LITMIR.BIZ

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To her they were conditions in need of curing.

      “Got your choice of a bad case of stomach cramps in bed K, possible urinary track infection in bed L, some woman complaining of the worst back pains she’d ever had in bed M or—”

      The electronic back doors flew open as four paramedics charged in, pushing two gurneys between them. A much-battered woman lay very still on the first, a screaming child on the second.

      “Incoming,” Alix announced, snapping to life. “Looks like you’re on, Doctor.”

      Terrance wished she’d stop calling him that. She sounded so formal, so distant. He fell into step beside her, wondering if he could get used to the new Alix.

      But he supposed that he had it coming to him.

      He couldn’t afford to dwell on the past now. This was a bona fide emergency he had before him. Terrance prayed that the week he’d spent at the hospital in Boston was enough to refresh his memory about how to deal with whatever came his way.

      “Oh, God,” Alix groaned. Her eyes were focused on the second gurney, on the child who looked to be just a little older than her own daughter. “What happened?” she demanded of the closest paramedic.

      “Mother’s got a history of unstable mental behavior,” the man with “Jerry” stitched on his uniform pocket answered. Details came spilling out as quickly as vital signs ordinarily did. “Happened at the courthouse. She was despondent over a custody hearing. Grabbed the little girl and ran up to the roof. Jumped holding the kid’s hand.” He saw Alix looking from one gurney to another. “She’s DOA, Doc, just waiting for you to make the official call.”

      “And the little girl?” Alix wanted to know, raising her voice above the screaming child.

      The head of the second team rattled off the small victim’s vital signs. The readings could all be far better, but there was reason to hope.

      “How is it she’s still breathing?” Terrance marveled.

      “Kid fell on top of the mother,” he was told by the paramedic on the gurney’s other side.

      “Probably saved her life,” Alix commented. She looked up. “Wanda?”

      The head nurse understood her shorthand and pointed. “Room four’s free.”

      Sliding her arms through the sterile, yellow paper gown one of the nurses was holding out for her, Alix never took her eyes off the child.

      “You know the way,” she told the second team. Together they hurried down the corridor.

      “Hey, what about Mom?” the first paramedic wanted to know.

      Alix spared the dead woman a glance. “She wasn’t a mom, she was a monster.” She looked at Terrance. For a moment she thought he almost appeared lost. “I’ll leave the honor of calling it to you, Doctor. Welcome to Blair,” she added dryly.

      With that Alix hurried alongside the gurney into Room Four to do everything in her power to save the life of an innocent child whose only sin was to have the misfortune of being born to the wrong woman. Mentally she recited a prayer as the doors closed behind her.

      A moment later a man came tearing in through the same electronic doors that had parted to admit the two teams with their gurneys. Frantic, he grabbed the first person he encountered, an orderly who spoke next to no English and looked terrified by the man’s demeanor.

      “My little girl, they just brought her in.” The man looked up and down the hall. Everything blurred before him. “She’s only two—”

      There was barely harnessed hysteria in the man’s voice. Terrance looked up from the bloodied woman on the gurney. Even if he were the most skilled doctor in the world, he could do nothing for her now.

      But there was something he could do for the father.

      Placing his body between the gurney and the man, he stopped the latter from plowing into it. Terrance clamped a hand on the man’s shoulder. “They’ve taken her into the exam room.”

      It took a second for the words to process. “Is she…is she…?” He couldn’t bring himself to utter the unutterable.

      Terrance’s hand remained on the man’s shoulder, holding him in place. “She’s alive,” Terrance assured him.

      “And my wife?” Utterly beside himself, the man was blind to the still figure that lay on the gurney directly behind Terrance.

      Terrance noted that the man referred to the woman as his wife, not his ex-wife. There were feelings there, he judged, vividly brought out by the tragic events of the moment.

      He wondered if there were doctors who got used to saying this. He knew he didn’t. “I’m sorry. She didn’t make it.”

      For a second Terrance thought the man was going to crumple before him at his feet. He seemed to get weak at the knees and sagged against Terrance as he saw the body of his wife.

      “Maybe it’s better this way. Maybe Jill’ll finally be at peace.” There were tears in his eyes as he turned them toward Terrance. “But why did she have to try to take Wendy with her? She’s just a little girl, a baby.” His voice hitched badly. “She’s got her whole life in front of her.”

      It never made any sense, but Terrance tried to find an explanation for him.

      “Maybe your wife thought that Wendy couldn’t survive without her.” That was the most common psychological profile when it came to mothers who killed their children and then themselves. It revolved around a fear that the children left behind couldn’t really function in a world without the parent.

      The man didn’t seem to hear. Instead he began to look around frantically, heading for the first curtained bed. “Where is she? Where did they take Wendy?”

      Terrance drew him away before he could frighten a patient. “To Room Four for examination.”

      He indicated the room Alix and the nurses had entered. The man hurried over to it. Terrance was right behind him, wondering if the man, in his grief, was going to have to be restrained. He cut him off before he had a chance to enter the room.

      “They’re doing all they can for her. If there’s even an infinitesimal chance of saving your daughter, they will. Dr. DuCane’s with her right now, and they’re sending for an internal surgeon.”

      At least, he assumed they were. Terrance knew he had to keep up a steady stream of conversation to distract the man. It was the best service he could offer in this situation. He knew how to treat common ailments, but what was going on behind the closed swinging doors to his right was beyond the scope of his expertise. Surgery for him meant removing pieces of glass from a cut or stitching up a simple wound.

      Cushioned fall or not, the little girl they had just brought in was going to need some serious surgery—and someone who was up on what they were doing. That left him out.

      Terrance thought of the lounge where patients’ family members waited for the results of operations. He’d passed it on his way in this morning. “Why don’t I take you someplace where you can sit down and—”

      But the man shook off the hand that Terrance placed on his arm. “I don’t want to sit. I want to be right here. Right here,” he repeated numbly, “in case they need me.”

      Angling around Terrance, he tried to get a better look through the windowed portion of the swinging doors. There was a ring of people around the table. He could make out the small form on the gurney.

      “She’s so little,” he sobbed.

      “Somehow they mend quicker when they are.” Terrance knew he was mouthing every platitude he could think of, but he needed to calm the man down. “She’s going to be all right.”

      He saw the head nurse he’d met only minutes ago looking in his direction. He could tell by her expression that she’d overheard him. Wanda

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