Deadly Medicine (37 page)

Ward wanted to just give her a modest dose of narcotics to bind in the empty receptors in her brain and ease her symptoms. After that, Jess was on her own.

She noticed Abby leaning against a railing at the far end of the porch and knew she should say something to her, and she would. Just as soon as she took care of Jess.

She found Jess in the kitchen, shakily lifting a glass of water to her pale lips. “I’ll tell the medics to give you morphine, but this should take the edge off for now. How long do you think it’ll take?”

Ward made it clear by her tone and the look she gave Jess that denial wasn’t an option.

Jess answered without hesitation. “I should start feeling a little better in twenty minutes.”

“Okay. Other than the sux, you don’t have any injuries? He didn’t punch you or anything?”

“No, just the sux. But believe me, that’s enough.”

“I’m going to give you IV fluids and some morphine, but I think you’ll be fine. We’ll check labs at the hospital. If you’re feeling better this afternoon, you can probably go home.”

Jess nodded but didn’t add anything else, and the wail of the ambulance siren was suddenly audible in the silence. Faint, but getting closer by the second.

“So tell me what happened,” Ward said.

“After I finished talking to you, I decided to get some work done. I turned on the computer and checked my e-mail. I had something from Wendy, an autopsy report on a young guy, a trauma victim with multiple broken ribs, a broken clavicle, facial trauma. I was suspecting cardiac tamponade or some other catastrophic injury. But he died from a venous air embolus.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah, that’s what I said. As much as I didn’t want to believe it, I figured I’d better check out the other deaths that happened under Hawk’s watch. I walked over to the hospital a couple of hours before my shift, and he cornered me in my office with a syringe full of sux. I don’t know how he knew I knew, but he did.”

“I’d called the ER looking for you. Maybe it tipped him off.”

“Maybe.”

The ambulance crew pushed their way into the room and the crowd parted, leaving a clear path toward Ward and Jess.

“I’m sorry, Ward. For not trusting you.” Jess’s eyes brimmed with tears, and she reached a trembling hand to close the two-foot gap between them. She squeezed Ward’s forearm, then raised her finger to gently brush Ward’s cheek. “You didn’t deserve to be treated the way I treated you. And even if I was going to push you away, I should have at least had the guts to tell you why. There’s something else I have to tell you, too.”

Ward turned to greet the medics, and her eyes met Abby’s. Before she could even smile, the medics pushed their way closer, and Ward was trapped by the barrier the stretcher created.

“We’ll talk later, Jess. Right now, let’s get you taken care of.”

The paramedics eased her onto their stretcher and began questioning her. One of them smiled at her in recognition. “Dr. Benson was given a large dose of succinylcholine, and the side effect is severe muscle pain. I want you to start an IV and give her a shot of morphine as soon you can. She’s really uncomfortable.”

As the medics set about their work, another siren sounded, and within a few minutes two state police officers walked into the cabin. One was a middle-aged man with hair graying at the temples, and the other was Ward’s age and could have been the centerfold on the women-in-uniform calendar. She was blond and cute and fierce-looking. The officers were pointed in Zeke’s direction. He’d taken a seat on the couch, and Ward suddenly realized he needed to go to the ER for an evaluation, as did Wendy. Both probably needed further testing to make sure Hawk’s terror hadn’t caused any serious injuries to their brains or their kidneys.

“Can I catch a ride with you?” Ward asked the medics. She knew it wasn’t protocol, but this was Garden, and Jess was the medical director for the ambulance, so she figured they might bend the rules on this occasion. “You can call me your acting medical director. I’ll fill in until Dr. Benson can return to her duties.”

“No problem, Doc,” the senior medic said to Ward. “Let’s get her in the rig.”

Ward took two steps toward Zeke and Wendy, who sat beside each other as they answered the officer’s questions. “I’m going with Jess. But you both need to come to the ER and have some tests. Zeke, that head wound needs a stitch, and you need a CT scan. Wendy, you need some IV fluids. As soon as you’re done with the officers, I want you there. Agreed?”

“I’ll bring them myself, Doc,” the cute, blond officer said as she winked at Ward.

Under other circumstances, Ward might have smiled, but she was too tired, too frazzled. She looked around for her friends. She’d abandoned them in order to care for Jess, and now she needed to let them know that she needed to stay until she was sure Jess and Zeke were okay. They were still her family, no matter what.

Abby was just climbing into the passenger seat of Frieda’s truck when Ward found them. Frieda was behind the wheel. “Hey, wait up!” she called.

Abby offered her a weak smile. “Hey,” she said.

“Where’re you going?”

“Well, you’ve got your hands full, Doc. Frieda’s going to take me home. Your car’s still at her house, but we’ll drop it off at the hospital on the way.”

Ward was about to protest, but then she realized it was probably the best move. Her attention would be elsewhere for the next few hours, and truthfully, she needed to focus on Jess. Having Abby at the hospital would be a distraction.

“Okay. That’s a good idea. I’ll call you later.” She wrapped her arms around Abby for a quick hug. Ward pulled her close, but Abby’s arms seemed to hang limply. “You okay?” she asked.

“Fine. Just a little tired.”

“Understandably. Go get some rest. And thank you.”

She pulled away and looked around Abby to Frieda. “Frieda, thanks so much. You guys really helped save the day.”

Frieda swatted away the compliment like a pesky fly buzzing around her face. “When are we golfing?”

Ward laughed. “I’ll call you.” Then she turned and followed the paramedics and Jess toward the ambulance.

Sutures

During the ambulance ride to the hospital, Ward could see a visible transformation in Jess. Her complexion seemed less pale. The restlessness subsided. Sweat that seemed to pool on her forehead and lip had evaporated, and while her hair still looked a little damp, she no longer appeared to have just gotten out of the pool. She appeared uninjured. She really was going to be all right. Ward sat back and closed her eyes. For the first time in twelve hours, she relaxed.

Jess seemed to have a good handle on her addiction, Ward realized. It had taken about twenty minutes for the symptoms of opiate withdrawal to subside, just as she’d predicted.

Good, Ward thought. No one at the hospital was likely to suspect a thing. Jess still looked like she’d been kidnapped, tied up, and sleep deprived, with her hair in disarray and her clothes a wrinkled mess, but that was okay. It was expected. As far as what the ambulance crew knew—and they’d seen her at the worst of her symptoms—Ward was certain they’d been paying more attention to the excitement of the crime scene and the bloody killer tied to the chair than the subtle details of Jess’s condition. Jess was fine, after all. The real action was still happening at the cabin, where the state police were taking statements and the local coroner and a bunch of ATV riders were going to make the news for helping bring down a serial killer.

A flurry of excitement greeted them in the ER, and while Ward was tempted to back off now that Jess was in capable hands, one look from Jess told her she needed to stay close by. Whether it was the psychological trauma of the kidnapping or the lingering anxiety from opiate withdrawal, Jess wanted Ward by her side.

For six months, that was all Ward had wanted. To be with Jess. For Jess to love her again, completely, the way she once had. For Jess to look at her with something other than contempt. And now, it seemed, all of her wishes had come true.

What had changed? Ward wondered. Had the near-death experience caused Jess to question the life she was living and the decisions she’d made? Was it dissatisfaction with the life she’d chosen to live in Garden? Or was it the relief that must have come with discovery that was allowing the real Jess to escape the biting shackles of secrecy that had held her prisoner for so long?

She squeezed Jess’s hand. It was probably a bit of all of those reasons that had caused Jess to open her eyes. It didn’t really matter. What mattered was she saw a glimpse of the real Jess in the eyes staring back at her, and she was happy.

“How do you feel?” the ER doc on duty asked Jess as he walked into her exam room. He nodded politely to Ward, and they both watched as the medics helped Jess onto the hospital stretcher and the nurses took over, attaching monitor leads and hanging the IV bag, adjusting the pillow and assessing their new patient.

“Achy all over, but much better since the fluids and the morphine.” Jess smiled. “And a little groggy. I’d like to just close my eyes and take a snooze.”

Ward was sure Jess had thrown in the last sentence as an after-thought, because the morphine was expected to cause drowsiness. Jess looked wide-awake to her.

“Probably the morphine. Just let me check you out and I’ll let you rest while we’re waiting for your lab results.” He asked Jess a series of questions about her medical history and then about her ordeal and finally examined her carefully, checking each body system from head to toe. When he finished, he told Jess to close her eyes and rest, promising she could leave the hospital later in the day if her potassium level was okay and her pain was tolerable.

“Just what you said,” Jess told Ward.

She shrugged at the compliment.

“Thank you for taking care of me, Ward.”

Ward looked up into the eyes she knew so well, and they held. Jess’s began to fill with tears, and hers soon followed. She retrieved tissues from a box on the counter and gave some to Jess before wiping her own eyes.

“How did this happen to you?” she asked after she regained control of her emotions.

Jess cleared her throat. “My broken wrist.”

She was shocked. Jess had been knocked from her bike by a car, a relatively benign crash other than the damage to her left wrist. The fracture required a surgical repair, and Jess had spent two months in one sort of cast or another.

“God, Jess. That’s been three years. You’ve been hooked on narcotics for that long and I never noticed? I’m such a jerk.” She closed her eyes and shook her head in disgust.

“No, no. It’s not your fault. Addicts are very good at hiding it.”

“Still, I’m a doctor. I should have noticed.”

“Well, you picked up the withdrawal crisis in a heartbeat.”

Ward didn’t tell Jess she’d broken into her house and found the large bottle of narcotics on her bedside table. That had certainly been a big clue. She wasn’t going to mention it, either. Things were going well with Jess; she refused to give her a reason to be angry. Jess seemed to find them without any help from her.

“Again, I’m a doctor. But how did I live with you for those three years—well, two and a half—and not figure this out?” She closed her eyes and thought back to the accident and the months that followed. Jess had naturally been depressed. It was the summer, and instead of being able to enjoy the outdoors and the good weather by swimming and golfing and having fun, Jess had been stuck on the patio reading, because even walking jarred her arm and caused pain. A leave of absence from work had been necessary, and while her disability policy had covered her salary loss, Jess was isolated from her colleagues and friends and the intellectual stimulation she thrived on. Ward’s schedule was even worse without Jess at the hospital, because she’d been one of the doctors called upon to help pick up the slack.

As she thought back to that time, she realized that’s when the changes in Jess began. She’d enjoyed their time together before the accident, but afterward, she withdrew from Ward. She went to work and did the same good job as always, but it seemed to drain her. After work, she wanted to rest and be alone. She declined invitations to play golf or hike, and didn’t want to travel. She cancelled a vacation to Italy they’d been planning. Even things like the theater, which had once entertained her, lost their appeal. When they moved to Garden, Jess had become even more distant. Ward had always thought Jess’s grief had been the cause, but looking back, she knew it had been going on for much longer. Since her wrist injury. If she’d only known.

“Why didn’t you tell me? I would have helped you.”

“Please, Ward. You would have been the first one to report me to the state board.”

Ward closed her eyes and rubbed her hand across them. Was that true? Yes, she would have been concerned about Jess’s ability to function on such high doses of medication, but she wouldn’t have just thrown her under the bus. Unless Jess was dangerous and refused to listen to reason. And then she realized Jess was correct. She would have turned her in.

Ward’s silence seemed to confirm Jess’s suspicion. “You would have been right, Ward. I shouldn’t have been practicing medicine.”

“You seemed okay to me, when you were at work.”

“Work is what I lived for. I still had some control there.”

“And now?”

“Now, I’m better. I take medication because I need it. For pain. I just also happen to need it because my body is used to it. But I’m not abusing it, Ward. I swear to you. I have a legitimate prescription from my doctor, and I’m only getting it from him.”

Ward looked up, alarmed. “You mean…you weren’t always getting it from a doctor?”

“Sit down,” she said, and didn’t speak again until Ward was seated. “I wasn’t too bad at first, Ward. I really took the pain meds as prescribed. But when I was cleared to go back to work, the surgeon just sort of wiped his hands and said good-bye. I’d been taking four to six pain pills a day for almost two months, and then one day, he just told me to stop. And I wasn’t taking them without cause. I really did have pain. So I tried some anti-inflammatory meds, and they relieved the pain to some degree, but within hours of my last narcotic, I was really shaky. I dug through the medicine cabinet and found a bottle of cough medicine with codeine. It took about half the bottle to calm me, but it worked. I was mortified. I knew exactly what was going on. I wrote a prescription in your name for thirty tablets. I vowed to wean myself off them, started taking half-tabs, less frequently. I couldn’t do it.”