Life Support (26 page)

He turned to her, his expression so ugly she retreated a step. "You listen to me, Dr. Harper. People buy into Brant Hill because they want a life free of worries, free of fears. They've worked hard all their lives, and they deserve the luxury. They can afford it. They know they'll get the best medical care in the world. They do not need to hear some crackpot theory about a killer brain disease in their food."

"Is that all you're concerned about? Your patients' ease of mind?"

"Ease of mind is what they pay for. If they lose trust in us, they'll start packing up and selling out. It would turn Brant Hill into a ghost town."

"I'm not trying to tear down Brant Hill. I just think you should be monitoring your residents for symptoms."

"Think of the panic that would cause. Our food is safe. Our hormones come from reputable drug companies. Even the Public Health Department agrees there's no reason to be monitoring any symptoms. So stop trying to scare our residents, Dr. Harper. Or you'll find an attorney knocking at your door." He turned and began to walk away.

"What about Robbie Brace?" she blurted out.

"What about him?"

"I find it very disturbing that he was killed right after he learned about Mackie's diagnosis." There, she had said it. She had come right out and voiced her suspicions, and she fully expected Wallcnberg to lash back in defense.

Instead, he turned and looked at her with an eerily unruffled smile.

"Yes, I hear you've been pushing that angle on the police. But they've dropped the theory because they can find no evidence whatsoever of any connection." He paused. "By the way, they asked me a number of questions about you."

"The police? What questions?"

"Whether I was aware of any relationship between you and Dr. Brace? Did I know he'd brought you into our clinic building late at night?" The smile deepened until it looked more like a snarl. "I find it fascinating, the sexual attraction you women have for black men."

Toby's chin jerked up in startled rage. She stepped toward him, her fury propelling her forward. "Goddamn you. You have no right to say that about him."

"Is everything all right, Carl?" a voice said.

Toby turned sharply to see a man, tall and almost completely bald, standing nearby. He was the same elegantly dressed man who'd stood beside Wallenberg during the graveside services. He was staring at her with some trepidation, and she realized her face was flushed with rage, her hands bunched into fists.

"I couldn't help overhearing," the man said. "Would you like me to call someone, Carl?"

"There's no problem here, Gideon. Dr. Harper was just feeling a bit"�again, that nasty, satisfied smile�"distraug*t over Robbie's death."

You bastard, thought Toby.

"We have a board meeting in half an hour," said the bald man.

"I haven't forgotten." Wallenberg looked at Toby, and in his eyes she saw the glint of triumph. He had pushed her over the edge, had made her lose her temper, and this man named Gideon had witnessed it. Wallenberg was the one in control, not her, and he was communicating that fact by his smile.

"I'll see you at the meeting," said the bald man. And with a last, concerned glance at Toby, he walked away.

"I think there's nothing more to discuss," said Wallenberg, and he too started to leave.

"Only until the next case of CJD shows up," she said.

He turned and gave her one last, pitying look. "Dr. Harper, can I give you some advice?"

"What advice?"

"Get a life."

I have a life, thought Toby as she angrily gulped coffee in the ER staff room. Goddamnit, I do have a life. Maybe it was not the life she'd visualized as a young doctor in training, not the life she would have chosen. But sometimes one could not choose, sometimes one was handed difficult circumstances. Duties, obligations.

Ellen.

Toby drained her coffee and poured another, hot and black. It was like tossing more acid into her stomach, but she desperately needed the caffeine. Robbie's funeral had cut into her usual sleep schedule, and she had managed to catch only a few hours of rest before coming to work last evening. It was now six in the morning and she was functioning purely on automatic reflexes and occasional bursts of primitive emotion.

Anger. Frustration. She was feeling both at the moment, knowing that even when this shift was over, when she finally did walk out the hospital doors in an hour and a half, it would be to walk into another set of responsibilities and worries.

Get a life, he'd said. And this was the life she happened to have, the one that had been placed on her shoulders.

Yesterday evening, as she'd gotten dressed for work, she'd looked in the mirror and realized some of her hairs were not blond, but white.

When had that happened? When had she passed over from youth into the frontiers of middle age? Even though no one else would have noticed those hairs, she had plucked them out, knowing they would grow back just as white. Dead melanocytes don't regenerate. There is no fountain of youth.

At seven-thirty, she finally stepped out the ER doors and paused to inhale a breath of morning air. Air that didn't smell of rubbing alcohol and disinfectant and stale coffee. It looked like it would be a fair day. Already the mist was thinning, revealing faint patches of blue sky. It made her feel better, just to see that. She had the next four days off to catch up on her sleep. And next month, she had two weeks' vacation scheduled. Maybe she could leave Ellen with Vickie, make it a real vacation. A hotel on a beach. Cold drinks and hot sand. Perhaps even a fling at romance. It had been a long time since she'd slept with a man. She'd hoped it would happen with Dvorak. She'd been thinking about him a lot lately, in ways that could bring an unexpected flush to her cheeks. Since their one and only lunch, they'd spoken on the phone twice, but their conflicting schedules made it hard to meet.

And the last time they'd talked, he'd sounded distant. Distracted. Have I scared him off so quickly, then?

She forced Dvorak out of her mind. It was back to thinking about fantasy men and tropical destinations.

She crossed the parking lot and got into her car. I'll call Vickie this afternoon, she thought as she drove home. If she can't or won't watch Mom, then I'll hire someone for the week. To hell with the cost. For years Toby had faithfully set aside money for her retirement. It was time to start spending it now, enjoying it now.

She turned onto her street and felt her heart suddenly do a flipflop of panic.

An ambulance and a police car were parked in front of her house.

Before she could turn into her own driveway, the ambulance drove off with lights flashing and sped away down the street. Toby parked the car and ran into the house.

There was a uniformed cop standing in her living room, writing in a spiral notebook.

"What happened?" said Toby.

The cop looked at her. "Your name, Ma'am?"

"This is my house. What are you doing here? Where's my mother?"

"They just took her to Springer Hospital."

"Was there an accident?"

Jane's voice said, "There was no accident."

Toby turned to see Jane standing in the kitchen doorway. "I couldn't wake her up," said Jane. "So I called the ambulance."

"You couldn't wake her? Did she respond at all?"

"She couldn't seem to move. Or speak." Jane and the policeman exchanged glances, a look that Toby couldn't interpret. Only then did the question occur to her, Why was a policeman in her house?

She was wasting time here. She turned to leave, to follow the ambulance to Springer.

"Ma'am?" the cop said. "If you'll wait, someone'll be here to talk to you�" Toby ignored him and walked out of the house.

By the time she pulled into the Springer Hospital parking lot, she'd already imagined the worst. A heart attack. A stroke. Ellen comatose and on a ventilator.

One of the day shift nurses met her at the front desk. "Dr. Harper�"

"Where's my mother? An ambulance was bringing her in."

"She's in room two. We're stabilizing her now. Wait, don't go in yet�" Toby pushed past the front desk and opened the door to room two.

Ellen's face was hidden from view by the crowd of medical personnel working around the gurney. Paul Hawkins had just finished intubating. A nurse was hanging a fresh TV bottle, another was juggling blood tubes.

"What happened?" said Toby.

Paul glanced up. "Toby, can you wait outside?"

"What happened?"

"She just stopped breathing. We had severe bradycardia, but the pulse is back up�"

"An Mi?"

"Can't see it on EKG. We're still waiting for cardiac enzyme results."

"Oh my God. Oh my God . . ." Toby squeezed forward to the gurney and took her mother's hand. "Mom, it's me."

Ellen didn't open her eyes, but her hand moved, as though to pull away.

"Mom, it's going to be all right. They're going to take good care of you."

Now Ellen's other hand began to move, thrashing against the mattress.

A nurse quickly snatched Ellen's wrist and looped a restraint around it.

The sight of that frail hand trapped and struggling against the cloth cuff was more than Toby could bear. "Does it have to be so tight?" she snapped. "You've already made a bruise�"

"We'll lose the IV."

"You're cutting off her circulation!"

"Toby," said Paul, "I want you to wait outside. We've got everything under control."

"Mom doesn't know any of you�"

"You're not letting us do our job. You have to leave."

Toby took a step back from the gurney and saw that they were all looking at her. She realized Paul was right, she was getting in the way, making it difficult for them to make the necessary decisions. When she was the physician in charge of a critical case, she never allowed the patient's family to remain in the room. Neither should Paul.

She said, softly, "I'll be outside," and she walked out.

In the hallway, a man was waiting for her. Early forties, unsmiling. A monk's haircut. "Dr. Harper?" he said.

"Yes."

Something about the way he approached her, the way he seemed to be sizing her up, told her this was a cop. He confirmed it by showing her his badge. "Detective Alpren. May I ask you about your mother?"

"I want to askyou a few questions. Why was a cop in my house? Who called you people?"

"Ms. Nolan did."

"Why would she call the police for a medical emergency?"

Detective Alpren pointed toward an empty exam room. "Let's step in there," he said.

Bewildered, she followed Alpren into the room. He closed the door.

.< is f}, .S Si!, I "How long has your mother been ill?" he asked.

"Are you referring to her Alzheimer's?"

"I mean her current illness. The reason she's here right now."

Toby shook her head. "I don't even know what's wrong with her yet . .

."

"Does she have any chronic illnesses other than the Alzheimer's?"

"Why are you asking me these questions?"

"I understand your mother's been ill for the last week. Lethargy.

Nausea."

"She's seemed a little tired. I assumed it was a virus. Some sort of gastrointestinal upset�"

"A virus, Dr. Harper? That's not what Ms. Nolan thinks."

She stared at him, not understanding any of this. "What did Jane tell you? You said she called you�"

"Yes."

"I'd like to talk to her. Where is she?"

He ignored the question. "Ms. Nolan mentioned certain injuries. She said your mother complained about burns on her hands."

"They healed weeks ago. I told Jane what happened."

"And the bruises on her thigh? How did she get those?"

"What bruises? I'm not aware of any bruises."

"Ms. Nolan says she asked you about them two days ago. That you couldn't explain them."

"What?"

"Can you explain the bruises?"

"I want to know why the hell she's saying these things," said Toby.

"Where is she?"

Alpern studied her for a moment. Then he shook his head. "Given the circumstances, Dr. Harper," he said, "Ms. Nolan doesn't wish to be contacted."

After the CT scan, Ellen was admitted to a bed in the medical ICU, and Toby was allowed to visit her again. The first thing she did was peel back the sheets and look for the bruises. There were four of them, small, irregular blotches on the outer left thigh. She stared at them in disbelief, silently railing at herself for being so blind. How and when did this happen? Did Ellen injure herself? Or were those the marks left by someone else's hand, repeatedly pinching that fragile skin? She covered her mother's legs with the sheet and for a long time stood gripping the siderail in silent fury, trying not to let rage cloud her judgment. But she couldn't suppress the thought, It Jane did this, I'm going to kill her.

There was a tap on the window, and Vickie came in. She didn't say anything as she took her place across from Toby.

"She's in a coma," said Toby. "They just did the head scan. It appears she's had a massive intracerebral bleed. Nothing they can drain. We just have to watch. And wait."

Vickie remained silent.

"Everything's been so crazy this morning," said Toby. "They noticed bruises on Mom's thigh. Jane's telling the police I did it. She's actually got them thinking�"

"Yes, she told me."

Toby stared at her, dismayed by the flatness of her sister's voice.

"Vickie�"

"Last week, I told you Mom was sick. I told you she was throwing up.

But you didn't seem at all concerned."

"I thought it was a virus�"

"You never took her to a doctor, did you?" Vickie looked at her as though studying a creature she'd never seen before. "I didn't tell you, but Jane called me yesterday. She asked me not to mention it to you. But she was worried."

"What did she say? Vickie, what did she say?"

"She said . . ." Vickie released a shaky breath. "She said she was concerned about what was happening. When she first took the job, she noticed bruises on Mom's arms, as if she'd been grabbed. Shaken around.

Those bruises faded, but then this week, new ones appeared, on the thighs. Did you see them?"