26. Home
Home
NORA
The kid on the gurney was bleeding from below his ribs on the left side. I cut his shirt open and pressed gauze into the wound.
"Get me a line in and type-and-cross," Sullivan said behind me. He was already gloving up. "How long has he been down?"
"Dumped on the ramp two minutes ago," the tech said. "No handoff. No history. Nothing."
I leaned my weight into the gauze. The blood was soaking through faster than I could hold it. The kid's eyes were half open, his breathing shallow, his face gray.
"Nora."
I almost didn't hear it. His voice was barely there, half breath, half sound. But he said my name.
I looked at his face.
Jesse.
"Nora, I'm sorry." He was looking right at me. "I'm so sorry about Ian. I should have—"
"Hush." I pressed harder. "Jesse, if you keep talking, you will bleed out on this gurney. Do you hear me?"
He closed his mouth. His eyes stayed on mine.
"Pressure's not holding," I said. "I need more hands in here."
Sullivan moved to my side. "Let me see it." He lifted the gauze, looked at the wound, and put it back. "He needs the OR. Get me two units on the rapid infuser and page surgery. Tell them we're coming up."
Sullivan took over pressure. "I've got him. Step back."
I lifted my hands. The blood was up to my wrists.
They had him through the doors and headed for the elevator before I finished peeling off my gloves. I went to the scrub sink and turned the water on.
Jesse's blood ran off my hands the same color Ian's had. I scrubbed until the water ran clear, and then I stood there for a second with my palms under the faucet, letting the cold push everything else down.
I went back to the floor.
The radio at the charge desk was live with LVMPD traffic when I walked past. Josie was listening with one hand on the phone.
"3-George-12, south parking structure. I have eyes on the east ramp."
"Copy, 3-George-12. 2-Adam-14, what's your position?"
"2-Adam-14, east entrance. Perimeter set."
"Copy. All units hold positions. We have one active shooter, parking lot, northwest corner. No visual on the suspect at this time."
A voice cut through that I was sure was Andy Walsh. "2-David-7, on scene. Moving to the west lot."
I kept moving. I needed to pull meds for the bystander in Bay Two, so I headed for the Pyxis.
Kip was at the workstation tucked behind the column around the corner instead of his usual spot on the main floor.
"Kip."
He flinched. His hand went to the mouse and the screen changed before I finished saying his name. He turned around with an expression I had never seen on his face.
"Hey." He recovered fast. Smiled. The warm, easy smile everyone on this floor trusted. "Crazy day, right?"
"Crazy day," I said.
I looked past him at the screen. He'd minimized whatever he'd been in, but the task bar still showed the chart application open. The patient tab read Burnham, J.
Jen's patient. A patient Kip had no reason to be in.
The monitor alarm went off in Bay Four.
I ran. Lori was already at the bedside. The bystander was flat on the bed, gray, the monitor screaming. Harlan was at the head of the bed.
"Push one of epi. Start compressions."
I locked my hands over her sternum and pressed. One, two, three, four. After enough codes, the rhythm lives in your body. You don't count. You just go.
"Hold compressions. Checking rhythm."
I lifted my hands. A line on the monitor. Then a blip. Then another.
"Sinus. We've got her back."
I peeled off my gloves and went to find Kip.
He was in the break room with a coffee he wasn't drinking. He looked up when I walked in. The smile started, and then he saw my face and it stopped.
I closed the door.
"Burnham, J," I said. "Jen's patient. You were in her chart changing entries in the medication administration record."
"I was double-checking something for Josie."
"Josie's on the phone with LVMPD. She didn't send you to check anything." I sat down across from him. "Why were you in Jen's chart, Kip?"
He looked at his coffee. Then at me. "They're poison, Nora. You know that. You've seen what they do to people on this floor. What they did to you. What they did to Lori. Someone had to do something."
"So you tampered with their charts."
"I made their work look as bad as they actually are."
"And Lori almost lost her job because of it.
" My voice was steady, but the heat climbed in my chest. "Lori.
Not Liz. Not Jen. Lori had a lab result suppressed in a chart that went through your hands, and Sullivan tore into her in front of the entire floor.
Josie had to pull audit trails to prove it wasn't her fault. "
He already knew. I could see it on his face.
"If they were your targets, there were better ways to handle it. You could have documented what they were doing. You could have gone to Josie. You could have filed a complaint. Instead you compromised patient charts and put everyone around you at risk."
He stared at the table.
"I'm not going to sit here and pretend I like them. I don't. You know I don't." I leaned forward. "But what you've been doing isn't fair, Kip. Not to them, not to Lori, not to the patients whose charts you compromised."
He didn't look up.
"I'll give you a chance to come clean. Go to Josie. Tell her yourself." I stood up. "But if you haven't done anything by tomorrow, I'm going to have to."
I walked out and closed the door behind me.
Jesse was back from the OR and in a bay on the locked-down floor when I checked on him two hours later. His vitals were stable. The surgical team had closed the wound and the bleeding had stopped.
I was adjusting his IV line when his eyes opened.
"Nora."
"Don't move. You're out of surgery. You're okay."
He swallowed. "I'm sorry, Nora. About Ian. About everything."
I stopped.
"It was for him." His voice was rough from the tube they'd had down his throat. "The guys who did this. The ones outside. They came for us because we went after the crew that killed Ian. We were trying to make it right."
"Jesse."
I pulled the chair beside his bed and sat down.
"We had to do something, Nora. We couldn't just let them walk around like nothing happened."
"And now you're in a hospital bed with a stab wound. There's a man with a gun in the parking lot. The whole building is locked down." I looked at him. "Did it make it right?"
He didn't answer.
"I'm not your sister. I know that. But I wish I had said this to Ian when I had the chance, so I'm saying it to you now. This doesn't end. You go after them, they come after you, somebody else ends up on a gurney or in the ground. It just keeps going."
Jesse's chin trembled.
"I want to remember my brother as he was. Eating cereal on our couch. Fighting with me over the last chicken tender. Teasing me about becoming an old maid. Being my little brother." My voice cracked but I held it. "Not this. Not a reason for someone else to get hurt."
He was quiet for a long time. The monitor beeped. The IV dripped.
"I'm sorry, Nora."
"I know you are."
I squeezed his hand once, then let go and stood up.
The radio at the charge desk crackled across the floor. Andy Walsh's voice, clear and sharp.
"2-David-7. Shots fired. Active shooter is down. Repeat, active shooter is down."
The department went still. Every person on the floor heard it. Josie put her hand on the desk and closed her eyes. Then she picked up the phone and called security.
It took LVMPD another forty minutes to sweep the parking lot, the structure, and the perimeter before they gave the all-clear. The locks disengaged one by one down the corridor. The bay doors opened. The air from outside came through the department for the first time in hours.
Gang Crimes came through the main entrance twenty minutes after the lockdown lifted. Detective Kieran Thorne and three uniformed officers spoke to Josie first, then to security.
The uninjured gang members from the waiting room were cuffed and walked out one at a time. The second kid from the ramp was cuffed to his bed rail with an officer posted outside.
Thorne pulled a chair up to Jesse's bed. He read Jesse his rights while Jesse stared at the ceiling. When Thorne asked if he understood, Jesse nodded.
I stepped out of the bay and let the curtain close behind me.
Knox was in the parking lot when I walked out that night.
"How did you get here?"
"Wyatt."
"Where is he?"
"Looking for Andy."
I leaned into him and he wrapped his arms around me. He held on tight, his chin on top of my head.
"I've been worried sick about you all day," he said.
"Mhmm."
We stayed like that for a while. The parking lot was still full of cruisers and yellow tape and officers I didn't have the energy to look at.
"Let's go home?" I said.
"Yeah."
We were halfway to the truck when I heard Andy Walsh's voice behind us.
"What are you doing here?"
"Picking you up," Wyatt said.
"I told you not to come."
"You told me not to come while there was an active shooter. There's no active shooter anymore."
Andy stared at him. "You're an idiot."
"I know," Wyatt said. "Get in the truck, Mrs. Brooks."