered, glancing at the young chaplain. “I was thinking about the Johnsons. Kristi and her children. No one here knew for sure what’s happening with them.” She swallowed and winced again, then adjusted the oxygen prongs in her overly crowded nostrils.

“They’ve gone home,” Riley told her. “The doctors decided to go ahead and discharge Finn. Kristi was badly shaken up, but not physically hurt. She was given a mild sedative, and a friend will let them all stay at her house for tonight at least. One of your fellow counselors will be checking on them. The police released the paperwork you left in the pediatrics room.”

“Good. But then I guess my chief concern isn’t a problem anymore.” She shivered uncontrollably and told herself it was the aftereffects of anesthesia. Or medication the pump just administered. “I mean the children’s father. The nurses said he’s in a coma. That he’s here . . .” She turned her head toward the dimly lit row of patient rooms.

“Not in this unit,” the chaplain said quickly. “And the police have him under guard.”

“I wasn’t worried,” Sam told her, wondering only vaguely if it was a lie. No. The only thing she was concerned about was . . . “Have you seen Nick?”

“Officer Stathos?”

“Yes.”
Leigh’s husband. Is that how you think of him?
She saw no clue in the chaplain’s expression. “Is he still here in the hospital?”

“I’m not sure.”

Irritation prickled despite the floating effect of the morphine. “Not sure or don’t want to tell me?”

Riley’s forehead wrinkled. “What do you mean?”

The blood pressure cuff inflated with a hum. “I know you’re a friend of Leigh Stathos, and I’m sure you’re aware of our situation.”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t see how that—”

“Don’t,” Sam interrupted, raising her shoulders from the pillow. Pain seared her abdomen, but she didn’t care. “Don’t stand there and pretend that everyone doesn’t look at me and see one thing: the tramp who broke up Dr. Stathos’s marriage.”

The chaplain was silent, her eyes mirroring the truth. Sam wondered how it would translate.

“Look,” Riley said, rubbing her fingers across her sling. “I do consider Leigh a friend. I am sad for her situation. But I’m here as a chaplain—I see you as a patient. And a victim of an awful crime.” Her expression was sympathetic, almost as if she understood how that felt. “That’s the only way I see you. I’m offering help, not judgment. I’m new at being a chaplain and I’m trying my best. I’m honestly not sure where Nick Stathos is. I saw him about half an hour ago. But I didn’t talk with him.”

“Was he still in the ER?”

“No. It was at the ICU.” Riley raised her brows. “But wasn’t he going to pick up your daughter?”

“Yes,” Sam whispered, the relief of Riley’s words making her head swim as effectively as the morphine. Nick wasn’t still down there with his wife, and soon he’d be with Elisa. “He’s picking her up from preschool, bringing her here.”

“Here?” Riley glanced around the room. “Do you think she’ll be okay with all this? the equipment and noises and—” Riley touched her own nose—“your NG tube? You don’t think she’ll be—?”

“She’ll be fine,” Sam said, cutting her off. “She’s tough. Like her mother. Nick’s good with her.”
And she’s our bond.

“Well . . .” Riley glanced at the clock. “I’m supposed to meet with social services. Is there anything I can do for you before I leave? A prayer?”

Prayers—right.
“No.”

She watched Riley Hale leave, then lay still, listening to the distant beeps and whirs of medical machinery and the soft footfalls of the nursing staff. She thought about the chaplain’s offer of prayer. And wondered idly, brain fuzzy with medication, what God would think of a mother using her child as a means of drawing a man close, keeping him there—if he was really any more forgiving than Leigh Stathos’s cohorts down in the ER. And if, after denying her so many things all her life, God was finally ready to accept that Sam was willing to do anything to grab her own happy ending. That she wasn’t about to let him stand in the way.

Sam turned toward the sound of footsteps outside her doorway, hope rising in her chest.
Nick . . .

Then she was sure she could hear God’s cruel laughter as Leigh Stathos walked in.

+++

“I thought I’d come by to . . .” Leigh hesitated, realizing suddenly that she had no clue why she’d come to Sam Gordon’s room.

“To see if Nick is here?” Sam asked, the hoarseness of her voice deepening the obviously intentional barb.

“No, of course not,” Leigh said quickly, hating that this woman was probably right. Was that why she came?
Get out of here. Don’t be a fool.
She crossed her arms, glanced at the monitor display. “Dr. Bartle told me the bullet did far less damage than they’d expected. And he was able to make repairs without having to resect a lot of bowel.”

“Well . . .” Sam’s lips twisted. “No one ever said Toby Gordon’s kid sister didn’t have plenty of guts.”

Leigh forced a smile. “I’m sure.”

They stared at each other for a few seconds in awkward silence, and Leigh was certain she felt the curious eyes of the staff at the desk beyond.

Sam glanced toward the door. “They think you’re here to pinch off my oxygen tubing.”

Leigh’s mouth sagged open. “Oh, come on. Don’t—”

“Tell the truth?” Sam grimaced as she hiked a few inches higher on the pillow. “Why? That wouldn’t be professional? ladylike?” She shook her head, pinning Leigh with those startling lilac eyes. “No one’s ever said I was a lady, either. Go ahead and blame it on the fact that I’m chock-full of drugs. Or that I’ve recently had someone try to make a gruesome donut out of me with a handgun. But I think the time for pretense is past, Dr. Stathos. Why are you here?”

Leigh took a slow breath, refused to tremble. “Never mind. I’m going.”

“No, you’re not. You came here to find out something. And it has nothing to do with my medical condition—Dr. Bartle already disappointed you with the news that I didn’t die on his table.” She exhaled, watching Leigh’s face. “What did you want to know?”

“Forget it. This was a mistake. I’m—”

“A coward? Afraid of the truth?” Sam shook her head. “I don’t understand how a passionate man like Nick could have settled for such a spineless coward.”

“Sunday night,” Leigh hissed through clenched teeth, “why did you really call me?”

“That’s better. Now we’re getting somewhere.” Sam glanced toward the doorway. “But be a lady and close the door, would you? We don’t want to disturb anyone.”

+++

Nick peered through the window at the patient in the hospital bed. He turned to the chaplain’s assistant. “Why does he look so swollen?”

“It’s the bleeding from the bullet’s damage.” Riley Hale looked at him, concern in her eyes. Nick had the feeling it was for him. “Should you be here? I don’t know your department policy, but we did have a call from Buzz Chumbley. And he said he’d be talking with you at the station.”

“I asked the officer in the hallway to cut me a little slack—I had to see Denton. I won’t try to go in there, but I had to see for myself.” Nick’s eyes scanned the blipping monitors, ventilator, suspended bags of IV fluids, handcuffs—all lit eerily by fluorescent lighting shining down on the still body in the bed. Thin, pale, bruised, bandaged . . . Kurt Denton looked dead already. Nick swallowed and tried to remember that this was the ruthless perpetrator who’d aimed weapons at his partner and him after shooting three people.

“He could have killed more,” the chaplain said quietly, as if she’d read his mind. “There are medical offices across the parking lots with patients and staff coming and going. And there’s Bay City Elementary on the corner.” She waited, and when he didn’t respond, she cleared her throat. He thought he saw her tremble.

“I was there,” she whispered. “Upstairs, just before he pulled out that gun and started to shoot. I saw the look in his eyes. Cappy tried, but there was no way to talk him down. He seemed pumped up on drugs, crazed, and so desperate to take Kristi with him. I think he’d have done anything to make that happen.” She rested her hand lightly on Nick’s uniform sleeve. “I’m thanking God you were here.”

“I . . . I’ve got to go,” Nick said, avoiding her eyes. He shifted his weight and his holster creaked, strangely ominous against the soft background whir of lifesaving equipment. “If anyone asks, I’ll say you questioned my showing up here. Don’t worry.”

“Not worried. And I’m glad you’ll be talking with your chaplain. I think that’s a good idea, Nick.”

He nodded and walked toward the hallway door without looking back at the mortally wounded man on the bed. He’d seen what he came to see. But he was leaving with more than he wanted to deal with. It wasn’t so much the way Kurt Denton had looked—bloated, bruised, hooked to machines. Nick had seen critically injured people before, at highway accidents and assault scenes. Even Toby, hours before he died. He’d been as prepared as he could have been to see the man he’d shot a few hours ago. And told himself—like he’d be telling the SFPD shooting investigators—that what Riley Hale just said was true: Nick had dropped a killer before he could kill again.

What he hadn’t expected was what he’d felt when she’d said those things about Denton’s motive, his desperation. Nick’s stomach churned as he exited the ICU. He tried to stop a rush of memories of those days after Leigh threw him out. His calls, pleading, frustration. Then the panic and fear of losing her that finally left him sleeping in a car outside their house. Caused her to threaten him with a restraining order, put his job at risk. Because he wanted her back so badly, was desperate for that, and would have done anything to make it happen.

He wouldn’t believe he was anything like the man he’d shot.

Chapter Nineteen

“Why did you call me that night?” Leigh repeated. She scraped a visitor’s chair across the floor and perched on its edge. “And don’t give me that line about needing to know Patrice’s last name—it’s in the phone book.”

Sam smiled, lips still pale despite the infusing unit of blood. “Not my best work, I admit. I called to see if Nick was there.”

“And to let me know he’d been with you.” Leigh’s stomach sank, remembering his words of defense this morning.
“Nothing really happened.”

“He came for dessert,” Sam said, reaching for the cord to her medication pump. “And to see my daughter. In fact, we’d tucked Elisa into bed, and he was just about to read
Goodnight Moon
when . . .” She pressed the button. “It was you who called, right?”

Leigh nodded, her heart cramping at the image of Nick reading a bedtime story to this woman’s child. It was worse—so much more intimate—than imagining him in Sam’s bed.

“Why?” Sam asked, her lids dipping noticeably from the effects of the medication.

“Our elderly neighbor was having some problems.”

“No.” Sam’s eyes narrowed. “I mean, why are you so selfish? You didn’t want him, but now—”

“You went after him.” Leigh gripped the arms of the chair, felt her face sting. “Don’t deny it. You took advantage of Nick when he was in shock, grieving his best friend.” She caught the change in Sam’s expression.

“His friend . . . my brother.”

“I’m sorry.” Leigh pressed her fingers against her forehead. “Really. That wasn’t fair.”

“What’s unfair is what you’re doing to Nick. Intruding in his life—jerking him around—when he finally has the chance to have what he wants.”

“Meaning you?”

Sam lifted her chin in a show of strength, surprisingly undiluted by the tubing cluttering her face. “Yes. And all the things I can give him that you never would.”