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Bash inhaled sharply—the exact inverse of the breath I’d just exhaled—and I could feel his tension ratchet up in the way his fingers clenched on mine. “Well,fuck.”
FIFTEEN
BASH
“P-pardon?” Rowe stammered.
From the moment Austin had told his sad story—a story suspiciously like Rowe’s, with all the supporting documentation conveniently missing—I’d known this was coming. But until Rowe spoke, I hadn’t realized I’d been holding on to a sliver of hope that, despite all the circumstantial evidence, this might just be a coincidence. That Rowe’s project might turn out to be a jewel-matching game, or a dating app, or… Christ, anything but what it was.
Earlier, I’d focused on my need to hurry downstairs and find Rowe—to set eyes andhandson him again—and I’d let that distract me from the enormous potential fallout of this situation. If Rowe’s project really wasexactlylike the one Austin was taking credit for, I didn’t know what it meant for Sterling Chase, or for me, or for Rowe himself.
Legal and HR would need to conduct a huge internal investigation, for sure. We’d have to comb through every contract Austin had ever signed—every emailed meeting request he’d ever received—to see if this was an isolated incident. There could be press releases and media scrutiny on the company that would set us right in the public eye—which was the last thing any member of my brotherhood wanted…
You should probably get more information before jumping to conclusions, Dayne.
Right.
I blew out a breath and summoned a smile. “Sorry,” I told Rowe. “I was just startled. Keep going. How’d you come up with the idea?”
Rowe looked confused for a moment before he recovered. “Okay, um. I told you how Daisy died—”
“You did. A softball to the chest,” I said gently, playing with his fingers. My heart hurt for him. I couldn’t imagine what it must have been like for him to experience such a traumatic loss.
He nodded and ran a hand through his hair, sending his adorable curls tumbling around his face. “The technical name for what happened is commotio cordis. It’s when a blow to the chest disrupts the heart rhythm. It’s pretty rare for someone to die of it because usually when someone performs CPR or the paramedics bring a defibrillator, they can get the heart back into normal rhythm. But that didn’t work with Daisy. We found out later she had a heart defect called dextrocardia—her heart was on the right side of her chest instead of the left. If the EMTs had known about it, they could have adapted the typical CPR position to accommodate that—”
“And they could have saved her?”
“I don’t know,” Rowe admitted. “Maybe? But better trauma response could savesomeone. There are a ton of emergency response situations that would benefit from a real-time assessment communication tool. If EMTs and physicians could communicate during the initial response and that critical time be used to make decisions about where to route a patient, imagine how much better the outcomes would be.”
“I can imagine,” I said grimly. It was one of the reasons I’d been so excited about the MRO project when Austin had first brought it to Sterling Chase. “Go on.”
“So, I was watching a rerun of an old medical drama about a similar situation when the idea came to me that there could be a data-secure mobile device— but maybe with a satellite connection, which would make it more useful in rural places like Linden that don’t have a lot of cell towers—that EMTs could use to access medical records but also communicate with the hospital in real time during the initial trauma response. And at first, I figured there had to be some reason that wouldn’t work because otherwise, someone else would’ve come up with the idea before I did, right? But then… well, I told you, I heard Daisy’s voice in my head, and I… I decided to look into it more. To develop it into an actual business plan.”
“Whoa. I know you said you had to teach yourself all kinds of stuff to get your project off the ground, but…” I shook my head in disbelief. “With no science background, no business background… The kind of process you’re talking about requires extensive research and knowledge of emergency response protocol, patient medical record data security, not to mention the GPS and mobile software integrations needed—”
“No shit.” Rowe’s ears were already red, and now the blush spread to his cheeks. “I didn’t do great in school—partly because of what happened with Daisy and partly because it just wasn’t my thing. But that doesn’t mean I’m stupid. When I’m passionate about something, I go all in, whether it’s interior design or reading dry medical journals with a dictionary app open on my phone.”
“You got caught up,” I whispered.
“Yeah, and I guess it’s not always a bad thing,” he said with a little smile. He pushed his free hand through his curls. “But, yes, I was way out of my comfort zone on this, and everyone I talked to knew it. Took me ages to get people to take me seriously because no one wanted to waste their time on what they figured was the equivalent of a little kid working on a science project.” He picked at the silver-studded side seam of his black uniform pants. “Eventually, though, I got through. I interviewed EMTs, firefighters, and dispatchers. I researched the existing dispatch software and the other technologies used in emergency response. I had sit-down meetings with emergency room administrators at two area hospitals and brought lunch to a group of trauma specialists to beg their thoughts and ideas on a system like this.”
I was impressed. The report Kenji had pulled together on Rowe Prince had indicated he’d been a mediocre high school student who hadn’t been on a college track, but I’d known already that was bullshit. Academic success wasn’t an indicator of career success… and I knew plenty of underemployed Yale grads to prove it.
“What did you come up with? A process or a software system?” The idea Austin brought to Sterling Chase had been both.
He stopped picking at the seam on his pants and leaned forward. The light from the window danced through his hair and lit up one side of his face as much as his passion for the subject lit up his eyes.
“It’s actually got three key components.” He pulled his hand away from mine so he could count them off on his fingers. “First, communication from dispatch, which begins with emergency response. Then, using an app to access medical records and track critical data like vitals, medical history, and preliminary treatment, which will then be sent to the nearest trauma centers. And finally, coordinating through the app between the EMTs and the trauma centers to create a care plan for the patient based on which center has the right staffing and resources and how long it will take to get there, because it doesn’t matter that the hospital in Timbuktu has the best resources if you’re gonna die before they can get you there. Once they have the plan, the EMTs can begin treatment in the field. The parts connect and build on each other, you see? Like a…”
“A daisy chain,” he and I finished together.
“Yeah.” Rowe’s brilliant smile broke out, warmer than the sunlight. “It fits, right?”
“It definitely does.” And wiped away any lingering doubts I might have had about whether Rowe had authored this plan.
“I know this all probably seems pie-in-the-sky,” he went on. “I’ve already heard that from my parents and the Tech Barn guys from day one. My mom says it’s not healthy for me to be so obsessed. She’d like me to forget all about this and just find someone nice to settle down with. My dad says it’s irresponsible of me to devote so much time and money to this when I need a new car and when I’m leaving Bobby short an employee by ‘traipsing off to New York.’ And I know it’s gonna take a lot of work to make it marketable and profitable, but itcanbe, Bash. I really think it can, if I can get someone else to be passionate about it.”
“I know,” I agreed. “But, Rowe—”
