Richard Mabry - Code Blue

"Like-?"

"Someone blackmailing one of the pharmacists. Someone with a key-the cleaning person, a former employee. Someone-."

"Okay, I get it. Anyone could be behind this."

Will accelerated smoothly into the intersection, then slammed on the brakes.

"Whoa!" Cathy felt the tug of her seatbelt. "What was that?"

"Some idiot driving a black SUV almost hit us."

Emma Gladstone settled carefully into the patient chair. The patent leather purse she held in her lap looked big enough to accommodate supplies for a three-day trip. Cathy wondered how the elderly lady could manage carrying around that load just ten days after major surgery.

Cathy leaned across her desk. "Mrs. Gladstone, can I get you anything? Are you comfortable?"

The woman smiled serenely. "I'm fine, Doctor. I just wanted to come by and tell you how much Ernest and I appreciate everything you've done."

Cathy tried to act as though compliments came her way every day, instead of with the frequency of snow in July."Think nothing of it. All I did was assist Dr. Harshman. And at that, I had to scrub out before the case was finished."

"Oh, I don't mean just the surgery, although Arthur told Ernest that you were a lot of help. I wanted you to know how much we appreciate your coming by to check on me in the hospital and calling me after I went home."

Harshman actually complimented her? Despite her best efforts to appear cool, Cathy felt her jaw drop when Mrs. Gladstone unloaded this bit of information. Would wonders never cease? "I try to show all my patients how much I care for them."

"And it's appreciated."

"I'm afraid there are some folks who don't share your opinion of me."

Mrs. Gladstone wrinkled her nose. "Oh, that suit Gail Nix had her husband file? I was sorry to hear that."

"Mrs. Nix is behind the suit? Not Mr. Nix?"

"Dear, I have a good idea of pretty much everything that goes on in this town. I heard from a reliable source that Milton was grateful that you saved his life. He didn't care about the prescription error. It was Gail who badgered him into filing the suit. Apparently, she has something against you."

Cathy thought back to the contact she'd had with Gail Nix since returning to Dainger. She'd pegged the banker's wife as a vapid airhead, more interested in her social position than anything else. Why would she have a grudge against Cathy?

After Mrs. Gladstone left, Cathy plunged into her afternoon's appointments and soon was too busy to think further about Gail Nix. With one thing and another, it was late that night before Cathy's thoughts returned to her conversation with Mrs. Gladstone.

During her training Cathy developed the habit of mentally walking the halls of the hospital each night before she dropped offto sleep. She'd review the patients in every room, patients whose lives had been given over to her care. With her switch to private practice, Cathy made only one small adjustment. Now each night she reviewed the patients she'd seen in the office that day. Only when she was satisfied she'd done all she could for each of them was she able to turn over and fall asleep. Not tonight.

Lying in the dark, Cathy wracked her brain to figure out what she'd done to anger Gail Nix. Why had the woman badgered her husband into filing a malpractice suit?

"You've done it now. You're awake." Cathy was surprised to hear that she'd spoken aloud. Maybe she wasn't handling the stress as well as she'd implied to Josh. She slipped out of bed, turned on the bedside lamp, and padded to the medicine cabinet. How about a couple of Tylenol? It might help the headache that had become a frequent companion. Her self-diagnosis was tension headache. Should she go back to Josh and ask him for something to calm her nerves? She'd avoided sleeping pills and tranquilizers all her life, probably because she'd seen her mother take too many of them. That thought cemented her decision. No, she'd gut it out.

She slid back beneath the covers and turned out the light. She was still awake when she heard a commotion outside. What-?

Quickly, she wrapped her robe around her and groped under the bed for her slippers. She was halfway to the window when she heard someone shouting.

"Cathy! Cathy! Get out. The garage is on fire!"

It took a moment for the words to register. Fire in the garage below her! Cathy snatched the little framed photo of her parents from her bedside table and slid it into the pocket of her robe. At the door, she reached for the knob, then pulled her hand back with a shriek, bringing it to her lips to soothe the burn. Now what? These stairs were the only real way out. Get out a window? Knot bed sheets together and shinny down them? Would they hold? What if she fell and broke an arm or a leg? There seemed to be no other choice.

She pulled the top sheet offher bed, but before she could make use of it, the floor shook beneath her and a thunderous blast assaulted her eardrums. Something hard struck the back of her head, and she descended into silent darkness.

"I think she's coming around."

Cathy had been under general anesthesia only once in her life: a tonsillectomy when she was six years old. She recalled the sensations as she woke up. The strangeness of moving slowly from a dark tunnel into the light. Her confusion as she tried to make sense of the images hitting her retina. She had that same feeling now. Blurred forms hovered over her, their voices reverberating like sound at a rock concert. Only this time, like a velvet curtain, the smell of smoke permeated the air.

"Doctor, can you talk?" She squinted her eyes and made out the face of Joe Elam, concern lining his already wrinkled face. His wife, Bess, stood beside him.

"I-" Cathy shook her head, trying to clear it as she'd seen athletes do after "having their bell rung." The motion set offa pounding in her head like men with hammers holding a convention inside her skull.

"Just lay back." Bess Elam's voice was calm. No panic there. This was a mother and grandmother, used to taking care of bumps, bruises, and any other catastrophe that came along.

Cathy relaxed back onto the grass and tried to remember how she'd gotten here. Then it came to her. A fire. Then an explosion. Her apartment! Everything she'd accumulated in the past ten years was in there. Granted, most of it was still in boxes, but it was precious to her. Insurance couldn't replace the memories some of those boxes held.

"Doc, open your eyes." She forced her lids to respond and looked into the face of Mark, the emergency medical technician.

"Mark-" She choked and gagged. Someone held a bottle to her lips, and she sipped water. "We've got to stop meeting this way."

"Yeah." His laugh was forced. "Doc, let me check you over. You got knocked on the head pretty good."

"How long was I out?"

"They tell me it was only a few minutes. But I still need to go through the routine."

She lay still as he took her blood pressure and pulse, then shined a light into her eyes. His fingers probed the back of her skull, setting offan encore by the men with hammers.

After he'd finished his examination, she asked, "So, do I get a clean bill of health?"

Mark sat back on his heels. "You ought to go to the ER and let a real doctor check you. Maybe get a CT scan. But best guess? You'll be okay except for a headache."

"Nothing new for me. Thanks, Mark. Can you help me sit up?"

Willing hands helped her to a sitting position. "Now let me try to stand."

Mark and Joe Elam steadied her so that her legs scarcely bore any weight. She swayed for a few seconds, then said, "Okay, let me try it without your support."

"Doc, we really need to take you to the ER," Mark said.

She knew she was being stubborn-a doctor trying to treat herself-but she asserted her independence anyway."I promise I'll let Joe drive me there, but I've had enough ambulance rides this month."