Racing Against the Clock. Lori Wilde
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voice taunted.
After Yvette’s death, he had become so accomplished at shutting off his own feelings that his concerns for his patients never extended beyond their surgical recovery time. What mattered to Tyler was that he performed their operations to the best of his ability. After that, it was out of his hands. He hadn’t cared about their family life or spiritual well-being. He hadn’t bothered with learning how they got around at home or if they had someone to cook and clean for them while they recovered. That was the job of social workers and nurses, not surgeons.
He was too rusty. His do-gooder instincts were flabby and out of shape. He should just get someone from social services to come consult on her case so he could wash his hands of everything but her medical condition.
Inside his head, he heard Yvette click her tongue that way she had when she was disappointed in him. He could almost feel her disapproving frown burning the back of his head.
Angrily, he shrugged off the sensation. Dammit! He had no reason to feel guilty. He hadn’t asked for this assignment. He wasn’t this woman’s savior. Nor was she even asking him to be. He didn’t want to get involved.
I’m my brother’s keeper. Yvette’s motto—his own old motto before he’d lost touch with his humanity—echoed in his ears.
Ah, hell.
“No one forced me off the road,” Jane Doe denied. “The eyewitnesses are mistaken. It was wet and getting dark. I was driving too fast. My car hydroplaned and flipped.”
“You can remember the accident but you can’t remember your name?”
She shrugged.
He swept his gaze over her body, befuddled at the suddenness of her physical transformation. A short time ago she had been immobile, barely conscious. Her face had been lacerated and her blood pressure low. She had come into contact with an unknown chemical that was quite possibly toxic and she had acute upper-right quadrant pain. Now, she presented the picture of health. Her pasty color had been replaced by a lively pink sheen. Blond hair that had been damp and matted with blood now hung soft and luxuriant down her back. Plus, she was placing full weight on the bone that supposedly had a hairline fracture.
Something didn’t jive. He had seen Olympic athletes that hadn’t looked as good.
Then he remembered the results of the woman’s blood work. The low white blood cell count, the elevated platelets, the numerous lymphocytes. She didn’t look like an advanced cancer victim, either. Tyler narrowed his eyes and stroked his chin as he contemplated the evidence.
Maybe the chemicals she’d absorbed through her skin during the accident had altered her blood values, mutating her cells in some bizarre manner that resembled cancer. It was possible, although rare, to see such a change so quickly after exposure, but then again nothing about this woman seemed normal or predictable.
He had to get to the bottom of this anomaly. He had to find out how she could go from obtunded to robust in the span of half an hour.
What exactly had been in those vials?
“Get back on the gurney,” Tyler commanded, pointing a finger at the stretcher.
Jane Doe raised her chin and glared at him defiantly. “No.”
“I will not allow you to leave this hospital until I’ve examined you.”
“You can’t stop me.” Her blue eyes flashed fire.
He folded his arms over his chest and moved to block the doorway. “Maybe not, but the police can. Shall I call them?”
“This is an outrage.” She frowned. “It’s blackmail.”
“Sit,” he commanded again and pointed at the bed. This time, she obeyed.
Jane Doe scooted herself up onto the gurney but instead of lying down, she stayed sitting on the edge, her feet dangling inches above the floor. She looked like a disgruntled kid forced to eat her broccoli before being allowed to have chocolate cake.
“Has it occurred to you that something isn’t quite kosher here?” Tyler asked, stepping closer to the stretcher.
“What do you mean?”
“Your leg. It should be causing you terrible pain.”
He could explain away her irregular lab values in the face of renewed health, and it was within the realm of possibility that her spleen had stopped bleeding on its own without surgical intervention. But he could not, no matter how hard he tried, come up with an explanation for why she could bear weight on her fractured leg.
“I’ll tell you what’s not kosher,” she said, narrowing her eyes at him. “Your diagnosis. Admit your mistake, Doctor. You were wrong about the fracture. Obviously, my leg is not broken.”
“Let’s check the film.”
He stepped to where her X rays were clipped to a fluorescent, wall-mounted box and switched on the backlight. The bulb flickered a minute, then illuminated the view of her right-upper leg.
“See that,” he said, pointing to the thin dark line that ran almost the entire length of her long bone. “That’s what we call a capillary fracture. The mildest fracture, but a fracture nonetheless. You should be in considerable pain.”
“It simply isn’t my X ray,” she denied.
“It’s got your name on it.”
“And what name is that?”
“Jane Doe.”
“Yes. A name you give all unknown female patients. Correct?”
“There have been no other Jane Does admitted tonight,” Tyler replied.
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.” But her statement caused him momentary doubt. Could it be true?
“Then someone mislabeled the X ray,” she insisted. “You’ve got me mixed up with another patient. That’s all there is to it.”
“I want to X ray your leg again.”
“No need. It’s fine. You saw me walking on it.”
“Appease me.”
“I see no point. Clearly if I can bear weight on the leg it can’t be fractured.”
She had a valid argument. Their gazes caught and he couldn’t help but feel a flare of heat low in his belly. Her eyes were sharp, intelligent. Nothing got by this one.
“You still can’t remember your name?” he asked, flicking off the light under her X ray and coming back to stand beside her.
“No.”
“I want to check your neurological signs.”
“All right.”
At least she hadn’t fought him on this. He removed a penlight from his pocket and flashed it in first one pupil and then the other. Equal and reactive.
“Do you know what day it is?” he asked, testing to see if she was oriented to time and place.
“Thursday. November, the seventh,” she replied.
He nodded. “And where are you at?”
“St. Madeline’s Hospital in Houston, Texas.”
“Here,” he said. “Squeeze my hands.”
She stared at him. “What for?”
“So I can check your grip.”
“Is this really necessary?”
“I don’t bite.”
She sighed and rolled her eyes.
Why was she so reluctant to touch him? He wriggled his fingers. “Come on.”
Slowly, she took his fingers