Sandra Robbins - Trail of Secrets

“Thanks, Seth. I appreciate it.”

They stopped at the elevator, and Seth pushed the button. When the doors opened, he stepped back to let her enter. “I know Dan will be unconscious, but tell him I’ll see him in the morning.”

“I will.”

As Callie approached the Critical Care Unit, she noticed a room on the left side of the corridor. People, who she assumed to be family members of patients, lay in lounge chairs in the room. A young woman in a nurse’s uniform rose from behind a desk as she entered.

“May I help you?”

Callie nodded. “Dr. Singer told me my uncle has been brought to Critical Care and I could see him. His name is Dan Lattimer.”

The young woman smiled. “Yes, he’s here. I’ll be glad to take you in.”

She came around the desk and led Callie through the double doors at the end of the hall. Callie had never been in a unit like this before, and she didn’t know what to expect. She swallowed and stepped into the long room with a hallway that ran in front of glassed-in cubicles. A nurse’s station faced the small rooms. Monitoring machines hummed in the otherwise silent ICU, and shivers ran up Callie’s arm.

A man in a dark suit sat in a chair outside one of the small cubicles, and he rose when she approached. “Miss Lattimer?”

“Yes.”

“I’m Deputy U.S. Marshal Chris White. I’m here to guard your uncle. Dr. Singer told me you’d be coming up.”

Callie glanced past him into the small room behind the marshal. She saw someone in the bed, but with all the bandages she couldn’t tell if it was her uncle or not. She swallowed past her nausea and stared at the still form. “Is that my uncle?”

“Yes,” the marshal said. “You can go in.”

Callie hesitated a moment before she stepped inside and inched toward the bed. He was covered with a white sheet, but his arm lay motionless at his side. She placed her purse in a chair at the foot of his bed, eased up beside him and covered his hand with hers.

One of the machines monitoring his vital signs beeped, and she glanced at it. She had no idea what all the numbers displayed stood for, but she did know as long as they were showing up it meant her uncle was alive. Her gaze drifted over the pale face almost covered with bandages and she brushed at the tears that flooded her eyes.

“I’m here, Uncle Dan, and so is Seth,” she whispered. “The doctor says you came through the surgery fine. If I know you, you’ll be up and about before we know it. I wanted to see you before I went home to get some rest, but I’ll be back in the morning. You have a good night. I love you.”

She wanted to stay with him, to watch over him as he had done so many times when she was a child and sick, but she knew it wouldn’t be allowed in this unit. She had to trust his well-being to people who’d been trained to care for critical patients. She fought back another rush of tears as she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek before she stepped outside and stopped next to the marshal. Before she could speak, an alarm sounded, and two nurses who’d been at their station when she entered earlier suddenly ran to a cubicle several doors down from her uncle’s.

Her eyes grew wide. “What’s happening?”

The marshal nodded in the direction of the commotion. “It looks like one of the other patients is having some problems.”

“Then I’d better leave. Thank you for watching over my uncle, Marshal White. Maybe I’ll see you again.”

“We’ll have a marshal on him until the shooter is caught. Don’t worry about him. Go on home and get some sleep.”

She smiled, turned and walked out of the unit. As she headed toward the elevator, she thought of Seth waiting downstairs and was glad he said he’d drive her to collect her luggage from Uncle Dan’s car. Getting in his house shouldn’t be a problem because she still carried a key to the front door on her key ring. She punched the button for the elevator and froze in place.

Her purse. It was still in the chair at the end of Uncle Dan’s bed. She must really be tired if she hadn’t realized she’d left without it.

With a groan, she retraced her steps to the Critical Care Unit. She glanced in the waiting room as she passed by and came to a sudden stop. Marshal White stood beside the vending machine, drinking a soft drink. He glanced her way and smiled. “What are you doing back?”

She frowned. “I forgot my purse. Why are you out here?”

He swallowed a sip of his drink. “One of the nurses needed to check Judge Lattimer’s vital signs and said it would be okay for me to get something to drink while he was busy in the room.”

Callie frowned. “I didn’t see a male nurse while I was in there.”

Marshal White shrugged. “I think he’d just come down to help them since that other patient was having problems.”

Callie nodded. “Do you think it would be okay for me to step in and get my purse?”

“I think so. Go ahead.”

She walked to the entrance into the unit and only hesitated a moment before pulling the door open. Once inside, she looked toward the room where the nurses had been working earlier. Since there was no one at the desk, she assumed they were still busy with the patient, and she eased toward her uncle’s room.

The curtains had been pulled around the cubicle, blocking sight into the room. Her first thought was that it was probably standard procedure when they were working with a patient, but she frowned when she noticed that the curtains hadn’t been pulled in the room where the nurses still worked. She tiptoed to her uncle’s space, pulled back the curtain and slipped into the room.

A nurse was bent over his bed and didn’t seem to hear when she entered. She spotted her purse and was about to reach for it when she froze in place. Fear shot through her body like a bolt of lightning. The nurse wasn’t administering any kind of aid. Instead, he was holding a pillow over her uncle’s face.

With a loud scream, she sprang on the man’s back and grabbed him around the neck. His body jerked in surprise, and he twisted to free himself. “What...?” he yelled as he reached up and grasped her hands.

Callie screamed again and clawed at the surgical mask covering the man’s face. It slipped from his mouth, and Callie glimpsed a jagged scar down the right side of his face. The mask slipped farther, and she caught sight of a star tattoo on his neck.

The attacker hunched his shoulders and heaved with enough force to knock Callie from his back. She sailed backward and hit the wall with a loud thud. The man whirled, pulled a gun from his waistband and aimed it at her. Before he could pull the trigger, Marshal White appeared in the doorway, his gun drawn.

“Hold it right there!” he yelled.

The attacker whirled and pulled the trigger. The sound echoed off the walls, and Marshal White slumped to the floor. The shooter lunged for the door, jumped over the marshal’s body and sprinted down the hallway. Callie rushed to the door and caught sight of him as he ran through the exit at the far end of the hallway. Realizing she wouldn’t be able to catch him, she turned back in time to see the two nurses who’d been cowered against the wall outside the other patient’s room straighten up.

One of them pushed to her feet and glanced at her coworker. “I’ll check the marshal and the judge. You call security and get us some help.”

The other one ran to the nurses’ station and picked up the phone while the one who’d spoken knelt next to Marshal White. She looked up at Callie. “What happened?”

“There was a man in scrubs trying to suffocate my uncle. If I hadn’t come back for my purse, he’d be dead now.”

The nurse nodded and called out to the other one. “The marshal needs to get to surgery right away. I’ll check Judge Lattimer.”