Read Online Weapon of Choice by Patricia Gussin - Free Book Online Page B

make the decision. I wasn’t invited
.
    â€œThen we moved to Longboat Key, it’s a barrier island off Sarasota. Norman was out in Tampa Bay when he got hurt, and this is the closest hospital, so I’m stuck here.”
    â€œNorman has blood clots, you said?” Victor asked his first question.
    â€œOh yes, they’re giving him heparin, but there’ve been bleeding complications. Something about getting the right dose. You can’t believe how many times they take his blood in that ICU. The man’s a pincushion. I can’t stay very long, can’t stand to watch, and the smell in there makes me woozy.”
    â€œNorman’s here? In the ICU?”
    â€œFor now. Once his blood tests come back okay, they’re going to move him into a private room. God knows we can afford it. You can’t believe the options and all the stock Keystone gave him. You’d be astounded.”
    Naomi still had not asked anything about him. Like, why would Victor be in a hospital cafeteria in Tampa?
    â€œI’d like to say hello to Norman.” Norman, on his mind since Sunday night, now an apparition?
    â€œOh, he’d love that. They restrict visitors to family only, but I’m sure I can talk them into letting you see him. You can’t believe how bored Norman is. They won’t even let him make phone calls.”
    They deposited their eating utensils in the proper bins andplaced their empty trays on the belt, Victor accompanied Naomi to the elevator, up to the seventh floor. He walked with her, unchallenged, into the surgical ICU. Victor had never been in the main ICU—Matthew’s room was separate—with its own entrance. He was surprised at the bustle of nurses and technicians and the cacophony of sounds. Victor’s parents had tried to convince him to be a real doctor, an M.D., but hospitals made him physically ill. Alone in the isolation room with Matthew, Victor had managed, but now as Naomi led him toward her husband’s bed, he felt a wave of nausea. He pulled out his handkerchief, now well used, and coughed into it.
    â€œSir?” a nurse looked up. “Are you okay? If you have any infection, you shouldn’t be in here. These patients are very ill.”
    â€œI’m fine,” Victor said. “Allergies.”
    The nurse had already turned away to tweak a patient’s IV line.
    â€œLook who’s here, Norman.” Naomi’s husband had been asleep, but she had not seemed to notice, or to care.
    Victor’s one-time mentor—turned traitor—slowly opened his eyes, looking about.
    Trouble focusing? Victor hoped not. He needed Norman alert, oriented, and motivated.
    Norman ran his right hand—the one not tethered to an IV board—through crew cut salt-and-pepper hair. “What do you need now?” he growled. “Can’t you people give me a moment’s rest?”
    Naomi stepped forward to adjust his pillow. “Victor Worth is here, darling.” She moved aside so Norman had an unobstructed view of Victor, and vice versa.
    â€œSorry about your injury,” Victor said as recognition dawned on Norman.
    â€œVictor? What are you doing here?”
    â€œRight now, I’ve come to check in on you,” Victor said. Could he overcome his disgust and discuss his son with this ruthless traitor?
    â€œWell, I’m just great right now.” Norman faked a smile. “Got some obscure clotting problem. Threw a pulmonary embolus. Went into cardiac arrest. They can’t get the blood thinners right. I had a gastric bleed, one thing after another—”
    â€œDarling,” Naomi interrupted, “I heard the doctors talking. They are going to move you out of ICU in a couple of days once the main danger passes. Good news, right?”
    â€œI want out of this place.” Norman sighed. “But I could live with a private room, a television, and a phone—anything would be a step up