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She’d never been queasy at a crime scene, except years before . . . Oh, God. Another roll of her guts, and saliva gathered in her mouth. For the love of—
At that moment, she knew she was going to be sick. She turned away, took a few steps from the creek, and just managed to get behind a fir tree before she upchucked into the snow. She hadn’t thrown up at a crime scene since . . . she was pregnant with Bianca. Morning sickness. Perfect.
“Hey!” Alvarez said. “You okay?”
Pescoli heaved once more, then straightened, a sour taste in her mouth. “Fine,” she lied, running her tongue over her teeth.
“Jesus, Pescoli! Look what you’re doing to the crime scene,” Watershed admonished. “It’s not like you haven’t seen a dead body before.”
She didn’t dignify his remark with an answer. To Alvarez, she said, “I’ll talk to O’Halleran. You take the boy. See what he has to say. Maybe he saw something he doesn’t realize might help.”
Alvarez was already on her way to the idling car where an officer was staying with Eli O’Halleran, and Pescoli walked over to where Trace O’Halleran was deep in conversation with Cabral.
Nurse Amy Blanchette was dead tired. Thankfully, her shift was nearly over. In five minutes, come hell or high water, or even a damn plague, she was “outta here.” Northern General Hospital wasn’t her idea of a dream place to work, but since Johns Hopkins and the Mayo Clinic didn’t seem to be calling, she’d stick it out and collect her paycheck, at least until she could figure out if she was going to stay in Montana near her parents, who lived in Hamilton, or venture out into the much bigger world. God, she’d love to get out of the miserable weather and try somewhere a little warmer, or exotic, or at least, somewhere that had a little more mystique. A place by the ocean, maybe.
LA sounded good. Or maybe San Antonio or somewhere in Florida. Anywhere she didn’t have to wake up to piles of snow and freezing temperatures would be nice. Better still, a hospital where she didn’t work with her damn ex-fiancé, who’d decided to bail six months into the engagement. Thankfully, she’d only lost her heart, not her life savings on a wedding. But even though she tried desperately to work opposing hours, she ran into Dr. Dylan Stone—yes, he sounded like he was one of those fake doctors on an old soap opera—too often. The fact that he was dating a handful of her coworkers made her working environment all the more caustic. By summer, she swore, she’d have that job elsewhere.
She had a few more minutes of her ten-hour workday to get through. A few nurses and orderlies on her shift were starting to leave while the nurses for the next ten hours were arriving. The hub was a little chaotic with the switch. Nurses who were leaving exchanged patient information, a few jokes, and a little bit of gossip with the nurses coming on duty. Worse yet, the flu had not only infected several patients on the wing, but the staff as well, devastating some of the teams. Her floor in particular was short-handed and the staff was forced to depend upon recruits from other areas of the hospital, sometimes working for the first time with newbies. Just today, Amy had shared her area of the wing with a couple orderlies, two doctors, and a nurse she’d previously never met.
But it was about over.
“One more patient,” she reminded herself as she responded to the call light for room 212. The patient, Reina Gehrig, was a real pain in the butt. Amy wasn’t one bit sorry that she would be able to pawn the older woman off on Mona Vickers, the nurse scheduled to take over Amy’s patients. Mrs. Gehrig in particular, seemed to believe she was the only patient in the entire hospital.
Most definitely a pain in the backside.
Forcing a smile, Amy slipped into the room where Reina Gehrig was propped in her hospital bed, television tuned to a game show, her head swiveling expectantly as the door opened.
“How’re you doing?” Amy asked, turning off the call light.
“Oh, not so good, I’m afraid,” the small woman said. She was a frail thing with a lined, narrow face and a halo of thin white curls that didn’t quite hide the pink of her scalp.
She’s lonely, Amy thought and felt a little ashamed for thinking badly of her.
Barely a hundred pounds, with hazel eyes that snapped behind the folds of her eyelids and thick glasses, Reina said solemnly, “I think there’s something wrong.”
“Well, that won’t do.” Amy gave the woman a smile. “Tell me, how do you feel? Rate your pain.” She indicated the chart that hung on the wall that showed caricatures of faces in varying expressions of discomfort.
“ ’Bout an eight, maybe a nine, I’d say,” the patient said. “And it doesn’t just hurt in my leg, but all over.” Frowning a little, she added, “I think I might be coming down with something. The flu’s going around this year, you know. And my neighbor Elsa, she caught it. Nasty stuff.”
“Hmm. Well, we can’t have that,” Amy said. “Let me check your vitals again.”
The patient’s chin suddenly thrust out. “I need to see Doctor Lambert.”
“She didn’t do your surgery.” Amy checked Mrs. Gehrig’s temperature, blood pressure, and pulse again, noting that everything was in the normal range, right where it should be. “Dr. Bellingham says you can go home tomorrow.”
“Oh, I don’t think so. I’d feel a lot better if Dr. Lambert had a look at me.” Mrs. Gehrig was nodding in her bed as if agreeing with herself. Her thin hands, with veins visible, plucked at the edge of the sheet covering her.
“I’ll let her know,” Amy promised, “and mark it on your char—”
“Room two-o-six STAT!” Polly, another floor nurse, poked her head into the room as she passed the open doorway just as Amy heard the Code Blue announcement from the speakers in the hallway.
“What?” Mrs. Gehrig was confused.
Amy was already reversing toward the door. “I’ll be back.”
“No, please—” Mrs. Gehrig’s face folded on itself in disappointment. “Wait! Where are you going? I need—” The rest of her request was cut off as Amy rushed toward the room a few doors down.
“Mr. Donnerly’s coding!” Polly called to her as they entered 206.
