Jessica Andersen - Intensive Care

The machine’s howl drowned out both the music and Ripley’s gasp. Cage looked over at her and their eyes met and held. He saw surprised horror. Confusion. And…guilt? Then she glanced over at her friend, and Cage saw the curtain drop over her emotions.

He’d get no more from Ripley Davis. Her priorities were clear. Herself first, the members of her department second and the hospital third. Then maybe the patients fourth or fifth.

Just like every other R-ONC he’d ever dealt with.

With unaccountable disappointment sliding through him, Cage glanced down at the pathologist’s notes. The woman’s name jumped out at him. Ida Mae Harris.

This was the wife of the man who had attacked Ripley the day before. Coincidence? He thought not. Suddenly, the distraught husband’s words in the atrium took on a far more sinister meaning.

Dr. Davis killed my wife.

Cage glanced over at her. It was difficult to see the slender brunette as a killer, but he’d learned the hard way that death in a hospital was not always a simple thing. There were often many players. Many mistakes. In his mind, she slid back from “victim” to “suspect” as he reached for his phone and called the Rad Safety Office. “We need all of you down here, pronto,” he barked when one of the techs answered, grouchy at having his card game interrupted. “We need to isolate the morgue, decontaminate everything in it, and dispose of this body.”

“You can’t do that!”

He glanced over at Ripley. She’d advanced to the center of the room with her hands fisted as though she’d fight him for the body. Her breasts lifted with the force of her agitated breathing, and he fought the elemental sexual awareness that clawed at him when she took a step closer.

He leaned down and had the satisfaction of seeing her eyes widen a fraction, though the surge of heat between them was less satisfying. “Yes, I can and I just did. Dixon may have used the RSO job to harass the female doctors who turned him down for dates, but I’m here to keep this hospital safe. That includes isolating radioactively contaminated items.”

Ripley snapped, “That’s not an ‘item.’ It’s a woman’s body. Her name was Ida Mae Harris, and her husband wants to know why she died. Remember him, Cage? Are you going to tell Harris that he can’t bury his wife because she’s going to spend the next thirty half-lives in a fifty-five-gallon drum in the subbasement? Are you going to tell him we won’t autopsy her because we’re afraid of contamination? He doesn’t care about any of that. Frankly, I don’t care about it, either. I want the autopsy done as quickly as possible.”

Why was she arguing for the autopsy? He’d have thought she would want the whole incident buried. Or cremated. It was the surest way to cover a mistake.

What was her angle, then? There had to be one. Doctors didn’t do anything without an agenda, but what was hers? Because she was absolutely right. For the good of the patient and the hospital, they’d have to find a way to examine the body without nuking anyone. He frowned, confused.

Whose side was Ripley Davis on?

“What was wrong with Mrs. Harris?” Whistler interrupted, “Besides the obvious.”

“Breast cancer,” Ripley answered. “She had a small lump removed.”

Thinking fast, Cage asked, “What radiation treatment?” Some of the newer methods involved implanting a radioactive seed in place of the tumor. If the seed hadn’t been properly removed, it could account for the woman’s contamination.

“She’d had two treatments under the A55,” Ripley replied, and Cage’s heart iced at the reminder of another linear accelerator. Another patient. Heather. His wife had gone in for a simple radiation treatment and died mere days later. He barely heard Ripley say, “But that couldn’t account for the contamination. The accelerator beams radiation into the body. There’s no residual source.”

Whistler chimed in from across the room, “And that’s not all, boss. There are hot spots all over the room with varying count levels.” He grinned at the pathologist, who looked as though she might faint. There was a strange, unsettling fascination in Whistler’s expression. “I’ll bet they’ve autopsied radioactive bodies here before and never even knew it.”

“OH, GOD. THAT WAS AWFUL.” Once she and Tansy were back in the R-ONC inner office, Ripley sank to the sofa and covered her face with her hands. She couldn’t believe Ida Mae’s body was radioactive. What the hell had gone wrong?

She’d sat and talked with Ida Mae, just as she visited with each of her patients. She waited with them. Agonized with them. Loved them. And now this? It was unthinkable.

“Nothing was…odd about her treatment, right, Ripley?” Reluctant doubt edged Tansy’s tone. Just back from an overseas assignment with her partner, she hadn’t been in town when Ida Mae had started her treatment.

“It was textbook, Tans. I swear. I have no idea how this could have happened.” Ripley dropped her hands and leaned back, staring at the ceiling. “No idea at all. Damn it.”

“What about the other spots Whistler found in the morgue?”

That discovery had chilled Ripley to the bone. She shook her head. “I hope he was wrong. If not, then…” She faltered. If not, it meant radioactive bodies had been processed in the morgue before.

She took a deep breath. R-ONC was her department. Everything that went on inside its walls was her responsibility. Ergo, it was up to her to figure out what had happened to Ida Mae Harris. With a little help from Tansy.

But when she lifted her head to make the suggestion, Ripley saw that her best friend was practically dozing on her feet. She looked terrible. Quick concern rose. “Tansy, you look like you’re ready to drop. Why don’t you head on home? Better yet, page Dale and let him take you home and put you to bed.” Dr. Dale Metcalf, infectious disease specialist, was Tansy’s partner on overseas assignments. And her lover. Though Ripley didn’t believe in happily ever after for herself, it looked as if Tansy and Dale had a pretty good shot at it.

“We broke up.”

“You what!?” Ripley stared at her best friend, finally realizing that the red tint to Tansy’s eyes and the hollows in her cheeks weren’t all due to her friend’s habitual insomnia. There had been a good dose of tears as well. “When? Why?”

“It doesn’t matter.” When Ripley would’ve argued, Tansy held up a hand. “Not now, okay? I think you’re right about taking the rest of the day off, though. I’ll be back on Sunday for rounds.”

Ripley nodded, knowing that for all her outward cheerfulness, Tansy had a private streak that ran deep. She’d talk about her problems when she was ready to and not before. “See you Sunday, then.” Ripley would simply have to work on Ida Mae’s case herself. There had to be a clue in the clinical notes.

“Dr. Rip?” The breathy voice from the doorway had both women turning.

Milo sagged in his wheelchair with a jumble of pens in his lap. At Ripley’s wave, the volunteer, Belle, pushed him in and took the markers from the sleepy boy’s hands.

“Livvy’s gone home, but Milo wanted to return these to you personally. Shall I put them in your office?” Belle was a tiny woman of indeterminate age who had been volunteering at Boston General for many years. When her father had died the year before, leaving her comfortably well-off but alone, she had begun spending more and more time at the hospital. Now, she divided her time amongst her favorite patients and the hospital chapel.

“Thanks, Belle. You can just leave them on my desk. I’ll sort them and put them away later.”

By the time the volunteer had completed her errand and wheeled Milo back out into the hall, the little boy was fast asleep.