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Already, the room was bustling with staff members. The patient had recently had heart surgery and had been improving enough to be released from ICU to his private room. One nurse was handling his chest compressions while another had a bag valve mask in place over the patient’s mouth and nose. A doctor was giving orders as the defibrillator cart was rolled quickly inside and another locking cart with narrow drawers for medications followed. Amy stood at the ready should she be required to administer the epineph
rine or whatever other drug the doc ordered.
“How long?” the doctor asked.
“Coded under two minutes ago,” a floor nurse who had been attending Benson Donnerly said as the rest of the team continued working.
“Pulse?” the doctor asked and another nurse pressed against the patient’s neck, checking the patient’s carotid artery.
“No pulse.”
“Code Blue!” another page called over the loudspeaker, adding to the tension.
We’re here already, Amy thought, refusing to be distracted in case she was needed.
“Code Blue! Room two-twenty!”
“What?” The doctor turned his head.
“Has to be wrong,” Polly said, surprised.
“Double-check,” he said, nodding at Amy, who quickly slipped out of the room and caught up to two nurses headed rapidly down the hallway.
“Let’s go,” Reba, a tall RN with a single braid falling down her back said to Amy. She was hurrying, the braid swinging side to side as she tried to keep up with Brad King, a male nurse with a trimmed beard and long, athletic stride.
Avoiding an orderly heading in the opposite direction, Amy hurried to fall into step with Reba. “Wait,” she said, trying and failing to keep up. “The patient who’s coding is in two-o-six.” She hooked her thumb in the direction of Mr. Donnerly’s room.
“Yesterday’s news,” Brad said over his shoulder as he broke into a jog and Reba followed suit. “We’ve got another patient coding.”
Two cardiac arrests on the same floor at the same time? It happened, of course, but very infrequently. “But—Hold up.” Amy was processing what the senior nurse had said. “Two-twenty?” she repeated, hoping she’d misunderstood. “Isn’t that the sheriff’s room?”
“That’s right,” Brad confirmed as he pushed open the door of the room where the patient lay unmoving, his chest no longer rising and falling, his pallor weak, his eyes closed.
Oh, no.
His heart monitor was visible from the doorway and the green line moving across the screen remained level, not so much as bumping the slightest as a piercing sound that should have been softly beeping was a steady, ominous warning.
Brad moved to the patient’s side and started compressions on his chest as Reba found the bag valve mask to force air into the patient’s lungs.
“Make sure the doc knows that we’ve got a second cardiac arrest. We need a defib cart ASAP!” Brad was still working over his patient as he barked at Amy.
“The cart’s in Mr. Donnerly’s room—”
“Order another one.”
“There’s only one on the floor.”
“Then get one from another floor. STAT!” he ordered as he worked over the patient who, so far, wasn’t responding. His heart monitor showed a flat green line, its high-pitched whine piercing. “For Christ’s sake, move it!”
Amy was already turning into the hallway to get more help, but her own heart was pounding double-time at the thought of losing this patient, who just happened to be the sheriff of Pinewood County.
Chapter 5
Hearing the sound of another vehicle approaching, Pescoli looked up and squinted through the curtain of falling snow. She and Alvarez were about to leave the O’Halleran ranch as they’d already taken statements and looked around as much as they could in the frigid conditions. The victim’s body had been taken to the morgue, the emergency workers had left, and the O’Hallerans had returned to their house. A guard was still posted near the front gate and the crime scene team was still finishing up gathering trace evidence, but her work was done.
A Jeep emerged, twin headlights cutting through the gloom, big tires kicking up snow. The driver parked next to the crime scene van, cut the engine, and emerged swiftly. Blackwater.
“Just what we need,” Pescoli said under her breath. Half expecting to see the KMJC news van following in his wake, she glanced to the ruts cut into the snow where half a dozen or more vehicles had come and gone, mashing the snow beneath dozens of tires.
