Michael Palmer - Fatal

The nurse snaked a small suction catheter down beyond the tip of the tube into Nikki's trachea. Nikki reacted to the intrusion with violent coughing, tears overflowing her eyes and running down her cheeks.

"I'm really sorry," Matt said, deflating the balloon on the tube. "Let's get this part over with. Just take a breath and cough."

Nikki did as he asked. A slight tug and just like that the tube was out. The nurse moved to suction out Nikki's mouth and throat, but Nikki pushed her hand away.

"Bless you," Nikki croaked.

The nurse slipped a clear, polystyrene mask over Nikki's mouth and nose. For a minute, then another, no one spoke as Nikki took long, grateful draughts of humidified, oxygen-enriched air. Her blood oxygen level, as measured by the oximeter clipped around her fingertip, remained good, and her cardiac monitor pattern, steady. There was no significant laryngeal spasm.

"You all right?" Matt asked finally.

"Ugh, that was just awful," Nikki said. "Hardly the way to greet a new patient. Where I come from, doctors usually start by asking who their insurance company is."

Lights in the ICU cubicle were dimmed once again. The nurses had gone off to prepare for another admission — an admission who would probably be given Nikki's room. Haltingly, dozing off every few minutes, Nikki shared the story of the faked accident on the roadway, the chloroform, the gunshots, and the subsequent chase through the forest. She had no recollection whatsoever of the events immediately surrounding her plunge into Crystal Lake.

The frightening account was totally engaging to Matt, but no more so than the woman who was sharing it. Exhausted and clearly dealing with a headache, dizziness, and other effects of a concussion, Nikki (she insisted he call her that) had a spirit, intelligence, and wry humor that even her compromising condition could not diminish.

He had questions, dozens of them, and undoubtedly, Grimes would as well. But for the moment, he had no desire to deal with the man. Soon, after she was persistently awake, he would call the station. For now, he sat quietly and waited while she rested. He was actually surprised to realize he was studying her face. Why did it appeal to him so? There was little if anything about it that was reminiscent of the woman he had loved for so much of his life. If Ginny was beach sand and midday sun, Nikki was more moonlight and the still, dark water of a lake at night. Ginny's mouth was innocent and childlike, Nikki's full and sensual. Over the years since Ginny's death, he had, from time to time, been with one woman or another. But never had he been drawn to any of them this way. He felt awkward, strange, and a little disloyal. What was he doing contrasting and comparing this woman with Ginny?

… Have those memories remind you of how wonderful life can he again. Isn't that what Mae had said to him?

At that moment, the voice that bothered him with such things reminded him that he was her physician. Romantic involvement by a doctor with his or her patient was prohibited not only by the Hippocratic Oath, but by most states' legislatures as well. For too many docs, such involvement ended up being a shortcut to grocery clerkdom.

"Hey there, still here?" she asked dreamily.

"I… um… may have dozed off."

"Again?"

"I aced nap one-oh-one in med school. Tops in my class."

"Me, too. I was slated to be a surgeon, but they booted me out after I fell asleep at the operating table."

"I can picture you toppling face first into an open abdomen. Nikki, tell me, why did all this happen to you?"

"I have no idea. But those men knew who I was. I'm sure of that."

"Could they have been after drugs?"

"Anything's possible, I suppose. But from what I recall, I think they were after me, pure and simple. I think I heard them say each other's names, but I can't remember."

Matt rose from his chair.

"I'll be back," he said.

"Where are you going?"

"To call the police. Chief Grimes will want to know you're awake, and until we know what this is all about, I want a guard next to your door."

Nikki rubbed at her eyes.

"I think I spent some time with the police chief."

"You did. He told me."

"From what I remember, he was very friendly."

"That explains it," Matt said, flashing on Grimes's totally inappropriate, thinly veiled threat in the ER.

"What?"

"Nothing. Nikki, we haven't contacted your family. Just give me the numbers and I'll call your husband or parents or anyone else you want."

"My dad's recovering from a small stroke, my mom gets hysterical at the sight of a robin eating a worm, and the candidates to be my husband are still out there fighting one another to the death for my favor. Since I'm probably going to make it, why don't we just not upset anyone? Oh, except my job. I was supposed to be at work."

Matt wrote down the number.

"I'll be back," he announced in a woeful Schwarzenegger accent.

"You're… very… nice," she said.

He started to reply, then realized she was out again, breathing evenly and deeply.

When Matt explained what he wanted, the desk officer at the Belinda police station patched him through to Bill Grimes.

"Has she told you what happened?" Grimes asked.

"I haven't asked her much. I wanted to call you first."

"Don't tell me you've gone sensible on me."

"Very funny. She did say it was two men — one real fat, in a business suit. One athletic. Ring any bells?"

"Maybe."

"She also said they were shooting at her."

"So that was a bullet wound by her ear."

"I would say so."

"I'll have someone over there within the hour," Grimes said. "And I'll be by later to speak with her."

"Just go easy," Matt said, wanting instead to tell him to just stay the hell away from her. "She's got a fairly severe concussion."

"How long do you think she'll be in the hospital?"

"I don't know for sure. A couple of days, maybe. I'm going to have the neurologist see her and maybe get an MRI if he thinks it might tell us anything more than the emergency CT scan we did."

"Fair enough. One of the guys will be over there shortly."

"Round the clock, okay?"

"Rutledge, how about you just do your business and let me do mine."

"Nancy," Matt said to the nursing supervisor, "are you sure you can't keep Dr. Solari in the unit any longer?"

"Matt, you know I'd walk over hot coals for you," Nancy Catlett said, "but we have four criticals in the unit right now, and a post-op abdominal aneurysm repair due up soon. There's just no way I can justify keeping a patient who's awake and alert — even one of yours."

"In that case, a private room."

"That depends on her insurance."

"Just find one for her. We're going to have a guard posted outside the door. I want only people essential to her care going in there. If she needs a specific order, I'll write it. If her plan still won't cover the private, I will."

"Well now, I don't think we'll need to go that far," Catlett said. "But if that's the way you care for all your patients, I'm switching doctors to you. My HMO is terrible about paying for private rooms."

Matt made quick rounds on the patients he had in the hospital, and then brought the chest tube insertion kit, drainage system, intravenous bags, antibiotics, and other purloined equipment to his motorcycle. Thoughts of Nikki Solari and questions surrounding the assault on her had now bivouacked in his mind, making it difficult to concentrate on much else. When he returned to the unit, the nurses reported that Nikki had been asleep since he left, drifting back out again immediately after each of the two neuro checks they had done. Still, the moment he stepped through the doorway, she moaned contentedly and opened her eyes.

"Welcome back," she said, yawning.