Passage (64 page)

“I have to warn them!” the same woman’s voice said, loud even through the door, and rising ominously. “One if by land, two if by sea!”

“Uh-oh,” Nina said, leaning out the door to look. “It sounds like another nutcase just came in. I hope it’s just a schizo and not somebody on rogue. After what happened—” She stopped, looking nervous. “What I mean is, they’re so out of it, they don’t even know what they’re doing. They look at you, and they don’t even see you. It’s like they’re in this whole other place.”

Joanna wasn’t listening. The phone was ringing.

“Nina!” a man’s voice called. “John! I need some assistance here. Stat.”

“I gotta go,” Nina said, looking out the door. Three rings. Four.

“I’m fine!” the woman shrieked. “You don’t understand, I saw the signal! It was
real
!”

“Nina! Get out here! Guard!”

“Just leave the phone on the station desk when you’re done.” Nina went out, shutting the door behind her. Six rings. Seven.

“Hello,” Mr. Briarley said.

Relief flooded over Joanna. “Mr. Briarley?”

“Yes. Who’s calling?”

“I . . . it’s Joanna Lander,” she stammered. “I—”

“Oh, yes, Ms. Lander. Did you wish to speak to Kit?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll get her. Kit!” she heard him call, “it’s Joanna Lander,” and Kit came on the line.

“Oh, hi, Joanna. Look, I’m afraid I haven’t had time to look for the book or find out the things you asked about. Uncle Pat cut his thumb, and—”

“I know,” Joanna said. “Is he all right?”

“He’s fine, though I was really scared when I saw all that blood. I didn’t know a cut thumb could bleed like that.”

“ ‘Their hands and faces were all badg’d with blood,’ ” Mr. Briarley’s voice said in the background.

“Luckily, Mrs. Gray was here,” Kit said. “She bandaged it up till I could get him to the ER.”

“How did he do it?”

“A juice glass broke, and he was trying to pick up the pieces,” Kit said, and Joanna wondered if that was the whole story, or if he had been dismantling the kitchen again.

“But he’s okay?”

“He’s fine,” Kit said. “I was worried the emergency room might upset him, but it’s one of his good days.” She laughed. “He kept quoting
Macbeth
to the staff.”

“ ‘So were their daggers, which unwip’d we found,’ ” Mr. Briarley said, “ ‘unmannerly breech’d with blood.’ ”

He was fine. Not only fine, but having a good day.

“Who’s that on the phone?” Mr. Briarley said. “Is it Kevin?”

“I’d better go,” Kit said.

“If it’s Kevin, tell him the assignment is ‘The Wreck of the Hesperus.’ Pages 169 to 180. Tell him it will be on the final.”

“I’m glad he’s all right,” Joanna said.

“ ‘ “Oh, father! I see a gleaming light,” ’ ” Mr. Briarley said. “ ‘ “Oh, say, what may it be?” ’ ”

And so much for the good day, Joanna thought.

“I’ll call you as soon as I find the book,” Kit said and hung up.

He wasn’t dead. She had outside confirmation. Then why did she still have the feeling? It persisted, in spite of the relief she’d felt hearing Mr. Briarley’s voice, in spite of the fact that people didn’t die of cut thumbs. Maybe it’s a message of some kind, a premonition.

There was a sudden shriek from outside in the ER, and a clattering crash. “Mrs. Rosen,” Nina said, exasperated, “the British aren’t coming!”

“They are!” the woman said, her voice rising ominously. “I saw the light!”

The feeling’s a message, all right, Joanna thought, a message that you’re starting to sound just as crazy as that woman out there. Richard was right. You are turning into Bridey Murphy.

It wasn’t a premonition, or precognition, or proof that Mr. Briarley was dead. It was a contentless feeling, brought on by temporal-lobe stimulation. And what about the feeling that the
Titanic
is the key to the NDE? Doesn’t this prove it’s purely chemical, too?

“No,” she said stubbornly to the radio control board and the dangling wires. “It means something, and I’m going to find out what.” Which meant calling Betty Peterson back and going over the NDE accounts line by line, looking for clues.

Nina had asked her to take the phone back to the station desk. She picked it up and opened the door. The British are coming! woman had stopped screaming. Joanna leaned out the door to see if she was still out there.

She wasn’t, and Joanna couldn’t see Nina anywhere. The security guard was still lounging against the wall, and scrubsclad nurses were moving routinely between the trauma rooms. Halfway down the row a young man in a lab coat and running shoes—Dr. Carroll?—stood, earnestly reading a chart.

But there was no telling when the next rogue-raver or gun-waving gangbanger might show up. Joanna started for the side door, keeping a sharp eye out for anyone who looked dangerous. At least Vielle isn’t here, she thought, walking between two heart monitors. And maybe a few days away from the ER had given her a new perspective. Joanna went over to the station desk and set the phone down. The door of Trauma Room 2 opened, and an orderly came out, talking to a black nurse in a surgical cap and dark blue—

“Vielle!” Joanna said. She started across the crowded space toward them. “What are you doing here?”

Vielle had turned at the sound of her name. As she caught sight of Joanna, she grabbed compulsively at her right arm and cradled it close to her body as if protecting it.

“I thought you weren’t coming back till next week,” Joanna said. “What made you change—?” and saw what Vielle was protecting. No, hiding. It was a bandage, and it covered half her forearm.

“What happened?” Joanna said blankly.

“Didn’t you hear about Vielle getting shot?” the orderly asked.

“Shot?”

“This guy comes in, waving a gun around,” the orderly said, “and he says, ‘Where the—’ ”

“Don’t you have work to do?” Vielle said sharply. “The bed
in Four needs to be stripped. And mop the floor,” but she was looking at Joanna.

Joanna couldn’t take her eyes off Vielle’s bandaged arm. “You didn’t have the flu,” she said numbly. “You got shot.”

“Joanna—”

“You could have gotten killed.”

Vielle shook her capped head. “It’s just a flesh wound. It—”

“They told me you went home with the flu. Where were you? Up in the ICU?”

“No, of course not,” Vielle said. “The bullet barely creased the skin. I didn’t even have to have stitches.”

“That’s why you wouldn’t let me come over. You said you didn’t want me to catch the flu, but it was because you didn’t want me to know you’d been shot.”

“Joanna—”

“You told me you were going to stay home and get over it,” Joanna said. “Did you, or was that a lie, too, and you were back at work the next day because you couldn’t wait to let them take another shot at you?”

“I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d be upset,” Vielle said, “and I didn’t see any point in—”

“Upset?
Upset?
” Joanna said furiously, and Dr. Carroll and one of the nurses turned around to look at them. The security guard began to lumber to his feet. “Why should I be upset, just because my best friend has been
shot?”

“Keep your voice down,” Vielle hissed, looking anxiously toward the security guard. “This is exactly why I didn’t tell you, because I knew you’d overreact—”

“Overreact?”

“Problem, Nurse Howard?” the security guard said, heading toward them, his hand on his gun. “No,” Vielle said, “no problem.”

“Yes,” Joanna said to him, “where were you when the guy was waving a gun around?” She turned back to Vielle. “When exactly did you plan to tell me? Or did you plan to? If he’d shot you through the heart, would you have told me then?” and flung herself across the ER.

“Joanna—” Vielle called after her.

She pushed through the side door. Behind her, she heard Vielle say, “Cover for me. I’ll be back in a few minutes. Joanna, wait—”

Joanna ignored her and headed down the hallway.

“Joanna, please!” Vielle caught up to her just before she reached the stairs. “Don’t be angry,” she said, clutching at Joanna’s arm with her left hand. “The reason I didn’t tell you was—”

“Because you knew what I’d say,” Joanna said. “You’re right. I would have said it. Did you really expect me to stand idly by and watch my best friend get killed?”

“It was just a scratch,” Vielle protested. “He wasn’t shooting at me. I don’t even think he knew he had a gun. He was on rogue—”

“On rogue,” Joanna said, “which has caused a twenty-five percent increase in emergency room casualties.”

“You don’t understand,” Vielle said. “I was as much to blame as he was. I should have seen he was too far gone to reason with. I thought I could calm him down, and I took hold of his arm. The first thing the hospital memo said was, ‘Do not attempt to engage the patient.’ I had no business—”

“You have no business working in the ER,” Joanna cut in. “How many more warnings do you need? This is about as plain as it gets. You’ve got to get out of there.”

“I can’t. We’re shorthanded as it is. Two of our nurses are out with the flu, and the bad publicity means we can’t get subs. Look, it won’t happen again. They’ve hired an additional security guard. He starts tomorrow, and the hospital is talking about putting in a metal detector.”

“The hospital that responded to the last shooting by putting out a
memo?
Vielle, listen to me. You’ve got to transfer out now.”

Vielle was looking at her with an odd expression. “All right,” she said.

Joanna blinked. “You’ll ask for a transfer?”

“I’ll make you a deal. I’ll transfer out of the ER, and you tell Richard you can’t be his guinea pig anymore.”

Joanna stared at her. “Quit the project? Why?”

“You said you couldn’t stand idly by and watch your best friend get killed? Well, neither can I. I’m worried about you.”

“Worried about
me?”
Joanna said. “You’re the one with a bandage on her arm. You’re the one who—”

“You’re
the one who’s got shadows under her eyes practically down to her knees,” Vielle said. “Have you looked in a mirror lately?”

“I’m fine,” Joanna said.

“That’s what the woman in there just said, the one who keeps screaming, ‘The British are coming!’;the one who doesn’t realize she’s crazy. You’re nervous as a cat, you space out when people are talking to you. When you came down to the ER just now, you looked—”

“You
saw
me?” Joanna said, outraged all over again. “What were you doing,
hiding
from me? You were,” she said, suddenly remembering Nina looking anxiously around and then hustling her into the communications room. “You waited till you thought I’d gone to come out.”

“Don’t change the subject,” Vielle snapped. “You looked white as a ghost. You still look white as a ghost.”

“And how am I supposed to look? I just found out my best friend was shot by a lunatic.”

Stalemate. They stood there, bristling like a pair of dogs for a long minute, then Vielle said patiently, “You’re overwrought, you’re losing weight—”

“I’ve been busy,” Joanna said defensively. “The cafeteria’s always closed—”

“The cafeteria has nothing to do with your disappearing for hours, jumping if anybody talks to you. You know who you’re acting like?”

“Julia Roberts in
Flatliners?”
Joanna said sarcastically.

“Julia Roberts in
Mary Reilly.
She had shadows under her eyes, too, and she nearly got herself killed because she refused to stop working for Dr. Jekyll.”

“Richard’s not Mr. Hyde.”

“Richard
wouldn’t notice if you fell over unless it showed up on one of those scans of his. You have to tell him you can’t go under anymore.”

“I can’t,” Joanna said.

“Why not?”

Because it
means
something, Joanna thought. Because it’s important. “Richard doesn’t have any other subjects,” she said, “except Mr. Sage, and he’s useless. The progress report is due in two weeks, and if we don’t discover how the NDE works soon—” She broke off and started again. “If it’s a survival mechanism, it could be used to revive patients who’ve coded, and the key is the images I’m seeing in my NDEs. I have to figure out what they mean.”

Vielle was regarding her solemnly. “This is about Maisie Nellis,” she said wonderingly. “You think you’re going to make some big discovery about NDEs that’ll bring back patients whose hearts have given out. That’s why you joined the project in the first place, not because you could find out firsthand what NDEs were like or because Dr. Wright was Dr. Right. You did it because you thought you could save Maisie from drowning.”

“I don’t—”

“Nurse Howard,” Nina called, leaning her head out the side door. “Nurse Gilbert wants to talk to you.”

“Tell her I’ll be there in a minute,” Vielle said.

Nina’s head disappeared and then popped out again. “Where’s the fiberoptic gastroenterology scope?”

“Examining Room Two,” Vielle said, “lefthand side of the cabinet above the sink,” and Nina disappeared again.

Vielle turned back to Joanna. “When I first started in the ER,” she said, “I thought if I just worked long and hard enough, I could fix everything, I could save everybody’s life.” She smiled wryly. “You can’t. You’re only human.”

“You still have to try,” Joanna said.

“Even if it means risking your own health? And don’t tell me about wanting to die like Sullivan or Gilbert, whichever one it was, because, trust me, dying isn’t something you want to do. I work with death every day in there. It’s something to avoid at all costs.”

“Then why are you still working in there?”

Nina leaned out again. “It’s locked.”

“The key’s in the station desk. Top drawer, right side.”

“And Stan wants to know if he’s supposed to work a double shift tonight.”

Vielle sighed. “Tell him to ask Mr. Avila in Ops. He’ll know what’s happening.”

He’ll know what’s happening. “Ask Mr. Briarley,” the bearded gentleman had told the steward. “He’ll know what’s happening.” He was right. The Mr. Briarley on board had remembered Ricky Inman and “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.”

He’d remember what he had said in class. I should have asked him there in the writing room, Joanna thought. He would have been able to tell me, and then, with a shock of comprehension, That’s why he was there. Not because he was dead. Because he knew the answer.