Deadly Medicine (11 page)

“We better get moving,” he said as the tech emerged with the disk containing the patient’s CT scan. She handed it to Edward, and he placed it in his pocket, next to the syringe. He had no worries about the syringe falling out when he removed the disk, because he knew the disk wasn’t going anywhere. The patient would be dead soon, so the helicopter ride would be canceled, and there would be no need to send images to another physician.

When they arrived back in the ER, Edward shook his patient gently but had no response. The bleeding was compressing the brain and function was diminishing by the second. Perfect! Her respirations had become irregular, in an effort to change the blood pH and lower pressure in the brain.

“She’s crashing. We need to intubate,” he informed the nurse, and the ER came to life as various hospital personnel came running to help.

Just as he secured the breathing tube, the clerk called out from across the room. “I have the doctor on the line.” Edward briefly glanced at the monitor. Her heart rate had slowed and her blood pressure dropped, both reflexes aimed at decreasing the pressure inside the skull. He shined his penlight into her eyes and saw no reaction.

His pace was brisk and bouncy as he crossed the department to reach the phone. “Dr. Hawk here,” he said. “I’m afraid I won’t be needing your services after all.”

When he was through, the unit clerk grabbed him by the arm. “The family is here. Her husband and a sister and a few others. They’re in the counseling room.”

Nodding, he turned and walked in that direction.

“I’m sorry—” He had to try very hard to suppress his smile when the woman’s sister wailed.

“No, no, please, no,” the husband begged him. Edward felt at that moment that he held the power of God in his hands.

*

“Is it possible to get it out without cuttin’ it, Doc? This is one of my favorite lures.”

Jess chuckled at the patient who had a fishing hook poking through his eyelid. Miraculously, it had missed the globe and his vision was intact. “Not without ruining your good looks. I’d have to make a pretty big cut to pull this out.”

He didn’t hesitate. “Do it. I can’t get any uglier.”

Laughing again, Jess opened a cabinet and removed the equipment she knew she’d be using a few more times on this first day of fishing in the mountains. With anglers everywhere, they couldn’t help hitting each other as they cast their lines into the lakes and streams of Northeastern Pennsylvania.

The procedure took just a few minutes, and Jess triumphantly handed him his prized lure after she’d rinsed it in the sink. He followed her to the nurses’ station for his paperwork.

It was an unusually quiet Saturday morning in the emergency department, and Jess wondered why. Sure, many of the county’s residents and visitors were fishing this morning, but where were the heart attacks and diabetic emergencies and car accidents? She feared this was the calm before the storm.

Sitting at her computer, Jess typed in her password and saw an alert flashing on her screen. Lab results were ready. That’s odd, she thought. No patients were in the ER and she hadn’t ordered any tests. Cultures of wounds and urine went into the general nurse mailbox, and someone in that role checked them daily, because the doctor schedule precluded them from responding to issues in a timely manner.

After handing her patient his instructions and wishing him a good day, Jess clicked on the lab icon. Her breath caught when she read her message. Lab results were back on her patient Ward Thrasher. More than a month had passed since she’d ordered the tox panel on Ward, and she’d been waiting. Jess knew it would take time for the results. The tox screen on spinal fluid was an unusual test and had to be sent to a lab with specialized equipment. Jess had checked for results just about every day and was expecting them, but still, she was shocked to see them. Or was it fear? What would she find?

She’d been trying hard to keep Ward from her mind. She’d been back in the mountains for six weeks, and they’d seen each other only three times. Jess still wasn’t sure what direction her life was going, or what part Ward would play in it, and all Ward did was confuse her, with her questions and loving looks and pleading eyes. She loved Ward, but she wasn’t sure she wanted a life with her. She didn’t know what she wanted.

She’d been on a date with an accountant, a nice man with two kids in college and a beautiful lake home in the mountains. They’d enjoyed relaxed conversation and good food, washed down by an excellent bottle of wine. Yet when the night was over, Jess felt a dread like she hadn’t had since her last date with a man—the fiasco with Emory didn’t count—almost twenty years earlier. No matter how nice he was, she felt no spark and had no desire to kiss him good night, and feared he might try to plant a big wet one right on her lips. So, when they pulled into her driveway, she fled the car as soon as it stopped and told him she’d call him. She wouldn’t. Once inside, she’d settled into a bath and thought about the county coroner, a very nice butch she’d met on several occasions in the ER.

Wendy, the coroner, had asked her out. It was common knowledge that Jess had lived with Ward, and common knowledge that Ward was gone, also common knowledge that Jess was dating again. Jess had told Wendy she’d think about it, and she had. Day and night. Wendy was adorable, with brown hair cut short and blue eyes that sparkled with mischief. She owned a funeral home, which she’d inherited from her father, and lived above it, just around the corner from the Victorian Jess was renting. In addition to seeing her on those unfortunate occasions when her services were needed in the ER, Jess had seen Wendy walking Cleopatra, her energetic little poodle. They chatted, and on mornings when Jess wasn’t scheduled in the ER, she’d started taking her morning coffee on the front-porch swing just so she could see Wendy and Cleo as they walked by. Almost always, Wendy lingered, and the day before, Jess had asked her in for breakfast. She’d accepted, and now they had a date scheduled for that very night.

Jess was delighted and excited and nervous all at the same time, looking forward to her evening with Wendy more than anything since she’d come to the mountains. Yet she had to tell Ward. Somehow, the dates with Emory and John the accountant didn’t seem like cheating, but going out with another woman did. Jess needed to be sure Ward understood her, because she didn’t need any more guilt where Ward was concerned. She already felt like shit because of their breakup, because of the way she’d treated Ward, even though Ward’s binge had precipitated it.

Moving her computer’s mouse, Jess clicked on the appropriate box and Ward’s file appeared. Before her the screen lit up with the results of the spinal-fluid analysis for toxins. No cocaine was in her system, nor marijuana or any other of the typical drugs of abuse. The alcohol level was minimal. Not what Jess had expected. Even more shocking, though, was the positive result for flunitrazepam, more commonly known as Rohypnol, the date-rape drug.

Roofies typically rendered women comatose and vulnerable, but like most drugs, sometimes people had strange reactions to them. Intense violence after use of Rohypnol had been reported, and Jess suspected that was just what had happened in Ward’s case. It explained everything. Yet it explained nothing.

Why the fuck did she even order the test? She’d wanted answers, not more questions when she’d asked Dave in the lab to run the tox screen on Ward’s spinal fluid. She’d always felt uncomfortable about that night. First, Ward’s totally uncharacteristic violence. Then, George’s hesitance in answering the question about her alcohol intake. Finally, the quick and easy solution her father and Em had concocted to solve the problem. She’d gone with it, and she was ashamed to admit that getting Ward out of her hair had been what she wanted. Yet she suspected she’d betrayed Ward just to solve her own problems, and that guilt had eaten at her since. So much so she’d ordered the testing. Now that she had the answer, what did she do?

Jess closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. What the fuck was this about? It made no sense. How did that get into her system? Why? According to what they’d told her, George and Emory had been the only ones at the bar that night. Rohypnol was quick acting; someone had to have slipped it into Ward’s drink at the bar. If George and Em were the only ones at the bar, one of them had done it. But why? Neither had a motive for drugging Ward. What would they have done with her? Snuck her out of the bar under their coats to have their way with her, hoping the other didn’t notice? And no way were they in on this together. Emory and George weren’t even friends, let alone partners in crime. Besides that, George was a teddy bear, an older, happily married man who surely wouldn’t do something like this. And while Emory might have despised Ward, why would he want to rape her? It was Jess he liked.

Jess leaned back in her chair, eyes still closed, and considered the possibilities. It didn’t seem likely that rape was the motive. Robbery? Ward carried little cash—although most people wouldn’t have known that—but neither man needed money. George made a good living at the bar, and Emory’s landscaping business was flourishing. Then another idea came to her, and Jess’s breath caught in her throat.

Murder. What if Emory wanted Jess so badly he was willing to murder Ward to get her out of the way? He would drug her, lure her out of the bar, and drag her into his car, and Ward would never be seen again. Or he’d run over her in the parking lot when she was too confused to jump out of the way.

A chill came over her, and she rubbed both arms to chase it. She should have been happy to have this news. It exonerated Ward. At the same time, though, it put someone else—probably Emory, and possibly her father—in a whole lot of trouble.

What should she do now? Jess knew Ward was concerned about that night. She knew she should tell her. But if she did, Ward would pursue the truth. She’d pursue Jess, trying to convince her she was worthy of another chance.

Jess couldn’t deal with any of that. She clicked the printer icon on her computer screen, and instantly Ward’s labs were permanently recorded on paper. She folded the copy several times and placed it in her coat pocket for safekeeping, until she made a decision. The one thing she knew with certainty was she couldn’t share the lab results with Ward. Maybe eventually, but not yet. Jess wasn’t ready. She needed to tell Ward about her date with Wendy, though. She picked up the phone and dialed her number.

Foreign Bodies

Ward pulled her car to the side of the road and slapped the steering wheel. She was so overwhelmingly frustrated. Her GPS was useless. Gazing to her right through a break in the trees, she studied the weed-infested trail that led deep into a mature forest. On either side of this grassy lane, trees stood watch, and from the looks of things, they were successful in keeping out stray vehicles. She detected no hint of life or the lake that was supposed to be just off the main road. Glancing first down at her map and then at her car’s odometer, she puffed out her cheeks in frustration and leaned her head against the headrest for a moment of peace.

What had started off well had turned into a miserable day. She’d worked the Friday overnight shift in the ER and managed to snag five hours of sleep. When the staff called her at six in the morning to see a patient, she ran into Melvin, the ER security guard, who invited Ward to go fishing on this first day of the season. It seemed like a perfect way to spend the few hours she had off before her night shift, and so she accepted his invitation. He’d drawn a map on a hand towel and told her he’d meet her there later in the day. Ward had been looking forward to the outing until just a few minutes earlier, when her phone rang. Actually, she was fine when it rang, but not so good by the time she disconnected the call from Jess.

Calls from Jess had been scarce in the past months, and Ward was always excited when she saw Jess’s smiling face on her phone’s screen. She kept hoping Jess would call to tell her she wanted to patch things up or try again. To talk about their relationship. But Jess didn’t want to talk about it. She didn’t want to talk about anything.

Ward had pressed the green icon to accept the call and promptly made a wrong turn. After a moment of small talk, Jess told her she was planning to start dating again, and Ward’s world had been spinning in the wrong direction ever since. After hanging up the phone, Ward realized she was lost, and she’d spent the past thirty minutes trying to find her destination. After driving the same road a half dozen times, the local police pulled her over for speeding, and the officer was ready to ticket her until he realized she was the new ER doc. As happy as she was to be spared the ticket, she was pissed off, too. The news would be all over town by the time she made it back for her night shift. And now, frustration washed over her as she tried to decipher Melvin’s map. He’d drawn a line depicting a dirt road “three miles or so” from the last major intersection. Melvin would never make it as a cartographer, that was for sure. Was this grassy lane considered a dirt road? It didn’t look like it. But she’d traveled more than four miles from the intersection, doubled back twice, and it was the only road she’d come upon.

Could weeds wrap around car tires and destroy the car’s engine? Or its transmission? Or some other important part? She knew little about automobiles, but she didn’t think a car, even an SUV like hers, was designed to go down that road. It was meant for Hummers with drug runners hanging from the windows, not for exploration by mild-mannered physicians. She put her car in drive and forged ahead anyway.

Ward was tossed around in her seat until she slowed her car to a crawl. Thank God for four-wheel-drive, she thought as the wheels struggled for traction. Beneath all the grassy cover, the ground was wet. And scarring trees on both sides of the road, every hundred yards or so, Ward read signs.
Keep Out. Turn Back. No Trespassing. Private Property. Guard Dog on Duty. No Hunting. No Fishing. No Timbering.
They were all hand painted in white, on planks of wood that had been nailed at odd angles. Ward shook her head. The way her day was going, some mountain man with a gun was likely to pop up in the road and shoot her.