Hard Landing (27 page)

"He's got something toxic in his system, and it's not just alcohol, though he's definitely been drinking. The cut on his face is an older wound, torn open." Whisking the crinkly metallic blanket off the man, the paramedic revealed a pair of blue jeans and a long-sleeved polo.

Dr. Edmonds leaned over the patient, giving Rebecca the barest glimpse of a face covered in blood. "Fixed and constricted," he announced, examining the man's pupils. "I think you're right about the overdose."

"We administered .4 mgs of Narcan already, but his BP keeps dropping and he's barely breathing." He shook his head at the grim outlook.

Dr. Edmonds glanced up at him. "Thank you, Thompson. We've got it from here."

The paramedics withdrew, and Rebecca clipped a pulse oximeter on the man's index finger. Dexterous-looking fingers and a powerful wrist suggested a healthy physique. At least he had that much going for him.

Watching the clock, she counted the sluggish beats. "Only forty-one beats per minute. Oxygen is eighty-eight percent."

"Blood pressure is seventy over thirty-eight," announced the nurse on the other side.

"He needs more oxygen. Sandy, help me with the endotracheal tube so we can ventilate with an ambu bag. April, cut away his shirt and get him hooked up to the EKG. Rebecca, draw his labs. I want to know what's in him within five minutes flat," the doctor stated.

"Yes, sir." She stepped toward the cabinet to raid it for the necessary supplies.

The emergency tech peeked through the curtain, holding out a chart. "His friend is here. I got as much information as I could."

April, the nurse's aide, took the clipboard from her and scanned it. She turned toward the doctor. "His name is Adams."

The catheter in Rebecca's hands clattered onto the countertop as fear shrink-wrapped her heart.

"Can you hear me, Mr. Adams?" the doctor asked.

Adams is a common name
, Rebecca told herself. But she knew in her heart that it was Brant. Very slowly, she turned to look at him.

He lay with his face and hair caked the blood still oozing from the gash on his cheek. April had cut his shirt up both sleeves and down the torso, peeling back the two halves to reveal the muscle-plated chest that had been Rebecca's playground.

With no response from Brant and with Sandy's help, the doctor proceeded to insert the endotracheal tube through the laryngoscope into his mouth, tipping back Brant's head to get the tube down his throat. His chin stubble glinted under the bright lights. Rebecca rocked back on her heels, and the room went into a slow spin.

"There's a bruise here with a tiny puncture mark," Dr. Edmonds noted, frowning at a welt on his right anterior deltoid. "I wonder if he injected the drugs or swallowed them."

"He's not a junkie." Rebecca's voice sounded alien to her own ears. "He's a Navy SEAL. Someone did this to him."

Both the doctor and the aide looked over at her. "You know him?" the doctor guessed.

"Yes." Icy pinpricks stabbed the tips of her fingers and the top of her scalp.
Max. Max had gone after Bronco already!

He eyed her with concern. "I need another nurse in here!" he called through the door. "Have a seat, Rebecca, before you faint."

"I'm not going to faint." She clung to the counter behind her as shock drove the strength from her legs.

"Sandy, get that catheter in him and draw his labs for her," he said to the other nurse. "You can take them down the hall as soon as she's done," he added to Rebecca.

Relinquishing the paraphernalia to Sandy, Rebecca watched with a sense of surrealism as Sandy first catheterized Bronco then moved to his side to draw his blood.

"April, give him a saline bolus," the doctor instructed the aide on Brant's other side. Adjusting the pads on the electrocardiograph, he frowned at the intermittent hills that represented his slow heartbeats. "He'll need .5 mgs of Atropine every five minutes until his heart rate comes up to sixty."

Sandy filled two vials of blood. Stoppering them, she sealed a cup of urine next and handed them all to Rebecca to rush to the laboratory.

This has to be a nightmare. I'll wake up soon.

Rushing out the door to deliver the warm fluids to the lab, she collided with a tall figure in BDUs hovering just outside.

"Bullfrog," she exclaimed, startled to see him. "What happened?"

He shook his head. "He never came home last night. I found him outside of our apartment building. Someone must have attacked him."

"There's a puncture wound on his arm," she relayed.

His widening gaze locked onto hers. Neither one of them spoke aloud what they were thinking.

"I'm taking his labs down the hall," she added, with a quick glance over her shoulder. "Walk with me." Visitors weren't allowed in the ER, let alone back in the laboratory.

They moved down the hall in stunned silence. Bullfrog's hand, placed against the small of her back, helped to steady her. She left the blood and urine with the technician telling him to run a toxicology screen immediately. "Dr. Edmonds said five minutes," she told him. "I'll be right back for the results." Turning to Bullfrog, she added, "I need you to do something for me."

"Sure."

She led him to the break room. Retrieving Maya Schultz's business card from her purse, she pressed it into his palm. "Call this woman." Her shock abruptly gave way to helplessness. Tears swarmed her eyes. "Tell her what's happened to Bronco. Tell her we know who did this," she added, her composure eroding.

Bullfrog looked up from the card. He sent her a pained nod, lifted a hand briefly to her cheek, and turned away, heading for the lobby.

Rebecca raced back to the lab, running the last few yards to get there quickly.

"Please hurry," she begged the technician. She fought to keep herself together. A crushing weight pressured her chest.
How could Max do this to one of his own men?
Tremors began to wrack her spine. Her legs wobbled.
How could I have married such a monster and brought this upon Bronco?

In the back of the workroom, the printer spat out a sheet of paper. The technician quickly scanned it then passed it through the window to her. "Opioids," he stated. "They're interacting with the alcohol sugars in his bloodstream."

Rebecca hurried back to the room with her report. Handing it to the doctor, she noted that Bronco was still being ventilated. His vitals hadn't improved. If anything, they looked worse.

"I'll need another .4 mgs of Narcan," the doctor barked, adding the lab report to the clipboard. "Sandy, call ICU and give them a heads-up. We're transferring him upstairs before he goes into cardiac arrest on me."

Rebecca's thoughts flew to the homeless man who'd died only two rooms over, a couple of weeks ago. A cry of denial tore from her throat.
Not Bronco!

Reaching for his limp hand, she squeezed his ice-cold fingers and willed him to respond. But he lay as still as death, his heart beating so slowly that it was painful to listen to the telltale bleeps coming from the EKG.

White-hot rage rose from her chest to brand her consciousness. Through eyes that burned with banked tears, she watched Sandy administer the injection of Narcan via the IV. Seconds ticked by. Brant's blood pressure dropped to sixty-three over thirty-five.

Dr. Edmond's shook his head. "Another dose of Atropine. Once he's stabilized, we'll transfer him to ICU."

Chapter 15

The door separating ICU from its private lobby swung open. Rebecca's heart jumped up her throat as a gaunt doctor stepped through it, followed by a plump nurse. Dread ran in a cold river through her veins as the doctor took in the size of the throng awaiting word on Bronco's situation. She pushed to the edge of her seat, hopeful of news.

They'd been waiting four hours for word of Bronco's fate. Excused from her work, Rebecca had been the first to join Bullfrog up in ICU. Then several SEALs from the task unit had trickled in, including Sam Sasseville and Master Chief Kuzinsky. Later Haiku, Halliday, Hack, Teddy, Carl Wolfe, and Austin Collins arrived to keep vigil. Even Maddy had put in a brief appearance, bringing her baby, who'd provided a badly needed distraction.

Max, however, remained notably absent. It was all Rebecca could do to keep her accusations in check when Kuzinsky had passed on Max's regrets. As soon as Maya Schultz and her partner arrived, however, Rebecca had pulled them into the hall to share her suspicions. To her profound relief, they'd taken her more seriously than at their last encounter.

"You're all here for Brantley Adams?" the doctor asked to the room in general. He moved into their midst, clearing his throat before making his announcement. "The patient is presently stable. While we remain optimistic, his condition could deteriorate. It all depends on the strength of his heart and the extent of the damage to his brain."

Rebecca's lungs ached as she continued to hold her breath.

"We're monitoring him closely, but there's not likely to be any change soon. If you'd like to leave, simply relay your name and number to Nurse Kelly here—" He nodded at the middle-aged nurse—"and she'll call you in four hours with an update."

Four more hours!
Relief congealed into despair. Rebecca dropped her face into her hands and exhaled painfully. If only the prognosis were more encouraging. Bullfrog laid a hand on her shoulder and she turned toward him wordlessly, receiving the comfort she so badly needed.

"He'll pull through," he promised, not for the first time.

The sound of high heels crossing the linoleum had her glancing up. Investigator Maya Schultz had beckoned the doctor off to one side, where she flashed her badge and introduced herself. The doctor's blue gaze sharpened. Ben Metier joined them also, blocking Rebecca's view of the exchange.

"Would you like to go?" Bullfrog inquired.

"Wait one second."

She strained to hear Maya Schultz's words, but the other conversations taking place muddled her reception. Was Maya asking whether Rebecca's suspicions might be founded—that Bronco could have been intentionally drugged? The doctor opened the door behind them and invited the investigators to join him in ICU.

Encouraged, she left her name and number with Nurse Kelly and let Bronco's best friend take her to lunch.

* * *

Dr. Peterson divided an intrigued gaze between the two investigators sitting on the other side of his office desk. Ms. Schultz's pointed question had stirred his imagination.

Is there anything about the patient's condition that suggests he might have been attacked and deliberately drugged?

On the one hand, if he replied that there was, these two investigators would be up his butt wanting copies of all the related paperwork. On the other hand, HIPPA laws did not protect patient medical records from law enforcement. He was required to hand them over, even without a warrant. The thought of defending it in court dismayed him. However, he owed his medical degree to the Navy, and he'd watched every episode of NCIS that had ever aired on television. There was nothing like a good mystery to enliven his humdrum existence.

"Honestly," he said, measuring his answer with care, "there are several indications that he was forcibly subdued and drugged. First, he bears a number of cuts and bruises consistent with a struggle—but then he is a Navy SEAL. An older wound that had been close to healing on his face was torn wide open—we'll wait for his vitals to strengthen before we sew him up. Given the concentration of the opiate in his bloodstream, it's my opinion that he was injected with OxyContin dissolved in water, which concentrates it while making it easy to deliver in one powerful dose. It's downright lethal when mixed with alcohol."

The woman cocked her head at him. "What makes you think he was injected?"

"There's a bruise on his right anterior deltoid where his skin was punctured by what might have been a large hypodermic needle. Even if the patent were left handed, he wouldn't have injected his right deltoid so close to the bone. One, that would have hurt like hell. Two, he's got plenty of available muscle elsewhere on his arm."

"Tell me more about OxyContin and what it does," she requested.

"Once in the body, it breaks down, releasing a steady supply of oxycodone. Mixing oxycodone with alcohol depresses the central nervous system. Considering that his blood-alcohol level was .21, he should be dead right now. But he's in remarkable shape. His heart is strong, and that's what has kept him alive."