LITMIR.BIZ

      In the dim lighting, that was all she could read, but she could see that the papers were solid white. If the patient were contagious, the chart would be marked with a prominent red stripe. Abby swallowed hard. Her heart drummed against her ribs. This doctor was lying—if he even was a doctor. She needed to find a security guard, stat. But first, she had to get away. She composed herself just enough to keep from sinking under the doctor’s menacing glare and looming figure.

      “I’m sorry, Dr....” Abby waited but he did not supply a name. With each syllable, she inched herself away from the man and his patient. “I didn’t know we couldn’t pass through. Again, I’m sorry to disturb you, Doctor. I’ll just be on my way.” She turned and headed for the stairwell.

      “Oh, no, you don’t.” He was behind her in seconds. Over her. Around her like a giant spider. He grabbed the top of her arm and squeezed her flesh like a vise. His cold eyes flickered in the dim lighting.

      She trembled and fought against him, but her struggles were in vain as the grip of his stubby, sausagelike fingertips dug deeper and deeper into her skin. He pulled her tight against his stout belly. She had no hope of breaking free.

      Was this her just deserts after finally deciding she would not join the Amish church, defying the wishes of her father?

      She’d gone to school to become a nurse, but she hadn’t made her final decision about living the Plain life until recently. It had been time to put away one or the other and stop living on the fence. So last week, she’d laid aside her prayer Kapp and her frocks for good. She’d devote her life to nursing, delivering babies and helping others to stay healthy. But the choice had not come without a lot of pain, especially to her father, the Ordnung bishop.

      Her father’s words still rang through her head—a verse from the Psalms. “If you stand in the counsel of the wicked, you will become wicked.”

      Had she made the worst decision of her life? Right now, it certainly seemed that way. Tears filled Abby’s eyes. Crazy, desperate thoughts swirled around in her mind. She continued to try to break free of the doctor’s grip, but she could not come close to matching his strength. Her breathing came in short gasps. She would have yelled but there was no one to hear her.

      “You’ve been exposed.” The doctor’s tone mocked her as he dragged her across the hallway. “I’ll have to give you an injection, too.”

      “What?” Is he mad? “Please, stop. You’re hurting me. Let me go.”

      With his free hand, he produced another full syringe from the pocket of his scrubs. The needle shook as it came at her. His fingers closed in tighter around her arm as he yanked her sleeve high, exposing the skin above his grip. The hot prick of the needle stabbed her and the drug burned like fire as it entered her bloodstream. “What? What did you just give me?”

      The doctor yanked her to the end of the corridor and through the door to the stairwell, not seeming to care that he crashed the door frame’s metal edge into Abby’s forehead. The blow radiated across her skull. Nausea waved through her gut as the drug made her head light—too light. Her body began to collapse. She could feel her blood pressure fall...

      Please, Lord, help me.

      Finally, she felt his fingers release her. She slumped to the cold, tiled floor.

      The empty stairwell spun around her. The strange doctor had vanished. With all her might, she tried to reach for her cell phone. It was in her back pocket. But the drug was hitting her full force now. Her hand shook uncontrollably and the device dropped from her fingers. Her eyelids closed as she groped the floor desperately for the phone. But it was no use. She was going under and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

      Please, Lord...help...

      Abby closed her eyes and the darkness overtook her.

      * * *

      “Code Blue. Code Blue. Paging Dr. Jamison. Room 307. Code Blue. Dr. Blake Jamison.”

      The announcement blared through the overhead speakers. Everyone in the operatory stopped what they were doing and looked at Blake.

      Code Blue? How could there be a Code Blue? It signaled that one of his patients needed resuscitation, but that couldn’t be true. He had taken on exactly three patients since transferring to Fairview Hospital. They’d been recovering well, awake, alert and resting as of two hours ago. This had to be a mistake.

      “And clip.” He opened his gloved hand and waited for the nurse to place the suturing instrument in his palm. With a delicate touch, he closed up the tiny incision, returned the instrument to the nurse and removed himself from the operating area. The surgical staff would have to finish the cleanup after his first surgery at Fairfield Hospital of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Apparently, he had an emergency to look into.

      “This way, Doctor.” One of the nurses tugged at his sleeve, guiding him toward the doors. “Take the service elevator. It’s faster. I’ll show you.”

      A minute later, Blake entered a patient-recovery room where a crash team had assembled with a defibrillator. An unresponsive male patient, mid-to-late fifties, lay on the hospital bed. He was not one of the three patients Blake had seen earlier. Blake turned to the young nurse working near the monitors. “I’m Dr. Jamison. I was paged for a Code Blue, but this man is not my patient.”

      “Cardiac arrest,” she said. “Started about fifteen minutes ago. Heart stopped soon after.”

      “But he’s not my patient. I can’t treat him. Hospital policy. It could lead to a lawsuit and an insurance nightmare.”

      She glanced back at the chart and pointed. “Your name is the only one on the chart.”

      “That’s not possible.”

      She stared back at him with a go-ahead-and-look face.

      Blake picked up the chart and thumbed through the pages. Unfortunately, the nurse was correct. His name was there. And what certainly looked like his signature. “I’m telling you this is a mistake. I’ve never seen this chart before. I’ve never seen this patient before. What kind of operation do you run here at Fairview?”

      “This is no joke, Doctor. This man is in cardiac arrest and that chart says you’re his doctor. I’m just the floor nurse. I have nothing to do with doctor assignments.”

      Blake stepped up to the bedside, opposite the working crash team, and put aside the chart. The nurse was right. He was wasting his breath getting upset with her. He’d have to speak to the appropriate people at the appropriate time—after he had done everything he could to treat the patient. “What’s the history in a nutshell?”

      “A nutshell is all we have,” the nurse continued. “We have no idea. He came in this morning. A transfer patient from New York City. Some sort of insurance issue? Apparently, he’s recovering from laparoscopic cholecystectomy.”

      New York City? The place Blake had just escaped? Or tried to, at least.

      He shook the spiraling thoughts of his parents’ devastating

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