Chapter 18
It’s been the strangest twelve hours I’ve possibly ever had. It doesn’t even have anything to do with patients. I’ve gotten three pages to units I have nothing to do with. When I get there, no one knows who sent the alerts. As though that wasn’t weird enough, the first was to the ER just as a gunshot wound was being transferred to surgery. The second was to intensive care as a patient crashed. And the third was to surgical recovery where a patient was hemorrhaging and eventually died. It’s no coincidence that death was the common denominator. I get that. The strange part is why me? Why today? And who?
“Ted, can you meet me on the first floor? I just got paged to the morgue. Something’s going on, and I’m not comfortable going down there alone.”
“Are you safe right now, Dr. Gallagher?”
I’m on the phone with my bodyguard for today. Joey and his brothers aren’t available, but I like Ted. I think Joey, Simon, and Fallon are doing something else rather than having the days off.
“I believe so. I’m about to get on the elevator. I’ll meet you downstairs near the gift shop.”
“Okay.”
I push the button and wait for it to arrive. I’m on the NICU floor and have five to go down before I can find Ted. A sudden wave of trepidation slams into me as I step onto the elevator. What if someone corners me in here? I can’t control who gets on. I keep my phone out and Ted’s contact on my screen. One press will call him. My toes are tapping inside my clogs.
Fuck.
“Morning.”
“Morning.” I don’t know who this person is.
Definitely a visitor since no hospital ID. He pushes the close door button, but nothing else. Lovely. He got on at the fourth floor and is riding down with me to the first. I make sure I’m in the corner. But the doors open on the third floor, and two more men get on. Don’t any women work here too?
Blessedly, we don’t stop on the second floor. I’m in the corner, so the other two people have to step off first. I reach for the door open button as an excuse to get the original man off the elevator before me. The hairs on the back of my neck are standing up, and I don’t want him behind me. I’m being paranoid, but I’m a single woman living and working in New York. Situational paranoia is a survival instinct.
I spot Ted, but the first man is standing right outside the elevator, looking around as though he’s lost. This part of the first floor is pretty straightforward. Visitors desk, the gift shop, elevators, and snack cart. There’s one door outside. When Ted steps forward, the guy pretends not to watch where he’s going and shoulder checks Ted. I watch to see if they pass each other something.
I glance down at my phone as Ted steps on. I pull up Finn’s contact. I didn’t like how that man got physical with my guard. It makes me even more apprehensive. I’m certain that was no accident.
“Are you all right, Dr. Gallagher?” Ted’s checking his suit coat pocket, then his pants pocket. He pulls nothing out, but it reassures me he’s checking. He must have thought it was odd, too.
“Yeah. That man was weird. He didn’t have a hospital ID, and I didn’t see a visitor sticker either. He got on at the fourth floor. The other two men were doctors, but I don’t know them. They got on at the third floor.”
“Yeah. I saw the elevator numbers pause at each stop.”
I’ve already pressed the basement button. I rarely have to come down to the morgue. I can’t remember the last time I did. The only dead bodies I’ve spent much time with are the cadavers in med school. The babies we lose sometimes are still babies to me.
I scan my badge to open the massive security doors. Ted holds it open for me as I step forward. I know he has two guns holstered under his arms because I saw them this morning when he checked in with me. Finn explained on the way here from Dillan’s house that they have connections at the hospital that let them bypass regular security and bring their weapons inside.
I look around, but I see no one. This isn’t exactly the busiest place in the hospital. And that’s just as well. I push through another set of doors that aren’t secured. I still see no one.
“Dr. Wazir?”
I call out to the pathologist I know works down here a lot. She’s more likely to page me than the medical examiner. Maybe not.
“Dr. Moffet?”
The ME doesn’t respond either. No one just wanders around down here, so why doesn’t someone respond? I head to the room where I know they take neonates— newborns —and the stillborn. I hate coming down here. Like with the fiery passion of a thousand suns when I think about that. I cried after every visit down here during my first year of residency.
“Ted, I don’t know who paged me or why.” I look up at my guard, who’s scanning the area, doing a three-sixty.
“Should we leave, Dr. Gallagher?”
“Let’s check two other places. This is bizarre.” It’s graduated from strange.
I check the doctors’ office and the autopsy room. No one. We head back to the elevator, and it dings before Ted or I can press the button.
“Dr. Gallagher, what are you doing down here?” At least Dr. Wazir greets me with a smile. I see she ran to get lunch.
“I got a page to come down here, but I don’t know why.”
“I didn’t page you, and Dr. Moffet isn’t in today.”
The hairs on the back of my neck go up again. I pull my pager from my scrub pants’ waistband and show it to my colleague. Sure enough. The message is to come down here. I didn’t misread or imagine it.
“I don’t know who sent that, but I didn’t need you or any of the neonatologists. So that wasn’t meant for someone else either.”
What more can I do than nod? “Thanks, Khadija.”
“No problem. Have a good day.”
“You, too.” What the fuck is going on?
Ted and I ride up to my floor together, and he asks me two more times if I’m all right. I’m not, but I smile anyway. I head into an unoccupied postpartum patient room rather than straight into the NICU and close the door behind me. I unlock my phone and tap on the screen.
“Cailín, how are you?”
“Finn, I’m a little freaked out.”
“What happened? Where are you?”
Well, that wasn’t the smartest way to start a conversation with a man like Finn. I’m certain I just heard chair legs scraping a floor.
“I’m all right, Daddy.”
I pray I’m not on speakerphone, and I look over my shoulder in case the door magically opened.
“Then what do you mean you’re freaked out?”
“I’ve gotten four pages today that have sent me on a wild goose chase. They’re all to places with someone dying or already dead. But no one at any of the units or the morgue paged me. I don’t know who is.”
“The morgue?”
“Yeah. The first three pages were to patients in distress or had just died. The one to the morgue is obvious. Ted went to the basement with me. But I met him on the first floor. A guy got on the elevator a floor below me with no hospital badge or visitor sticker. He bumped into Ted as Ted headed toward me. I watched. They didn’t exchange anything, and Ted checked his coat and pants pockets. Nothing.”
“How did you and Ted wind up on separate floors?”
“I didn’t plan to leave the NICU, so he’d just gone down to grab lunch from the food cart. He didn’t even get a chance to pick something.”
“I’m sending Sean.” Something muffles the phone. “Sean!”
“You don’t have to send anyone else. Ted is fine. I’m certain?—”
“Do not finish that sentence, cailín. I’m sending my brother because this shite is fecked-up. And I trust Ted, but only for now. I always trust my brother. I can’t come because I’m in the middle of something, but Sean can. I want Sean on the same floor as you until Cormac or Seamus can relieve him tonight.”
“They’re going to be super bored.”
“I don’t give a flying feck. This is not normal, Thea. Accept my brother and cousin or call out sick for the rest of your shift. You are not staying there without a family member guarding you.”
“Ted is your family.”
“You know what I mean. Please, trust me about this.”
I sigh. “I do. I’d feel way better if your brothers or cousins were here. But I feel guilty making them babysit me when they’ll just sit around for hours in an uncomfortable waiting room.”
“They are not babysitting you. They don’t see it that way. I don’t see it that way. You shouldn’t see it that way. Little one, I take this as a threat to you. Maybe it’s nothing, and I’m being unreasonable and completely overreacting. But I won’t chance it. You mean too much to me to ever ignore something or someone who could harm you.”
“Thank you, Daddy. I appreciate it.”
“Always, cailín. Hang on for a sec.”
I hear more muffled voices, so I assume he’s speaking to Sean. He uncovers the phone, but not before I hear a language I don’t understand.
“You still there, little one?”
“Yeah. What were you just speaking?”
“Irish Gaelic. We’re all fluent.”
I didn’t expect that. But it doesn’t take a genius to figure out why they’d speak a foreign language, and especially one that’s sorta obscure. How many people in America speak Irish?
“Useful. Please tell Sean I should be on the fifth floor when he gets here. Have him call or text if he has any problems getting in.”
“I will. I’ll make sure he lets you know when he gets there.”
“Thanks. And I’m sorry I started the conversation the way I did. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“I know you didn’t. I’ll try not to stop you going places or doing things you want. I never want you to feel suffocated or controlled outside of sex, but there might be times when my protectiveness is over the top. Just know it’s because I have a good reason.”
“I know. I’m still new to this, so I’ll follow your lead. It’s why I called you.”
“I’m glad you did. Call me back if you need anything else.”
“Okay. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Bye.”
“Bye.” I feel better.
Or rather, I’m minimally uneasy now that I’ve spoken to Finn. I still feel badly that Sean’s going to be bored out of his gourd. But I know he’s been a bodyguard for the other women in the family. He’s probably used to it.
“Medical Alert, Code Pink, fifth floor, postpartum, bed six.”
What the fuck?! That’s my patient.
I yank open the door and look around. The sirens and lights are flashing, and hospital armed security burst through the door. Code Pink is newborn abduction. The babies are basically Lowjacked. They have a bracelet around their ankles with a sensor that alerts the charge desk if a baby passes through a unit doorway. You can’t just take a baby anywhere. The nursery is only for special cases short of going to the NICU, which is down the hall from where I am now. Babies room in with their mothers. There’s no reason for an infant to leave this unit unless they are going for a special procedure or going home. Their alerts don’t go off for that.
“Suze, what happened?” I yell over the sirens when I spot the charge nurse.
“The mother wheeled the basinet into the bathroom when she showered. She stepped out, and the basinet was gone.”
“The bracelet?”
“On the floor.”
I look back toward the doors. Family members are sticking their heads out of rooms and milling around the hallway. Babies are wailing from the noise, and I’m certain parents are terrified. It’s organized chaos as the safety protocols are put in place for the entire hospital. This could be a non-custodial parent abduction, a premeditated abduction, or— I don’t even know —crime of passion abduction?
I take two steps toward the patient room since that baby was under my care at birth. Everything checked out, so I’m no longer her doctor. I still consider her a patient.
“Dr. Gallagher?”
I turn toward a woman holding her baby, jiggling it as she calls for me. The baby isn’t moving. Not flailing. Not crying. Not twisting their head.
“Suze, with me!” I practically have to scream as I run below a speaker.
I lift the newborn from his mother’s arms and take him to the basinet. The infant is turning blue. I pull my stethoscope from around my neck as I run my gaze over the baby. The heartbeat is irregular, and the breathing shallow. The nurse comes in with a cart that includes oxygen. I get the mask fitted around the tiny head. I keep listening to the heart as I run my hands over the fragile arms and legs. I press with two fingers on the abdomen.
The heartbeat grows steadier and stronger. The breathing remains labored with nostrils flaring with each inhale and quiet grunts, but a healthy color is coming back to his blue-tinged face, arms, and legs. I hear the parents asking what’s happening, but I don’t stop to answer them. Something made this baby nearly stop breathing. I can feel the muscles pulling in around the ribs with each breath, which concerns me. This little one isn’t fully out of distress yet.
Suze and I keep working for another five minutes until I’m more confident the infant is stable, but I explain to the parents that their baby needs to go to the NICU for more observations than we can provide in their hospital room. I hate giving that piece of news. I know they feel like their world is crumbling because the unknown is unquantifiably terrifying right now.
I hurry to catch up with Suze and the baby. Examining and running tests on the little boy consumes the next two hours. I’m finally satisfied that he’s stable and recovered from a brUE—brief resolved unexpected event. I have no idea what happened with the abduction. I barely looked down when Sean called. I pulled out my phone long enough to send a thumbs up text back to him. He must hear what’s going on inside, so he knows I’m not ignoring him or being flippant.
I head back to the charge desk with my surgical cap in my hand as I blow out a long breath. I look around, and you’d never know there was a crisis earlier. It’s like everything is back to normal. That wouldn’t be the case if the abduction was unresolved.
“Terence, what happened?” I stop at the desk and ask a nurse.
“It was a false alarm.”
“How? I heard the monitoring bracelet was on the floor.”
“It was. Apparently, it was too loose and slipped off.”
Bullshit.
“Where was the baby?”
“In a crib in the nursery.”
“What? How?”
Occupied basinets have stats on a whiteboard at the foot of them. That would mean there was one too many babies in there if a basinet with no information had a patient.
“The baby who belonged in the basinet— a little boy —was under the bili lights. The baby in the basinet was a girl. She had a birthmark one nurse recognized and knew who she was.”
Bilirubin lights— phototherapy for jaundiced babies. That makes sense about an unoccupied bed, but that is— I don’t even know. We have one of the best birthing centers and postpartum care units in the state. These types of accidents don’t just happen.
I thank him and head to the doors that lead to the lounge outside the unit. I spot Sean immediately. Red hair helps. His back is also like twice as broad as the chair. He has his laptop and looks up when the doors open. He stands as I walk over.
“What happened?” He keeps his voice low since we aren’t alone.
“An abduction, or rather a misplacement. A baby went missing from her basinet while the mother was taking a shower with the basinet in the bathroom. Apparently— and I don’t believe this for a second —the monitoring bracelet slipped off. The baby wound up in the wrong basinet in the nursery. I just found this out because I had my own patient in distress for the past two hours.”
“Are they both okay?”
“My patient is stable and awaiting test results. As far as I know, the— misplaced— that sounds as horrible as it is — baby is back with her parents. I have ten minutes before I start rounds. I’m going to grab a Coke Zero and a candy bar. Would you like anything?”
“Where do you have to go for that?”
“Down the hall to the next unit. Just before you get to it, there are three vending machines.”
Sean looks in the direction I point. You can’t see the machines from here. He’s holding his computer, so he grabs the bag.
“It’s just down the hall, Sean.”
His look tells me not to even bother.
“Thank you for coming. I didn’t handle things well when I called Finn. I should have tempered my wording a bit.”
“No. You did the right thing. It would have worried him more if those four pages didn’t upset you. He knows you’re taking your protection seriously, which means one less thing to worry about for him while he sorts out who threatened you.”
“Did he tell you I didn’t want to bother you with coming here to sit around and do nothing?”
“I wasn’t doing nothing. I was working. I had stuff to do on my computer, and I was guarding you. Ally, we used to call Finn ‘Doubting Thomas’ when we were kids. He believed nothing without proof. It makes him a stellar mathematician. He excels at investing and playing the Stock Market, and he can root out any accounting discrepancy dating back to the Renaissance. He trusts very few people to begin with. There are eight men he trusts your safety to with no reservation. Shane, me, Cormac, Seamus, Dillan, our dad, and our two uncles. Dillan feels the same way about Mair. My dad and uncles feel the same way about my mom and aunts. We may allow other men to guard you when we’re certain the situation is under our control. The moment it’s not, the family circles the wagons. You’re protected now just the same as my mom, aunts, and Mair. Nobody considers guarding the women who mean the most to our family as doing nothing.”
We stop in front of the vending machines, and Sean pulls coins and a couple dollar bills from his pocket. I do the same, and he shoots me the same look as earlier.
“What would you like besides the Coke Zero?”
“A Twix, please.”
“That’s it? I’m having a Twix, a Snickers, and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.” He grins unrepentantly.
“And you work out twice a day.”
“I think you earned at least two treats today.” He hands me the Twix and waits. His grin is contagious.
“The pretzel MMs, please.”
He gets his own snacks after handing the candy and soda to me. We walk to the lounge in silence as we eat. Chocolate really is the soul’s best medicine. That and cheese.
I finish my snack and head back into the NICU at the opposite end of the hall from the vending machines. Things are quiet for the rest of the day and the next. I still can’t shake the dread over the four pages, and the pessimist in me wonders if the Code Pink was a way to get at me. My respiratory distress patient has a potential nerve disorder, but we need more tests to diagnose that definitively. I’m dead on my feet when I head into the break room for a nap. It feels like a million years ago— not two days ago —that I was soaking in the tub with Finn.
I still can’t shake the one question that’s been plaguing me. What the fuck is going on?