Robin Cook - Host

“You must be just devastated,” Leanne continued. “Have you seen him?”

Lynn nodded, hesitant to admit she had in front of Dr. Weaver, who she thought might recognize her having done so as a violation of hospital rules, but Dr. Weaver, obviously having his own problems, didn’t respond.

“How does he seem?” Leanne asked. Her expression of concern morphed back to grief.

“Very calm,” Lynn said. “He looks like he’s asleep.”

Leanne let Lynn go, and Markus gave her a second hug. Carl’s father was a sizable man like his son but heavier boned. His face was lined and always tan. He was an inveterate golfer who loved his bourbon. In contrast to his wife, he looked thoroughly shell-shocked and chose not to speak.

“Has there been any change?” Leanne asked when Markus let her go.

“I’m afraid not,” Lynn said. She gestured to Michael. “You remember Michael Pender, of course.”

“Yes, of course,” Leanne said, briefly acknowledging Michael but immediately turning back to Lynn. “We are going to make sure that the best doctors are involved in Carl’s care. I’m sure there will be a change for the better very soon.”

“I hope so,” Lynn said, nodding her head. She looked at Dr. Weaver, who was still dressed in scrubs. He didn’t meet her gaze and encouraged the older Vandermeers to move on toward the neuro ICU, saying there was only a small window of opportunity for their visit.

After promises to get together, the Vandermeer parents continued down the hall. Lynn and Michael headed in the opposite direction toward the elevators.

“Now, that wasn’t half-bad,” Michael said.

“They were very generous,” Lynn admitted. Quickly her mind reverted to what they had been talking about before catching sight of the Vandermeers. “What were the details of that similar case you mentioned, and how did you hear about it?”

“It was an African American female in her late twenties or early thirties, generally about the same age as Carl. She was operated on with general anesthesia after being shot in both knees. She didn’t wake up. There was an episode of hypoxia just like with Carl, and that was it.”

“She was operated on here at Mason-Dixon Medical Center?”

“Yes. I’m telling you, the case was a mirror image.”

They arrived at the elevators. Lynn tugged on Michael’s coat to get him to stop. She didn’t want to talk about a case on a crowded elevator, but she wanted to hear more. “Well, how did you hear about it?”

“My mamma called me from Beaufort to tell me a distant relation was having a major complication after surgery here. She asked me to look into it, so I did.”

“What was the woman’s name?”

“Ashanti Davis.”

“What kind of relation was she to you?”

“Very distant and only by marriage. Cousin of the brother of an in-law on my mother’s side of the family or something obscure like that. I knew her a little in high school because we went to the same regional school, but she was ahead of me and never finished, and we ran in different circles.”

“Shot in the knees? Was that the result of some sort of gang war?”

“Someone had a serious beef with her — that much is clear.”

“What’s happened to her?”

“She permanently gorked out after the operation. Within days they moved her over to the Shapiro Institute.”

“That’s awful,” Lynn said. “And is she still there?”

“As far as I know. I don’t think anybody visits or asks. Nobody in her family wants to pay the kind of bread they get for room and board, if you know what I’m saying. She wasn’t very popular in her family, to put it mildly, even in her surviving immediate family. In high school she was considered a slut with a penchant for dating all the aspiring gang members. I kept my distance. She even got one of my cousins shot dead, so her getting shot wasn’t all that unexpected considering the people she ran with. She was a bad apple.”

“What an awful story,” Lynn said. “Before getting shot, was she generally healthy, like Carl?”

“As far as I know.”

Lynn shook her head. The fact that there were two healthy people at Mason-Dixon who within months of each other did not wake up from anesthesia was more than disturbing; it was downright frightening. And it was terrifying to think of Carl being transferred over to the Shapiro. After the brief visit, she and her medical-student colleagues equated it to being shipped off to Hades.

“I would love to have a look at Ashanti’s hospital record,” Lynn said.

“Whoa!” Michael said, leaning away from Lynn as if she might be contagious. “That’s the kind of thing that could get you kicked out of medical school. Carl’s chart is different, as it is an active case, with all sorts of people having access. With Ashanti, it would be a totally different ball game. You’d have to use the EMR, and you would be caught right away.”

“I wouldn’t do it myself,” Lynn said, thinking about who might be willing to get such a record for her. Earlier Dr. Scott had offered to help her, saying her office was always open. And Lynn thought about the anesthesiologist who had taken care of Carl. Maybe she would be interested, provided she wasn’t the one who administered the anesthesia to Ashanti.

“I do have a photo of her intra-operative anesthesia record someplace,” Michael said. “I took it in the neuro ICU the same way I just took Carl’s.”

“Really?” Lynn said with surprise. “Where is it? Could you find it?”

“I’ll have to look. As I recall, it’s either on my PC or on a flash drive that’s got to be someplace in my room.” As full-time scholarship students, both Michael and Lynn were expected to live in the dorm, a separate building on the medical center’s expansive campus. Most of the other fourth-year students had moved out to private apartments. Lynn had not minded remaining since it was convenient when on call to sleep in her own bed rather than in the on-call room. Besides, she had been staying at Carl’s most weekends.

“You’ll look?”

“Of course I’ll look. But not now, if that’s what you’re thinking.” Michael glanced at his watch. “We’re already late for the ophthalmology lecture. We better get our asses over to the clinic building.”

“I’m not going to the lecture,” Lynn said in a tone that did not brook argument. “There’s no way I could sit still for an hour in my state of mind. I’m fried.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to ride my bike down to Carl’s house and try to chill.” Lynn said. “I need to read up on anesthetic complications, particularly delayed emergence, and I can do it using his PC. I’ll feel closer to him there. I might even pray a little. I’m that desperate.”

Michael looked askance at Lynn. Religion had been a frequent topic of discussion for them, especially during their third year, when they were on pediatrics, and more recently during their advanced pediatric elective. Having to deal with suffering children with cancer had made them feel there could not be a God, at least not a loving, caring God that might be swayed by prayer.

“I know,” Lynn said, anticipating what Michael was thinking. “It goes against what I said during all those late-night talks of ours, yet seeing Carl in the state he is in makes me want to cover all the bases.”

Michael nodded. He thought he understood. This episode had cast his friend emotionally adrift.

Monday, April 6, 1:16 P.M.

Lynn changed out of her scrubs and put on street clothes, anger bubbling up inside her. She was furious at the anesthesiologist, at the hospital, at medicine in general, and was reminded of how she had felt after her father died. She wanted to kick the locker where her clothes had been. She wanted to break something as she combed her hair with quick, angry strokes.