Chapter 6
The emergency room was chaotic when Todd returned. In addition to ambulances dropping off people, he found a nurse checking out Bridget, while Dr. Miller and another nurse worked frantically on Jane Doe.
He hurried into the room. “What happened?”
“You need to step out.” The authority in Dr. Miller’s voice stopped him in his tracks.
“Why?”
“We have our hands full and can’t deal with you, too.” Then she physically turned away from him as if he didn’t exist anymore, her complete focus on the patient in front of her.
He stepped to the door but didn’t move any further because something bad had happened in the time he returned to the scene, and he wouldn’t leave until he understood. He pulled out his phone and texted Caleb.
You still up?
He waited a minute.
Should he call and wake his partner? He wasn’t sure it was worth doing that yet. Still, he might need backup from someone. Something had gone down, but he couldn’t tell whether Jane Doe’s crisis was health-related or something more. The fact that Bridget needed help screamed something more.
A nurse pushed past him, something in his hand that he held out to Bridget. “Here’s an ice pack for you.”
“I’m fine.” Her words had some fight in them, but that didn’t match the weariness in her body language.
“Hold it where you hit your head. It’ll help with the swelling.” He held a light up to her eyes. “I don’t think you’ve got a concussion, but we can run some tests.”
“I didn’t black out, and I’m not nauseous. I just have a headache. Focus on someone who needs the attention.” Her attention shifted to the bed where Dr. Miller and a couple of nurses were working on the girl. “How is she?”
The nurse glanced that direction and shook his head. “I don’t know. It’s a good thing you walked in.”
That got Todd’s attention. “You left?”
“Just to use the restroom. They were getting ready to transport her to a room.” She sighed. “Everyone told me that it was a good time to leave. I was gone a whole five minutes.”
The alarm stopped, and Dr. Miller stepped back from the bed, eyes glued to the monitors. After a moment, she nodded. “Okay. Looks like we have her stabilized. This young lady just got upgraded to the ICU for the night. I want her closely monitored while we make sure she’s okay.”
“What happened?”
Dr. Miller pointed to the abandoned syringe. “It looks like whoever was in here shot her up with drugs. We treated her with Narcan and other interventions. But I want to know who did this and why.” She pointed to Todd. “Can you get security in here?”
“Sure.” He left the emergency room and wound his way through the maze of the hospital to the security center. When he entered, he found Benjamin Rice sitting at a bank of monitors. “Ben, good to see you.”
“Long time no see, man.” They exchanged the elaborate handshake from their days in the local National Guard unit. The man had put on some weight, likely from not having to do the annual physical, but other than that looked unchanged. “What can I do for you?”
“We had an incident in the Emergency Room in the last half hour. Dr. Miller asked if you would come down.”
“I’m the only one here right now. I can send the circulating security officer to the ER.” Ben frowned as he scanned the monitors. “Officer Suarez should have been in that vicinity.”
“A few transports were arriving from an accident scene.”
“It’s been a crazy night. At first everyone was diverted to St. E’s and the trauma center at Bryan East, but now they’re overflowing here. That accident must have been a doozy.” He pointed to a monitor. “There she is. I can direct her to Dr. Miller. Which bay in the ER?”
Todd told him. “Someone injected the patient, a Jane Doe, with something. We’re guessing drugs.”
Ben looked up at him, slack jawed. “What? When did this happen? I can try to find video.”
“I wasn’t here, so you’ll need to ask Bridget Ellis, the case worker, who was around the room.” He felt the frustration build at the realization he could have prevented the incident if he hadn’t left. “I’d stepped away to go back to the scene where I found the girl.”
“Makes sense. Unidentified?”
“Yep.”
“That’s sad.” He typed a message to the security officer, then focused on Todd. “Get me a timeline, and we can review the video.”
“On it.” He stifled a yawn. This wasn’t the first night he would pull an all-nighter, but he’d had a couple late nights this week. Maybe his body was letting him know he wasn’t as young as he used to be. It wasn’t like he was ancient though. He should be able to keep up.
“Come on, old man. Do you need a Red Bull?”
“Nah. Just need to stay in motion.” It was barely midnight after all. “I’ll be back.”
“Sounds good. I’ll be here ready to scroll to what you need.” Ben toasted him with his energy drink and returned his focus to the monitors.
Todd scanned the screens, then turned and left the room.
His phone vibrated as he stepped into the hall, and he pulled it free. “Westmont.”
“You texted.” Caleb sounded tired yet alert.
“I didn’t expect you to call.”
“Brianna decided she wanted company.”
The sound of a jaw popping reached Todd. “That sounded painful.”
“Only a yawn.” A whimper sounded and then a rustle. “Guess she didn’t like that bottle position. This parenting thing is tough.”
“Also pretty rewarding, I bet.”
“That, too.” Another big inhale and exhale came across. “What can I help you with?”
Todd filled Caleb in on the night’s events.
“That’s crazy.”
“Yeah. I’d appreciate your help in the morning.”
“Absolutely. I can be there at dawn to help search the alley. See what’s there.”
“Appreciate it.” Todd rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t want to miss anything because we need to find this girl’s family. Someone must be worried about her.” He navigated the hospital’s hallways until he reached the emergency room. “She’s really hurt, and I don’t think it’s new.”
“Do you think it’s trafficking?”
“I hope not, but if it is, that will complicate finding her family. We’ll start with the assumption she’s local.”
“I haven’t heard chatter about a missing teen.”
Todd hadn’t either. To help her, they needed to know the root cause of her problem.
Bridget accepted the Tylenol the nurse offered her.
Something had to touch the pounding in her head.
She couldn’t think straight, and she needed to if she hoped to protect her Jane Doe.
She couldn’t begin to find the rules that covered this situation in the employee manual and policies she’d received.
As far as she knew, no one had encountered a situation like this.
While she was glad, it didn’t help her.
First, she’d call her manager. That would be a fun call. Then she’d do whatever she was told. She didn’t like being passive, but she needed to stay safely within the rules and guidelines.
What did her Jane Doe need from her?
She eased to the chair next to the bed.
How did she find the girl’s family?
None of the searches she’d run so far had revealed a report that matched this scenario.
There were no runaway young teens that she could find.
She also wasn’t aware of reports of abuse or neglect relating to twelve to fourteen-year-old girls in Lancaster County.
That was the closest she could narrow down this girl’s age.
The problem was based on where Todd had found her, she could have been transported from a major interstate and several important highways. Each was within a mile of the location. The search area felt daunting if she broadened it beyond the immediate city and county.
Without hits in that area, how could she draw a limiting perimeter?
The phone rang without anyone picking up, not unexpected considering the hour. She left a message and wondered how long it would take for a return call. Would this situation be considered a true emergency? Especially since the girl was relatively stable and receiving care at a hospital?
Bridget held the dripping ice to the back of her head and then moved it.
She put it in the sink and squeezed her hair where it was wet.
The ice had helped with her pain on the margins, and maybe it would keep her from getting an egg where she’d collided with the bed and then the wall. Really, she felt like a klutz.
She probably shouldn’t have intervened, but she’d had to do something to protect the girl. No one else could, so she had to. It didn’t help that he’d already used the drugs.
The compounded trauma on Jane Doe’s body couldn’t be good.
Especially when they were still trying to identify the underlying cause for her unresponsiveness.
She’d need to get help identifying Jane. She might not know Dani Jamison super well, but Bridget would start with her. If Dani shared a story about this unidentified minor, maybe the other news outlets would carry it. They had to. All she needed was one person to identify her.
As she studied the young woman, she tried to imagine why she would be dumped in an alley.
What would cause someone to put her out like the trash?
Each person had value.
Each life was important.
So what happened?
Did the medical situation become too much? Too overwhelming? If that was the case, someone could simply walk away and let the State step in. In a way, that was what was happening now anyway. But the girl’s parents could have done that without abandoning her.
Or had she seen something? Been somewhere she shouldn’t have been? Was that why someone had tracked her down in the hospital and tried to silence her permanently?
Had they thought she was already dead by leaving her in that alley, and then somehow realized she’d been found and decided to make sure she would be eliminated while in the hospital?
That was quite a risk to come into the hospital and inject her with whatever drugs had filled that syringe.
That indicated she had seen or heard something concerning.
Someone came up behind her, and Bridget startled.
“Sorry.” The deep voice slightly lowered her concern. Todd leaned against the cabinet next to her, and she relaxed. “How are you feeling?”
“I’ll have a headache, but I’ll be okay.”
“Glad to hear you’ll make it.”
“Yeah. Did you learn anything at security?”
He shook his head. “I need to know the approximate time that the person was in here before we review the video.”
She tried to think. “Maybe eleven? I think you’d been gone about an hour.”
He nodded. “That fits about when I got back. I just missed the incident.”
“Probably. I’d been here and talked with Dr. Miller. She’d decided to free up this room and really encouraged me to leave.”
“Was she overly pushy about that?”
“Why do you ask?”
He frowned and rubbed his nose. “I don’t know.”
“You think she was involved.” The thought bothered Bridget, but only because it had flitted at the edge of her thoughts, too.
“It sounds crazy.”
“Not any crazier than someone trying to kill this girl in the hospital.” Bridget looked at the small girl in the overly large bed. “I can’t reconcile the doctor with that idea, but I do think we need to consider it.”
“Excuse me, but we’re here to move the patient.”
Bridget looked up and noted the techs in the doorway. Todd stood and then helped her to her feet.
“I’ll go review the security footage. You stay with her.” He nodded toward the bed.
“Yes, sir.” She tried to make the words flippant. But as he strode away, she felt his absence.
It was only as she settled into the new room on the ICU floor that she allowed herself to wonder why.