Critical Condition Read online

  PRAISE FOR

  URGENT CARE

  “A gripping narrative full of suspense, complex relationships, and real, honest human emotion.”

  —Pittsburgh Magazine

  “Adrenaline-pumping.”

  —The Mystery Gazette

  “Kept me guessing on the edge of my seat.”

  —Errant Dreams Reviews

  “Smart and intriguing, and her character development is so incredible that she leaves me literally breathless waiting to see what will happen next.”

  —BookBitch

  “A tightly wound, fast-paced mystery with lots of mental tension, medical emergencies, and relationship problems . . . If you enjoy people who live with passionate intensity and try to save lives, Urgent Care will impress.”

  —Romance Reviews Today

  PRAISE FOR

  WARNING SIGNS

  “Lyons, author of the bestselling medical thriller Lifelines, is a master within the genre . . . but with a plot this fast paced, you’ll forget all the TV comparisons and find yourself engulfed in the speeding narrative.”

  —Pittsburgh Magazine

  “This exhilarating medical thriller gets the blood pumping . . . This is a terrific thriller and fans of Michael Palmer will enjoy this fine tale of a brave but scared medical student in trouble.”

  —Genre Go Round

  “Warning Signs delivered a tight mystery and a good dose of action, along with strong, individualistic characters. I highly enjoyed it.”

  —Errant Dreams Reviews

  “A powerful and dramatic look into the frenzied world of emergency medicine . . . Lyons’ characters are dynamic and genuine. Readers need only shut their eyes to imagine this group on the big screen.”

  —Suspense Magazine

  PRAISE FOR THE NATIONAL BESTSELLER

  LIFELINES

  “[A] spot-on debut . . . a breathtakingly fast-paced medical thriller.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “A pulse-pounding adrenaline rush! . . . Reminds me of ER back in the days of George Clooney and Julianna Margulies.”

  —Lisa Gardner, New York Times bestselling author

  “Tense, whip-smart medical scenes . . . a gripping view of doctors at work.”

  —Tess Gerritsen

  “Lyons captures the frenetic setting of the ER with a smooth style . . . she also creates winning portraits of the supporting players set to anchor the series.”

  —Newsday

  “[A] pulse-pounding adventure. This is my favorite kind of medical thriller—harrowing, emotional, action-packed, and brilliantly realized. CJ Lyons writes with the authority only a trained physician can bring to a story, blending suspense, passion, and friendship into an irresistible read.”

  —Susan Wiggs, New York Times bestselling author

  “Readers who prefer their medical thrillers to have characters with beating hearts and three dimensions are well advised to pick up this series debut by Lyons.”

  —The Baltimore Sun

  “Have we got a prescription for you . . . a tense thrill ride that feels like all the best episodes of ER and Grey’s Anatomy squeezed into one breathtaking novel . . . [an] impressive debut.”

  —Hilton Head Magazine

  “CJ Lyons writes with both authority on her subject and a down-to-earth reality for her characters . . . Engrossing, intriguing.”

  —Heather Graham, New York Times bestselling author

  “CJ Lyons’ debut medical thriller is a fantastic and wild journey through the fast-paced world of a big-city ER. With rich, fascinating, and complex characters and a thoroughly compelling mystery, Lifelines is an adrenaline rush and an all-around great read.”

  —Allison Brennan, New York Times bestselling author

  “Lydia is a well-drawn heroine, the writing is strong, and the plot could have been taken out of today’s headlines.”

  —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

  “Lyons’ first book is a winner, too, giving us terrific characters and a compelling plot. An excellent book for fans of the medical thriller.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  “It takes a real emergency physician to write this excitingly about an emergency ward. CJ Lyons has been there and done it. The pages are packed with adrenaline. I can’t recall a hospital novel that so thrilled me.”

  —David Morrell, New York Times bestselling author

  Titles by CJ Lyons

  CRITICAL CONDITION

  URGENT CARE

  WARNING SIGNS

  LIFELINES

  Critical Care

  An Angels of Mercy Novel

  CJ Lyons

  INTERMIX BOOKS, NEW YORK

  INTERMIX BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  USA | Canada | UK | Ireland | Australia | New Zealand | India | South Africa | China

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  For more information about the Penguin Group visit penguin.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have control over and does not have any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  CRITICAL CARE

  An InterMix Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Jove Books edition / December 2010

  InterMix eBook edition / May 2013

  Copyright © 2010 by CJ Lyons.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  ISBN: 978-1-101-60836-4

  INTERMIX

  InterMix Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group

  and New American Library, divisions of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  INTERMIX and the “IM” design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Contents

  Praise

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  ONE - Friday, December 31, 6:24 P.M.

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX - Monday, January 3

  NOTE TO READERS:

  About the Author

  This book is dedicated to all of my readers: Thanks for joining me for the ride! Hope you had as much fun as I did.

  —CJ Lyons

  ONE

  Friday, December 31, 6:24 P.M.

  HIDING BEHIND A SMILE, DR. GINA FREEMAN OPENED the door
to her fiancé’s hospital room.

  She watched from the doorway, juggling a bulging garment bag and a tote, assessing the scene before committing to entry.

  It was a typical hospital room, like so many the world over. Until she was forced to spend the last few weeks at Jerry’s side, she’d never realized just how much the typical hospital room resembled a jail cell.

  There was no privacy. People came and went as they pleased. Except for Jerry, who was expected to be always in the same place until called for. Everything was beige: the walls, the floors, the curtains, the food, the view, the smells of floor wax and body odor, even the smiles of the caretakers—at least the ones who hadn’t known Jerry or Gina from before the shooting.

  The smiles of the ones who had, those smiles were tentative, fearful of unraveling the delicate shift in power between Gina and Jerry that was so obvious to everyone except Jerry. Suddenly Gina found herself the caretaker, the one making decisions for and about—but seldom with—Jerry.

  She dared a step inside. Jerry sat in his bed, on top of the beige blanket, wearing his Steelers sweatshirt. There was no food on the wall or window, no soft restraints on his wrists to keep him from throwing things, and the nurses hadn’t confiscated his “real” clothes or slippers, so it must be a good day. As good as days around here got since the shooting, anyway.

  Normally it would be Jerry, a detective with the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police and consummate people-reader, who would have picked up on these little details, not Gina. But then nothing had been normal, not since a hired killer had almost killed both of them and ended up shooting Jerry in the head.

  Everyone except for Gina seemed to have forgotten that first part, that she’d been targeted too, but she hadn’t—how could she?

  Snuggled alongside Jerry was Deon, the ten-year-old great-grandson of the hospital librarian, Emma Grey. Deon had adopted Jerry for his own a few months ago after they’d first met. Emma sat beside the bed, in the visitor’s chair in front of the window, knitting something bright and colorful and most definitely not beige.

  The windows, opaque with frosted snow and fog from their breaths, reflecting the overhead lights, added to the home-for-the-holidays glow. Deon held a picture book open and was reading aloud from How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

  More like the hit man who stole Christmas, Gina thought. But if Jerry was having a good day, she’d fake some New Year’s cheer. Odds were he wouldn’t remember or realize her efforts, but it was important to keep the peace.

  After working a twelve-hour shift in the ER, she was long past due for some peace. Although the ER had been reasonably quiet for New Year’s Eve—except for a deluge of car accidents caused by the arrival of the snow this afternoon. But then things had slowed down for most of her shift as the city waited for the plows to work their magic, slow enough that her boss, Mark Cohen, had let her leave a half hour early. He knew she was dividing her time between the ER and Jerry, but as an emergency medicine resident, Gina didn’t have the luxury of being able to take the holiday off.

  The overhead fluorescent lights reflected off the fresh scar tissue crossing from ear to ear over the top of Jerry’s shaved scalp as he nodded in time with Deon’s words, following the little boy’s finger as it traced the words, scrutinizing each letter, searching for a key to hidden treasure.

  If the shooter’s bullet had been a centimeter in any direction . . . Gina shivered away her fear along with the memory of bullets, blood, and her own screams.

  She busied herself hanging up the garment bag, removing her shearling coat and shaking the snow from its shoulders before draping it over the door handle while they finished the story. Jerry didn’t seem to notice the tears streaming down his own cheeks as Deon closed the book. He didn’t notice Gina either.

  “Happy New Year’s!” Gina called out gaily, placing a bottle of sparkling cider on the bedside table.

  “Gina’s here!” Jerry shouted.

  As if he’d never expected to see her again. He always greeted her with the same startled expression whether she’d been gone fifteen seconds or fifteen hours. She couldn’t help but wonder if he totally forgot she existed in between.

  His smile was brilliant, piercing her heart. With joy that he was alive. With fear of what could have been. Heart-break that in many ways, she had indeed lost him anyway.

  Then he followed with the same greeting he gave every woman who walked into his room: “Where’ve ya been, sunshine?”

  Emma, one of their many friends who’d been helping out since the shooting, bundled up her knitting. “Happy New Year’s, Gina. He’s having a good day today, aren’t you, Jerry?”

  “So I see,” Gina said. “Did he have dinner yet?”

  “He wasn’t hungry and then he took a nap, so no.” Emma straightened the stack of books that lay at the foot of the bed. Mostly children’s picture books. Before the shooting, Jerry had been the one reading to Deon—he’d been reading the boy The Lord of the Rings, censoring out the “gory” bits, although they both knew that Deon was sneaking peeks so as to not miss anything juicy.

  “What happened to the hobbits and orcs and that big, slimy spider?” Gina asked Deon.

  Deon squirmed, then, to Gina’s surprise, hopped down from the bed. He avoided her gaze as if caught in some kind of betrayal.

  “No mood,” Jerry answered her question, using the clipped shorthand that colored his speech now. He reached for the tumbler of water at his side. He made two attempts, missing both times. Deon expertly snagged the glass, adjusted the straw, and held it up to Jerry’s lips in one well-practiced motion.

  Jerry frowned and shook his head, refusing to drink. “Headache. Go ’way.” His speech was as blunt as a two-by-four. He lay back on his pillows and closed his eyes, dismissing them all.

  Deon joined his Gram, taking her hand in his. “He can’t read anymore,” he whispered to Gina, shuffling his feet as he tattled the awful secret. “I miss the old Jerry. He promised to take me hiking, teach me how to use the compass he gave me, show me how to take pictures of the animals and stuff. When is he coming back?”

  Same question Gina had been too terrified to ask herself. She dredged up a new smile, lowered herself to crouch at Deon’s eye level, and offered him the same clichés the neurologists had given her. “It takes time, Deon. Healing takes time. And sometimes”—her words snagged and she had to swallow before finishing—“sometimes people change. But he’ll get better.”

  She stopped short of making a promise she couldn’t keep. Deon pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes, too smart to blindly believe. Gina would have applauded his skepticism if she didn’t need so badly to believe herself. She pulled him into a hug, denying the tears she was desperate to shed. He too-quickly squirmed free.

  “Hey, before you go, I found a Christmas present for you.” She’d finally had the energy to face Jerry’s ransacked apartment and, while sorting through the debris, had stumbled across a bag filled with gifts. She hadn’t had the strength to unwrap hers, but no sense not giving Deon his. She handed him the box. Jerry had wrapped it in crime-scene tape—which somehow didn’t seem so funny anymore.

  Deon eyed it with suspicion, hefting it. “What is it?”

  “I don’t know. Jerry got it for you.” Gina shoved her hands into the pockets of her cardigan and looked over at the bed. Jerry was now asleep. One of his frequent catnaps that had replaced normal sleep. Sometimes he’d fall asleep in the middle of a sentence, only to wake a few minutes later confused and combative, trapped in the memory of fighting for his and Gina’s lives. “It’s okay, he won’t mind if you open it.”

  “Can I, Gram?”

  “Of course. As long as you don’t forget to thank Jerry later.”

  “I won’t.” Deon eagerly shredded the tape, exposing a pocket-sized digital camera. “Wow!” He turned the box around, already immersed in the directions and list of features. “Zoom! Look, Gram!”

  “What do you say?”

  Deon threw his arms aro
und Gina. “Thank you, thank you! It’s the best ever.” His voice dropped into a whisper. “If Jerry doesn’t get better, maybe I can teach him how to take pictures again.”

  “I think he’d like that.” If any part of Old Jerry had survived, it was his artistic vision. The one activity that seemed to calm him was scribbling with crayons and markers, delighting in combining them to create kaleidoscopes of vibrant color.

  “We’d better go before the roads close with the snow,” Emma said with a glance out the window.

  “I heard they were pretty bad. Be careful.” Gina stood, then noticed the Dr. Seuss still clutched in Jerry’s hand as he slept. “Don’t you want your book?”

  Deon didn’t even look back. “Jerry can keep it. He is still my friend.”

  Out of the mouths of ten-year-olds. Gina watched the door close behind them, tried not to envision a prison door clanging shut, trapping her with her beige future.

  She sighed and turned back to the bed, then started. Jerry lay perfectly still with his eyes now open, watching her warily. How much had he heard?

  New Jerry was paranoid when people whispered around him. New Jerry hated being talked about. Hated it more that even when he was a participant in a conversation, half the time he couldn’t remember it five minutes later. And New Jerry really, really hated being reminded of his shortcomings.

  She freshened her smile for him as she rearranged the get-well-soon trinkets and flowers arrayed along the windowsill, simultaneously sliding them all out of reach of his throwing arm. “I’ll get your cane and we can go for a walk.”