Love on Call (3 page)

He stood up and stretched. The tiredness that had been in his bones fell away like layers of heavy armor. He was wide awake and wondering.

Was she alone?

Switching off the television, he wondered how Mallory was doing. She was technically his patient and he thought about all his patients, although most of them couldn't drive themselves home. Mallory had acted as if her ordeal had been all in a night's work.

It hadn't.

The night was a trauma for most in the E.R., but for her it was an instance of facing her own death. She was probably suffering the after-effects of the episode. Yet doctors really were the worst patients. Mallory Russell had looked him directly in the eye and lied. She had no intention of taking his advice and calling someone to stay with her. Around the hospital she was a loner. And he was sure she had gone home alone and called no one.

T
he coma wing took up the entire seventh floor of the Grace N. Clyburn Building, which the staff referred to as Building C. It had been built five years ago, funded by a grant from a man whose wife had died without regaining consciousness. She'd been placed in a long-term care facility a hundred miles away, and he'd had to drive that distance to sit with her. The donated building had a walkway on level three that connected it to Building B. Mallory rarely ever used the walkway, though she worked in Building B, the oldest wing of the hospital.

“I am somebody,” she said, standing next to the bed. She leaned in close and spoke quietly. “I want you to repeat it, Jeff.” She stared at the smooth-skinned face of a twenty-something young man. He
was a drug addict. He'd gone through a nightmarish withdrawal, but something went wrong. He'd gotten more drugs and the overdose nearly killed him. The doctors saved his life, but he'd slipped into a coma.

Mallory thought of Wayne Mason. Her hand went to her neck, where the cut had healed. She could still feel the place where the scab had been. Would Wayne one day be in a coma, or would he die in some gutter before help could arrive?

This patient's name was Jeffrey Amberson.
The Magnificent Ambersons
came to mind, a book she'd read years ago about a rich, dysfunctional family and the effect losing their wealth had had on them. Jeffrey wasn't much different from the fictional George Amberson, at least in age. He didn't come from wealth, that she knew. He'd probably been on the road to becoming a model citizen when he'd taken a wrong turn somewhere and ended up here.

“Say it, Jeff,” she repeated. “I am somebody.” He didn't move or react in any way. “A very famous man said that. His name is Jesse Jackson. I'm sure you've heard of him.”

Mallory touched Jeff's hand, which was cool and immobile but soft. She leaned closer to him and whispered, “Live, Jeff! Fight. Wake up!”

Mallory wanted to scream the words at him, but she kept her voice level. “Jesse Jackson is right, Jeff. You
are
somebody. Sure, you're not at your best now and you've made some bad decisions involving drugs. Maybe there was a reason. You can change that. But you can't do it if you don't live.”

Jeffrey Amberson lay quiet. Moonlight streamed
through the windows and slanted across the white bedsheets—the only light in the room. Mallory never turned on lights when she visited coma patients. She didn't think the light would bother them, but it would alert security that she was present, and she didn't want anyone to know. Not even the nurses. They wouldn't understand what she was doing there in the middle of the night.

“You might think there's no one here who cares about you, and maybe that's why you sleep so soundly. The drugs, how you got into them…whatever the reasons for you trying first one and then another, it doesn't matter, Jeff. I care. I want you back. You are somebody and we both know it.”

Mallory listened to his quiet breathing. She heard the machines in the room monitoring his vital signs, sending information back to the nurses' station twenty yards away. It was regular, rhythmic and systematic. Like a machine himself, Jeff continued to breath through the use of technology. But that would end. And soon.

“Jeff, you've got to wake up.” Her voice was urgent. “You know what's coming. You've only been here three months, but you've been asleep almost a year. The law isn't on your side. They're going to court to have your life support turned off.”

Mallory walked back and forth beside the bed. There were other coma sufferers in the room, which was set up as a ward. When visitors came, the patient was moved to a private room. But here several of them slept together, the only sounds were of the in
cessant machines alternately compressing and releasing air.

“You know, Jeff, I'm a lot like you. No one cares for me, either.” She stopped and turned to him. “Oh, there is my sister in Atlantic City, but no one else. When Dr. Clayton seemed to be genuinely concerned about me, I felt…” She stopped. She didn't know what she felt. A warmth settled over her, a comfortable feeling that was unfamiliar to her. “I felt somehow wanted. That maybe someday someone would care about me.”

For a long while Mallory was quiet. The words, her words, surprised her. She'd never thought of herself as needing anyone. After her accident and recovery she'd become quite self-sufficient.

“Brad isn't the first man I've been interested in,” she murmured. “There were a few in college and one in medical school. But what I felt for them passed quickly. I'm sure I only have a crush on Brad. It will end soon. My work will replace him, just as it did all the others.”

She stared at the moon, picturing Brad's face in place of the silvery surface and wishing she could hold on to the feeling for just a little while longer. But she was the ice queen, destined to be alone.

 

Mallory rushed into Building B the next morning. She was late. It was the third morning this week she'd overslept. She waved at the receptionist who manned the desk at the staff entrance, and headed for the stairs. Few people ever took the steps unless there was a fire drill. Mallory raced up and down them all the
time. She'd begun when she'd started talking to the patients in the coma wing. It made getting in and out easier. Now it was routine. She rarely got on an elevator unless she had to go to the top floor.

Her crepe-soled shoes made a sucking sound as she climbed upward, taking the steps two at a time. On the third floor landing she twisted to go up to the fourth, then heard other footsteps. There was no cause for alarm, yet she stopped and listened. The noise came from above her. Looking up, Mallory stared into the dark brown eyes of Dr. Clayton, who was on his way down.

Her heart lurched. She hadn't seen him except for the nights he stole into her bedroom and walked into her dreams. What would he think if he'd known she was dreaming of him?

It should be a law, she thought. No man should be able to look this good with a scowl on his face.

“Dr. Clayton,” she said in greeting.

“You look tired,” he replied.

“Good morning to you, too.” Mallory rolled her eyes and continued up the stairs. She had to pass him to get by. Brad reached for her arm. She felt warmth spread over her. She tried not to react, but that was like trying to stop the Texas heat in August.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes,” she said, stepping away from him.

“Do you really have a sister?” he asked her.

“Yes, I do,” she snapped. Her voice reverberated in the hollow stairway. “She's a kindergarten teacher in Atlantic City. I couldn't ask her to drive up here in the middle of the night.”

“Why didn't you say that? We could have gotten someone to go home with you.”

“The hospital was too busy. There was no one available.”

“What about a friend? You could have called someone. You must know your condition could have been dangerous.”

Mallory glanced up at his face, illuminated by filtered daylight from the skylight above. Of course she knew the danger of delayed stress.

“Let's just say it was too late to call anyone. And I was all right, exactly as I said.” She stared directly at him, adding the last in a rush to keep him from asking her anything else.

“You still look tired,” he said. “Aren't you sleeping well?”

“I'm fine, Dr. Clayton.” She held her hand up when he would have spoken again. “I know about delayed stress—that what happened in the E.R. could result in some kind of physical manifestation, but I assure you, that is not the case.” She paused a second, calming herself. “Now if you'll excuse me, I'm late for rounds.”

Mallory rushed on up the stairs and through the fourth-floor doorway. Brad Clayton had the most penetrating eyes. She felt as if he were looking into her soul and seeing the lies she was telling. Well, not exactly lies, just some half-truths.

 

Brad saw Mallory the moment rounds ended. They began and ended on the fourth floor. He'd just finished his morning visits to his in-hospital patients. He
came out of one room as Mallory and the others stepped through the doorway. He headed for the nurses' station.

“Did you hear?” Dana whispered. “Another one woke up. And only three days after she was there.”

“Who was there?” Brad asked. Three nurses, dressed in hospital blues, huddled together behind the counter. Brad walked in at the tail end of their conversation, several charts in his hands. He placed them back in the appropriate racks.

“The ghost strikes again,” Dana said with a smile.

Brad rolled his eyes. “There are no ghosts.”

“Well, she was there, and he's awake now.”

“And not a moment too soon, either,” Renee Crandall added.

“What are you talking about?”

“Jeffrey Amberson woke up.”

Brad hunched his shoulders. Sometimes he thought women had a code of their own and only let men in on what they knew for very short intervals.

“Who is Jeffrey Amberson?”

“The young man in the coma wing,” Renee answered.

“The one she talks to,” Dana added.

“Dr. Clayton, I swear the world could end and we would have to send a child to let you know,” Peggy Silverman, the third of the group, said. “You pay attention to nothing that goes on around here except the children.”

That had been true in the past, but it wasn't any longer. Since the E.R. incident and his meeting Mallory, he was very aware of things going on now, yet
he didn't think he would let these three in on it. “If I did, what would you do?”

Dana looked at him to see if he was joking. She must have decided he was, even though he had no smile on his face.

“It's uncanny,” Renee said. “She picks one out and that one wakes up.”

“Not all of them,” Peggy corrected. “Remember that woman from six months ago? She'd been in a coma since they opened that wing five years ago. The ghost talked to her, but when they pulled her plug, she slipped away within minutes.”

“That's not how it was with Jeffrey Amberson or any of the others she's chosen.”

“What do you mean, chosen?” Brad asked.

“It's the same M.O. every time,” Peggy said. Brad could tell she watched too many detective shows. “The lonely, unloved, unvisited. The ones no one comes to see. She picks patients who have no one else, who never receive any visitors. They're all alone in the world and she's their savior. And it's apparently working.”

“Why is that?”

“No one knows,” Peggy said. “No one has ever seen her face.”

“Millie over in nuclear medicine saw her one night, but only from the back,” Renee said. “She was going through the door into the stairwell.”

“No one knows how long she's been doing this and no one else has ever gotten a glimpse of her.”

“Then how do you know she exists?” Brad asked.

“They tell us.”

“Who?”

“The patients. Those who wake up. They want to know who the person was who talked to them,” Dana said.

“Since no one knew,” Peggy continued, “one of them called her a ghost and the name stuck.”

“So you just let this unknown person roam the hospital at will?” Brad asked. “What we need to do is alert security.”

“Calm down, Dr. Clayton. She's not doing any harm,” Renee said.

“In fact, she's doing good,” Dana added. “The court order was already in hand. Jeffrey Amberson was scheduled to have his plug pulled.”

Peggy took up the story. “This afternoon when they shut down the machines, he breathed on his own. I'd say the ghost had something to do with that.”

“The ghost,” Brad frowned. “It sounds like good medicine and a strong survival instinct.”

“They'd given up on him. If the ghost had nothing to do with his recovery, then neither did medicine,” Dana stated.

Brad didn't agree or disagree with Dana. He turned to leave. He had no patients to see, so he was headed for the doctor's lounge and a cup of coffee. Mallory Russell was approaching the station, several charts in her hands. She didn't look him in the eye. Brad felt a twinge of guilt for their earlier encounter on the stairs.

“Well, Dr. Russell, what do you think of the ghost?” he asked.

She stole a glance at Dana, ignoring Brad. “I was
on my way up and told Cassie I'd drop these off.” She set the charts on the counter.

“Excuse me, I'm scheduled for O.R.-8,” Peggy said.

Renee checked her watch. A small panel light came on, indicating someone in one of the rooms needed assistance. “I'll take it,” she said. She and Peggy wedged themselves past Mallory and Brad. Mallory moved, giving them room. Brad smelled the scent of her. He recognized it from that night in the E.R. A vision of them together came into his mind. Quickly, he quashed it. This was neither the time nor the place. But lately, he didn't get to choose the time or place.

Another signal flashed on the panel.

“Will you cover a moment?” Dana asked. “I have to check on this one.” She left without waiting for a reply.

He was alone with Mallory, and she was causing him all kinds of fantasies. What was wrong with him? Her hair was up again for work, but it was thick and soft, and he wanted to push his hands through it. Her eyes were wide and bright, light brown.

“Don't you have a patient to see?” Mallory asked. She took a seat at the nurses' station.

“Not at the moment. I was waiting for you to answer the question.”

“What question?”

“Do you believe in ghosts?”

She hesitated, keeping her eyes on the light panel. Then she looked at him. “No, Doctor. I don't believe in ghosts…but that's not to say I don't believe in unexplained anomalies.”

“Like a patient waking up from a coma after he'd been given up for lost?”