A Time To Protect. Lois Richer
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back to the hospital at this hour.”
“Maybe he was called back.” She turned her head to study the man who passed within ten feet of them, his face turned away. “Sometimes a physician will ask the hospital to notify the family if a patient takes a turn for the worse and they feel there’s a need for immediate visitation.” She watched Brendan rub a spot on the back of his neck and wondered why he seemed so interested in this particular man.
“He’s wearing black but he doesn’t look like a man who’s grieving. Look at those boots. They look like combat boots.”
Chloe almost laughed. It was the first time she’d been ignored for a man, and never for a pair of ugly boots, which made it perfectly clear that Brendan Montgomery had absolutely no interest in her. Good.
“I’m going back to work now,” she told him.
“Your break isn’t up yet.” He stared at her with a frown, attention momentarily diverted from the man who now entered an elevator.
“No, it isn’t. But we’re behind. Besides, I want to call Mrs. Mills and make sure everything is all right at home. Good night.” Chloe dumped the things off her tray into the garbage, set the tray on a rolling cart nearby and started toward the elevators, forcing herself not to look back at him.
Agent Brendan Montgomery was a very attractive man, and when he was around her blood pressure soared. But Chloe knew she couldn’t afford the distraction. Men weren’t to be trusted. Hadn’t Steve taught her that lesson the hard way?
All seemed quiet on the floor. Chloe spent a few minutes talking to Mrs. Mills, who was not thrilled by the interruption to her nap.
“Sorry I woke you, Mrs. Mills. I just wanted to check in, make sure all was well. Good night.” Chloe hung up with a grimace. Sometimes she wished she could find someone else to stay with the kids, someone who wasn’t quite so…negative. But sitters weren’t easy at the best of times, and finding one who could stay all night was toughest of all.
“Did you check on the mayor lately?” she asked Theresa, who shook her head “no” and hurried away to answer another monitor’s bleep. “I’ll do it then.”
The mayor’s room was the farthest one away from the station. As Chloe hurried toward it, a noise startled her. The guard wasn’t in his place by the door but flickering shadows told her someone was inside the room.
Some inner caution slowed Chloe. She clamped her lips together before glancing around the corner. A man stood at the side of the bed. He wore scrubs and a surgical mask, which was perfectly normal. Doctors came and went through the mayor’s room, constantly checking on them. But something about this doctor didn’t seem quite right, so she opened her mouth to ask his name. But before any sound could come out, she closed it, her eyes on his feet.
He wore combat boots—just like the ones Brendan had commented on earlier. She could only see the eyes and a tuft of brown hair from under the cap, but Chloe was almost certain it was the man from downstairs, and he was talking to the mayor. Chloe inched around the corner and listened.
“You were warned,” he whispered, his voice carrying clearly to her. He slid a hypodermic needle out of his pocket and inserted it into the mayor’s IV line, his thumb pushing whatever was in the cylinder into the life-giving fluids.
Chloe glanced behind her but her coworker wasn’t to be seen. She’d have to handle this herself and hope the guard would show up soon.
“Hey!” She dashed into the room, knocked the needle away, then hit the IV pump switch marked off, at the same time thrusting her leg out and hitting the intruder with a dropkick. Chloe thought she’d had good pressure but the blow seemed to glance off as the attacker rose in one lithe movement.
The pump stayed silent for a moment then sent up its alarm. She ignored it, backing up as her brain mentally assessed and discarded options.
The man’s face was almost completely hidden. Only the eyes, beady and dark, glared at her. From behind the mask she heard a hissed warning.
“Mind your own business.”
“This patient is my business.” Chloe watched his hand stretch toward her, saw the black spider tattoo on his wrist creep out from the sleeve of the green scrubs. Options—she needed options. “What did you put in there?” she asked, trying to buy time as she inclined her head toward the needle now lying at her feet.
He swung at her. Chloe stepped backward, then realized that had been his intent as he swept up the needle and aimed it toward her. “Why don’t you try it and see?” he said with a sneer.
“I don’t think so. But thanks anyway.” Chloe waited for her opportunity, her eyes never leaving his as he swept the pointed tip in front of her once, twice. On the third sweep she slapped her knee against his wrist and the needle flew across the room and stabbed into the wall. If she could just get in a couple of solid hits, she might floor him long enough to call for help.
Suddenly the wail of the mayor’s heart monitor shattered her concentration. Chloe glanced at the bed. Cardiac arrest!
Looking away had been a mistake. Chloe felt the solid smack against her chest and reeled from the hit, striking her head on the metal bed as she went down. Like a shape-shifter, the room bent double then turned upside down in one moment of excruciating pain. Chloe began to lose her ability to focus, but she kicked one last time and heard a grunt of pain.
“Stay out of my business,” a snarl hissed from behind her. Then he was gone.
She hung on to the bed, forcing herself to slide across the floor until she could reach the mayor’s IV. Every movement was agony, her head screamed for relief, but Chloe forced her body forward in spite of it. As much as possible she intended to prevent one more drop of the stuff from that needle from entering the mayor’s body.
The heart monitor was screaming more loudly than the IV machine. Someone would come soon. She drew herself up long enough to free the IV tubing from the shunt in the mayor’s vein. Using her thumb as pressure, she held on for as long as she could.
Then everything went black.
Even before the elevator doors opened, Brendan heard it. Cardiac arrest. That made three tonight, unless he’d missed something. Chloe was right—the night was busy. He walked toward the nursing station, hoping for her sake that it wasn’t another drug case.
Theresa emerged from one room, saw him and beckoned. “I need help.” She began running.
He needed no second bidding. Brendan followed her toward the end of the hall…toward the mayor’s room. The mayor’s room! Once that thought penetrated, the nerve at the back of his neck went crazy. He glanced around, saw the stairwell door whooshing closed, stopped by the leg of a man in a police uniform. He started for that door, heard a yell.
“Get in here!”
Brendan stepped into Mayor Max’s room, caught his breath at the sight of Chloe slumped against the bed, fingers still wrapped in IV tubing.
“She’s pulled out his IV tube. I’ve got to get it back in so the doctors can use it for a push. Move her.”
Brendan gently eased Chloe’s fingers from the mayor’s arm, carried her to the side of the room. She blinked a couple of times, stared at him.
“IV’s contaminated,” she murmured, then closed her eyes.
“Wait,” he yelled as Theresa struggled to reinsert the tube. “Chloe said it’s been contaminated. Get another bag.”
“I hooked this one up while she was on break. There’s nothing wrong with it.” Theresa ignored him.
Brendan chewed his lip as the crash team came rushing down the hall. Maybe Chloe was confused?
What do I do, Lord?
He glanced around, saw the needle still dangling from the plastered wall and moved to close his hand over the nurse’s.