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The young officer said, "Sure. Okay." An uneasy glance into the shadows of the building, from which another moan floated out on the foul air.
Sachs surveyed their route to the back door and loading dock. The crumbling asphalt was littered with broken bottles and papers and cans. Noisy to traverse, but they didn't have a choice.
She gestured Pulaski forward. They began to pick their way over the ground, trying to be quiet, though they couldn't avoid crunching glass beneath their shoes.
But as they approached, they had some luck, which Sachs believed in, even if Lincoln Rhyme did not. Somewhere nearby a noisy diesel engine rattled to life, providing good covering sound.
Sometimes you do catch a break, Sachs thought. Lord knows we could use one now.
Chapter 61
HE WASN'T GOING to lose Rhyme.
Thom Reston had his boss out of the Storm Arrow chair and into a near standing position, pinned against the wall
. In autonomic dysreflexia attacks, the patient should be kept upright--the books say sitting, but Rhyme had been in his chair when the vessels tightened en masse and the aide wanted to get him even more elevated, to force the blood back toward the ground.
He'd planned for occurrences like this--even rehearsing when Rhyme wasn't around, since he knew his boss wouldn't have the patience for running mock emergencies. Now, without even looking, he grabbed a small vial of vasodilator medication, popped the cap with one thumb and slipped the delicate pill under Rhyme's tongue.
"Mel, help me here," Thom said.
The rehearsals didn't include a real patient; Thom's unconscious boss was presently 180 pounds of dead weight.
Don't think about it that way, he thought.
Mel Cooper leapt forward, supporting Rhyme while Thom hit speed-dial button one on the phone he always made sure was charged and that had the best signal of any he'd tested. After two brief rings he was connected, and in five long seconds he was speaking to a doctor in a private hospital. An SCI team was dispatched immediately. The hospital Rhyme went to regularly for specialized therapy and regular checkups had a large spinal cord injury department and two emergency response teams, for situations where it would take too long to get a disabled patient to the hospital.
Rhyme had had a dozen or so attacks over the years, but this was the worst Thom had ever seen. He couldn't support Rhyme and take his blood pressure simultaneously, but he knew it was dangerously high. His face was flushed, he was sweating. Thom could only imagine the pain of the excruciating headache as the body, tricked by the quadriplegia into believing it needed more blood and quickly, pumped hard and constricted the vessels.
The condition could cause death and, more troubling to Rhyme, a stroke, which could mean even more paralysis. In which case Rhyme might very well dust off his long-laid-to-rest idea of assisted suicide, which that damn Arlen Kopeski had brought up again.
"What can I do?" Cooper whispered, the normally placid face dark with worry, slick with sweat.
"We'll just keep him upright."
Thom examined Rhyme's eyes. Blank.
The aide snagged a second vial and administered another dose of clonidine.
No response.
Thom stood helpless, both he and Cooper silent. He thought of the past years with Rhyme. They'd fought, sometimes bitterly, but Thom had been a caregiver all his working life and knew not to take the anger personally. Knew not to take it at all. He gave as much as he got.
He'd been fired by Rhyme and had quit in nearly equal measure.
But he'd never believed the separation between the two of them would last more than a day. And it never had.
Looking at Rhyme, wondering where the hell the medics were, he was considering: Was this my fault? Dysreflexia is frequently caused by the irritation that comes from a full bladder or bowel. Since Rhyme didn't know when he needed to relieve himself Thom noted the intake of food and liquid and judged the intervals. Had he gotten it wrong? He didn't think so, but maybe the stress of running the double case had exacerbated the irritation. He should have checked more often.
I should've exercised better judgment. I should've been firmer. . . .
To lose Rhyme would be to lose the finest criminalist in the city, if not the world. And to lose countless victims because their killers would go undetected.
To lose Rhyme would be to lose one of his closest friends.
Yet he remained calm. Caregivers learn this early. Hard and fast decisions can't be made in panic.
Then the color of Rhyme's face stabilized and they got him into the wheelchair again. They couldn't have kept him up much longer anyway.
