the nurses practically needed a team of bloodhounds to track down the doctor on duty, who had a genius for being somewhere else and not hearing his page.
Then a patient, a thirty-two-year-old mother of two, had gone sour on them. She was in for a ruptured appendix and had been very sick for several days but was recovering. Tonight, just after supper, she had been walking to the bathroom and suddenly slumped to the floor. A blood clot had lodged in her pulmonary artery, and she was gone, despite all their efforts. It happened sometimes, but the shock never really lessened. The only thing that had changed was that Karen had learned how to work through the shock, to keep going, to push it away. All nurses and doctors had to learn that, or they couldn't function. But the kicker was when some idiot let a nineteen-year-old boy, wacked out on drugs, escape from the psych unit, where he had been taken because of the security. Some security. And where had the kid headed? Straight to the surgical floor, where all the good dope could be found. He had shed his hospital gown somewhere along the way. Stark naked, his pupils so contracted he looked like an alien, hair standing out in wild tangles, he had wrecked the desk looking for drugs. Finally, he had found the locked cabinet, but Judy Camliffe, the floor charge nurse, had the key in her pocket. Security got there as he was trying to tear the metal doors apart. Unfortunately, subduing a naked man is tricky; there are no clothes to grab, and bare skin is slippery. The kid fought free so many times Karen lost count. They wrestled in the halls, upsetting carts, dumping files and charts everywhere, waking patients who then either became alarmed or decided they needed more pain medication. By the time the kid was finally subdued, the surgical floor was a wreck. By the time the nurses finished with their shift, so were they.
The message was probably from a salesman or a charity; she hadn't had time yet to make friends with any of her new neighbors, and all of her other friends were nurses who knew what shift she worked and wouldn't call to chat. She couldn't think of any remotely urgent reason she should listen to her messages, but still she dropped her bag and went over to the machine. She wouldn't be able to sleep knowing that red light was blinking.
Out of habit, she picked up the notepad and pen she always kept by the phone, just in case there might actually be a call she needed to return. She punched the play button and listened to the tape rewinding. After some whirring and a couple of clicks, a drawling baritone voice broke the quiet of the room. For some reason, her breath gave a little hitch. The voice was somehow beguiling, with warm, dark, pure masculine tones that quivered along her nerve endings, almost as if she had been touched. Even disguised by the drawl, there was a hard edge of authority evident as well. He said, "Miss Whitlaw, this is Detective Marc Chastain with the New Orleans Police Department. I need to talk to you concerning your father. You can reach me at—"
He recited the number, but Karen was so taken aback she didn't write down a single digit. Hastily, she punched the stop button, then replay. When the whirring and clicking stopped, she listened again to the brief message and once again was so distracted by his voice that she almost missed the number a second time. She scribbled it down, then stared at the pad in a fog of fatigue and bemusement. Dexter was evidently in trouble and thought she would bail him out. No, he thought Jeanette would bail him out; he couldn't know his wife had been dead for six months. Had the detective said " Miss Whitlaw" or " Mrs . Whitlaw"? His drawl had slurred the word. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
She couldn't resist. She replayed the message one more time, as much to hear that voice as to determine if he had thought he was calling her or her mother. Listening closely, she
Then a patient, a thirty-two-year-old mother of two, had gone sour on them. She was in for a ruptured appendix and had been very sick for several days but was recovering. Tonight, just after supper, she had been walking to the bathroom and suddenly slumped to the floor. A blood clot had lodged in her pulmonary artery, and she was gone, despite all their efforts. It happened sometimes, but the shock never really lessened. The only thing that had changed was that Karen had learned how to work through the shock, to keep going, to push it away. All nurses and doctors had to learn that, or they couldn't function. But the kicker was when some idiot let a nineteen-year-old boy, wacked out on drugs, escape from the psych unit, where he had been taken because of the security. Some security. And where had the kid headed? Straight to the surgical floor, where all the good dope could be found. He had shed his hospital gown somewhere along the way. Stark naked, his pupils so contracted he looked like an alien, hair standing out in wild tangles, he had wrecked the desk looking for drugs. Finally, he had found the locked cabinet, but Judy Camliffe, the floor charge nurse, had the key in her pocket. Security got there as he was trying to tear the metal doors apart. Unfortunately, subduing a naked man is tricky; there are no clothes to grab, and bare skin is slippery. The kid fought free so many times Karen lost count. They wrestled in the halls, upsetting carts, dumping files and charts everywhere, waking patients who then either became alarmed or decided they needed more pain medication. By the time the kid was finally subdued, the surgical floor was a wreck. By the time the nurses finished with their shift, so were they.
The message was probably from a salesman or a charity; she hadn't had time yet to make friends with any of her new neighbors, and all of her other friends were nurses who knew what shift she worked and wouldn't call to chat. She couldn't think of any remotely urgent reason she should listen to her messages, but still she dropped her bag and went over to the machine. She wouldn't be able to sleep knowing that red light was blinking.
Out of habit, she picked up the notepad and pen she always kept by the phone, just in case there might actually be a call she needed to return. She punched the play button and listened to the tape rewinding. After some whirring and a couple of clicks, a drawling baritone voice broke the quiet of the room. For some reason, her breath gave a little hitch. The voice was somehow beguiling, with warm, dark, pure masculine tones that quivered along her nerve endings, almost as if she had been touched. Even disguised by the drawl, there was a hard edge of authority evident as well. He said, "Miss Whitlaw, this is Detective Marc Chastain with the New Orleans Police Department. I need to talk to you concerning your father. You can reach me at—"
He recited the number, but Karen was so taken aback she didn't write down a single digit. Hastily, she punched the stop button, then replay. When the whirring and clicking stopped, she listened again to the brief message and once again was so distracted by his voice that she almost missed the number a second time. She scribbled it down, then stared at the pad in a fog of fatigue and bemusement. Dexter was evidently in trouble and thought she would bail him out. No, he thought Jeanette would bail him out; he couldn't know his wife had been dead for six months. Had the detective said " Miss Whitlaw" or " Mrs . Whitlaw"? His drawl had slurred the word. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
She couldn't resist. She replayed the message one more time, as much to hear that voice as to determine if he had thought he was calling her or her mother. Listening closely, she
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