Read Online Left for Dead by Kevin O'Brien - Free Book Online Page A

the flower is probably from an orderly who’s warm for your form.”
    Claire rolled her eyes. “Just the same,” she murmured. “Could you throw it out for me, please?”
    Gathering up the old bandages, Sherita nodded. “Sure thing, honey.” She snatched the rose out of Claire’s water glass, then stuffed it in a plastic bag with the used bandages. “I’ll be back in a bit to help you get ready for your hubby.” She smiled. “Nervous?
    Nodding, Claire sucked at her fingertip, which still stung a bit from the thorn prick. “Scared,” she replied.
     
    “Well, I sold a couple of the single roses today,” Janice from the gift shop, said. Twenty-five years old, she was pretty—with trendy, black-rimmed glasses, short-cropped flaxen hair, and a clingy sweater that showed off her aerobicized body. She busily replenished the Altoid tins in the counter display.
    Sherita stood on the other side of the register from her. “Do you remember who you sold them to? It’s important.”
    Pausing, Janice glanced over the rims of her glasses at Sherita. “Hmmmm, a little kid and an old lady.”
    “You didn’t sell one to a man? A long-stem red rose?”
    Janice shook her head and went back to the Altoid display. “Not today.”
    Sherita glanced at the refrigerated locker with the glass door. All the cut flowers were on display in there—along with their prices. The single roses were ridiculously overpriced.
    “So—did this kid come in here and break his piggy bank for you?” she asked.
    Janice squinted at her. “What are you talking about?”
    “I’m talking about nine bucks for one lousy rose,” Sherita replied. “That’s a lot of greenbacks for a little kid to be throwing away.”
    Janice sighed. “He was buying it for his father. His mother was in a car crash yesterday, and she’s in a coma. They don’t think she’ll make it. So his dad sent him in here to get the mother a rose.”
    Drumming her fingers on the counter top, Sherita frowned. “And junior told you all this? He volunteered the information?”
    Janice nodded. “Yeah. Why? What are you getting at?”
    “Did it sound like he’d been coached?”
    “I don’t understand what you mean,” Janice said.
    “Never mind,” Sherita said, heading out of the gift shop. “Thanks, Janice.”
     
    “I need to find out if we have any current adult female comas. This one was in a car accident and admitted yesterday—or the day before.”
    The thin, gangly young man glanced up from his computer. “I can’t help you, Sherita,” he said. He was sitting at one of four desks in the empty office. The other employees in the billing department had left just a few minutes before—at five o’clock. But Sherita had caught Glen Lehman still at his desk, buying concert tickets online.
    “You have to be in hospital administration for us to give you information like that,” Glen explained. “And you’re not in administration, Sherita. So I can’t access it for you.”
    Sherita nudged him. “Not even if I buy you a six pack? Your choice of the brew.”
    “That’s all? Just a six pack of beer?”
    She sat on the edge of his desk. “That, and I promise not to kick the hell out of your skinny, white ass.”
    Chuckling, Glen started typing on his computer keyboard. “Coma patients,” he murmured. “Current, female…”
    He stopped clicking on the keys, then stared at the computer screen for a moment. “Closest thing we have to what you want is a twenty-year-old female, now comatose, admitted two nights ago. But she wasn’t in a traffic accident. She OD’ed.”
    Sherita frowned. “Can you get a listing of females recently admitted with injuries sustained in traffic accidents?”
    Sighing, Glen started typing again. “I should charge you another six pack, but since I’m such a prince…”
    Gazing at the screen once more, he shook his head. “Nothing. Closest I have for you is a female DOA from a traffic accident three days ago. All the other current