Chapter 22 The Fake it till You Make It Trope
Valentine Hospital looked more like a small elementary school than a hospital, except for the brightly lit signs designating the emergency department entrance.
I pulled the hearse into the turnaround and waited for someone to rush out with a stretcher shouting commands.
Next to me, Mr. Jarvis’s breathing was labored and a bloom of red was seeping into my makeshift tourniquet.
I tapped the steering wheel in time with the blinking digital dashboard clock but the automatic doors to the hospital stayed shut, no sign of activity. What kind of hospital was this?
Unable to wait while Mr. Jarvis continued bleeding, I hurried through the automatic doors into a mostly empty waiting room. There was one patient snoozing in a lobby chair and an EMT eating some very dry rice with a fork. Not a lot of the rice was making it from the Tupperware to his mouth.
“I have an emergency!” I shouted.
The EMT looked up. “Do you have your insurance card?”
“No. I drove a man here.”
“Oh.” He stood, too calmly for my anxiety level, brushed the rice off his pants, and followed me outside. In the turnaround, he squinted at the hearse. “Ma’am, if you’re picking someone up, you need to drive to the back of the building.”
I blinked back through my false eyelashes and freshly blown-out fringed bangs. “What?”
“The morgue has a separate entrance.”
“Noah,” I said, with a glance at his name tag, “This is my car. I’m bringing someone in. He’s not dead yet.”
“Oh, okay. Gotta get someone to help lift him.”
Fucking A. I was facing the possibility of being responsible for someone’s death. For murder. I didn’t bite Mr. Jarvis, but I might as well have.
“I do a lot of…Pilates.” Without waiting, I lifted Mr. Jarvis into a waiting wheelchair and wheeled him into the hospital myself while Noah watched. No one would believe him later.
Inside the hospital, Jessica from the SugarBoo Ball decoration committee came out dressed in pink scrubs and with a bouncy step that didn’t match the surroundings.
“Hey, Tiff,” she said with a cheerful wave, completely unperturbed by Mr. Jarvis. “What happened here?”
“It’s a long story.”
Jessica took over and wheeled Mr. Jarvis into a surgical room along with a doctor who looked to be about twelve.
“Start an IV, Noah,” Jessica said.
The baby-faced doctor untied the yoga pants from Mr. Jarvis’s neck with a raised eyebrow. “Normally, a tourniquet is a good idea…” He squinted at the wound. “What kind of animal did you say bit him?”
“I didn’t. Maybe it was a coyote,” I riffed.
Jessica gave me a puzzled look. “A coyote bit him…on the neck?”
“I saw a documentary on coyote-wolf hybrids. They’re pretty bold.” Better a coyote than Heaven. “I think’s that’s what it was. I’ve never seen so much blood.”
Noah frowned. “Don’t you drive a hearse?”
I smiled. “For the gas mileage.”
The hospital workers looked at each other like they knew I was on some bullshit.
The doctor started peeling off his gloves, practically done before he had started.
“Just put him on a round of antibiotics and get him a tetanus booster and a rabies shot. Clean up the wound and bandage it with an occlusive wrap. We don’t want that neck wound sucking in air.
Oh, and we can give him a bag of O neg.”
My mouth watered at the thought. Stress makes me thirsty.
Fifteen minutes later, the chaos was over. Jessica checked his vitals. “He should be fine soon. It looked worse than it was.”
I sagged into a chair, spent from the frenzied race to save his life.
“So…Tyrone, huh?” Jessica said, grinning. She nudged me with her elbow.
“What?”
“He texted me to look out for you and your roommate,” she said. “Although I’m assuming he got the roommate part wrong.”
“Yeah, there was a lot going on. I had to cancel our date.”
“Tyrone won’t mind.” With a barely audible sigh, she said, “He was the last semidecent guy I dated.”
My ears perked up. “You dated?”
“We didn’t get serious or anything.” She smiled as if recalling a fond memory. “I’m happy for you, really.”
I had so many questions now. Why did he look so tortured? Was he good in bed?
“Mr. Jarvis,” Jessica said, interrupting my reverie. “Glad to see you awake again.” The inspector cleared his throat and Jessica turned her attention to his care.
He groaned and reached up to feel the bandage on his neck. “What happened?”
“You were bit by a coyote,” Jessica said in a soothing voice.
The city inspector’s gaze landed on me and his eyes about bugged out of his head. “What in the hell are you doing here?”
“Tiffany found you and drove you in, Mr. Jarvis. You’re very lucky, sir.”
“Are you kidding me?” He turned to Jessica. “I don’t feel safe around this woman.”
“Who, me?” I blinked innocently, grateful to still be dressed in my wholesome hot-chocolate wear.
“Young lady,” he said, struggling to sit up, “the last thing I remember was arriving at your house, and next thing, I find myself bleeding out at the hospital.”
“Mr. Jarvis,” Jessica addressed him in a calm tone, “I don’t know what happened, but something bit you and Tiffany here drove you to the ED right away and saved your life.”
Mr. Jarvis shook his head, not accepting any of it. “I don’t know what happened, but you are trouble. Your house is a mess. No more second and third chances. I’m tearing that place down tomorrow.”
I gasped. “Tomorrow!”
“I was trying to be nice, dropping by to give you notice personally.” He shook his head.
Fear struck me like a bolt of lightning.
Vlad’s warnings that small towns won’t accept anyone different were coming true.
First the firefighters and their looks of horror at the burning Jesus painting, and now Mr. Jarvis.
I could feel the witch trial coming. If I didn’t get ahold of this situation, I would have to leave Valentine and go… I didn’t know where I’d go.
“Mr. Jarvis, I just arrived in Valentine. This isn’t a second or third chance. I just found out.”
“You’ll fix up that house over my dead body.”
I didn’t mention that had almost happened.
He pointed his finger like one of the Goodies on the stand pointing at an innocent witch. Thirty people—mostly women—were accused of witchcraft in Salem and nineteen were executed, one of them four years old. People could find a woman crazy based on no evidence.
Jessica put her hand on his. “Whatever happened, I’m sure that Tiffany didn’t do it. This is an animal bite of some sort.”
“You’ve had a really bad night, but it’s not my fault,” I said.
After settling down for a moment, he said, “Okay, Miss Blair. I won’t plow over your inn tomorrow, but you need to fix several things if you have any hope of keeping that place standing. Number one: that wiring. I can’t believe the chimney caught on fire before the wiring did.”
I nodded eagerly. “Of course.”
“Number two: You need to fix the porch and front entrance. The wood is rotted through, and it’s a danger to anyone entering the home.”
“Okay,” I said.
“Number three: You have a bat infestation. Whatever bit me will need to be euthanized for public health and safety.”
“It’s not like I have a mean dog,” I protested. “That coyote came out of nowhere.”
“A coyote?” He narrowed his eyes at me in suspicion. “My decision stands. I’m ordering a dangerous animal inspection of your property as a condition of this agreement. If you have any intention of opening that bed-and-breakfast to the public, you better get rid of everything that bites.”
I held back a gasp at his phrasing.
“It needs to be done by December 31. I’ll schedule an inspection for that day, eight a.m. sharp.”
A morning inspection wasn’t going to work, but I’d deal with that later. I had my marching orders: Fix the house or the jig was up.