Trauma Read online

  TRAUMA

  Angels of Mercy, Book 3

  CJ Lyons

  Contents

  Praise For CJ Lyons’ Thrillers with Heart:

  CJ Lyons’ Thrillers with Heart:

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  About the Author

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and not intended by the author.

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  Copyright © 2018 by CJ Lyons

  Edgy Reads

  cover design by: Toni McGee Causey

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  CJ Lyons and Thrillers with Heart registered Trademarks of

  CJ Lyons, LLC

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  Library of Congress Case # TX0007090602

  Praise For CJ Lyons’ Thrillers with Heart:

  "Everything a great thriller should be—action packed, authentic, and intense." ~#1 New York Times bestselling author Lee Child

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  "A compelling new voice in thriller writing…I love how the characters come alive on every page." ~New York Times bestselling author Jeffery Deaver

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  "Top Pick! A fascinating and intense thriller." ~ RT Book Reviews

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  "An intense, emotional thriller…(that) climbs to the edge of intensity." ~National Examiner

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  "A perfect blend of romance and suspense. My kind of read." ~#1 New York Times Bestselling author Sandra Brown

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  "Highly engaging characters, heart-stopping scenes…one great rollercoaster ride that will not be stopping anytime soon." ~Bookreporter.com

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  "Adrenalin pumping." ~The Mystery Gazette

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  "Riveting." ~Publishers Weekly Beyond Her Book

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  Lyons "is a master within the genre." ~Pittsburgh Magazine

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  "Will leave you breathless and begging for more." ~Romance Novel TV

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  "A great fast-paced read….Not to be missed." ~Book Addict

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  "Breathtakingly fast-paced." ~Publishers Weekly

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  "Simply superb…riveting drama…a perfect ten." ~Romance Reviews Today

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  "Characters with beating hearts and three dimensions." ~Newsday

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  "A pulse-pounding adrenalin rush!" ~Lisa Gardner

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  "Packed with adrenalin." ~David Morrell

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  "…Harrowing, emotional, action-packed and brilliantly realized." ~Susan Wiggs

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  "Explodes on the page…I absolutely could not put it down." ~Romance Readers' Connection

  CJ Lyons’ Thrillers with Heart:

  To download the complete list in PDF click HERE or visit CJLyons.net

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  LUCY GUARDINO THRILLERS:

  SNAKE SKIN

  BLOOD STAINED

  KILL ZONE

  AFTER SHOCK

  HARD FALL

  BAD BREAK

  LAST LIGHT

  DEVIL SMOKE

  OPEN GRAVE

  GONE DARK

  BITTER TRUTH

  RENEGADE JUSTICE THRILLERS, featuring Morgan Ames:

  FIGHT DIRTY

  RAW EDGES

  ANGELS WEEP

  LOOK AWAY

  TRIP WIRE

  ANGELS OF MERCY MEDICAL SUSPENSE:

  LIFELINES, Angels of Mercy Book #1

  CATALYST, Angels of Mercy Book #2

  TRAUMA, Angels of Mercy Book #3

  ISOLATION, Angels of Mercy Book #4

  FATAL INSOMNIA MEDICAL THRILLERS:

  FAREWELL TO DREAMS

  A RAGING DAWN

  THE SLEEPLESS STARS

  HART AND DRAKE MEDICAL SUSPENSE:

  NERVES OF STEEL

  SLEIGHT OF HAND

  FACE TO FACE

  EYE OF THE STORM

  SHADOW OPS, ROMANTIC THRILLERS:

  CHASING SHADOWS

  LOST IN SHADOWS

  EDGE OF SHADOWS

  CAITLYN TIERNEY FBI THRILLERS:

  BLIND FAITH

  BLACK SHEEP

  HOLLOW BONES

  YOUNG ADULT THRILLERS:

  BROKEN

  WATCHED

  INVISIBLE LIES

  CO-WRITTEN WITH ERIN BROCKOVICH:

  ROCK BOTTOM

  HOT WATER

  SINGLE TITLE STANDALONES:

  LUCIDITY, a Ghost of a Love Story

  BORROWED TIME

  Fall in love with the women of Pittsburgh’s Angels of Mercy’s ER as they save lives, break hearts, and prove that four strong women have the power to change the world!

  LIFELINES, Angels of Mercy Book #1

  CATALYST, Angels of Mercy Book #2

  TRAUMA, Angels of Mercy Book #3

  ISOLATION, Angels of Mercy Book #4

  AND go to https://CJLyons.flexpub.com to download your FREE copy of TOXICITY, an Angels prequel short story.

  1

  Thursday, 6:42 a.m.

  Nora Halloran hurried through the hospital’s parking garage, shoulders back, pepper spray clenched in shaking hands. She struggled to control her fear, lock it away, but the more she denied it, the worse it got.

  Every morning for three years, she’d fought her panic, battling fear to work her shift as a charge nurse in the ER. It was her daily, dreaded ritual. A battle she never lost.

  She couldn’t lose. Her patients depended on her—and she needed them as much as they needed her.

  On high alert, Nora scanned the shadows. No one. Not many cars in the employee garage this early. Fewer places someone could hide.

  She entered the stairwell, heart stuttering in time with her steps. Twelve down, three
steps around the landing, twelve more. She counted the familiar cadence, holding her breath as long as possible as she sprinted for the door.

  One of the lights on the final landing was burned out. Can’t stop. She raced through the darkness. Slamming through the exit, gulping in the frigid December air, she propelled herself outside.

  Her feet hit the sidewalk. Inhaling deeply, she straightened her posture, mastering her stride and with it, her emotions.

  Tomorrow she’d do better. Tomorrow would be different.

  The sun streaking the eastern horizon surprised her, a slit of gold-rimmed crimson, blinding in intensity as it reflected from the pavement slick with melted frost. She’d sat in her car, psyching herself up for the walk, long enough for the morning light to edge through the indigo darkness.

  Despite the fact that it meant she was running late, Nora welcomed the light. As she walked beside the wrought-iron fence surrounding the cemetery across from Angels of Mercy Medical Center, a splash of unnatural color caught her eye.

  It was inside the cemetery fence, filtered through a snaggle of barren forsythia. Too large to be trash blown in through the fence, too gaudy to be a memorial. Nora stopped, grabbed the fence post, and stepped up onto the lowest rung, trying to make sense of the bright splashes crowding the shadows.

  Pushing aside the forsythia branches, she could finally see where the color originated. The marble statue of a weeping angel had been defiled by vile, hateful curses streaked across it in neon spray paint.

  Face down in the frost-speckled grass below the angel lay a naked woman, more graffiti scrawled across her body.

  Primal instincts screamed at Nora to run. To hide. Save herself.

  Shoving her fear aside, she grabbed her cell phone and sprinted toward the cemetery entrance, wishing for longer legs as she ran. She didn’t bother calling 911, not with Pittsburgh’s busiest trauma center right across the street.

  “Angels of Mercy, Emergency Department,” came the clerk’s chipper voice.

  “Jason, it’s Nora. There’s a woman down in the cemetery. Get me a trauma team over here, fast.”

  “Hang on, here’s Dr. Fiore.”

  Nora raced into the cemetery, crossing over graves, the slick grass threatening to send her sprawling. Her bag smacked against her hip as she dodged headstones. Her breath came in short bursts, fogging the air.

  No other sounds disturbed the cemetery’s peace. Long shadows stretched across the grass, but they couldn’t obscure the freshly painted graffiti that stood out sharply from the somber grays and whites surrounding the woman’s body.

  Nora reached her just as Lydia Fiore, the ER attending, came on the line. “What’s up?”

  “There’s a woman down. In the cemetery. Unconscious.” Nora’s voice sounded surprisingly normal, but after all, she was a charge nurse and this was what she did best—taking control of chaos, including the chaos of her own emotions.

  She knelt in the grass, snow melting into her jeans. Yanking her gloves off, she felt the woman’s pulse. Not all of the color came from spray paint, she realized. “Bleeding—looks like she was stabbed. She’s breathing on her own, but her pulse is fast, poor capillary refill.”

  “Hang on. Help’s coming.”

  Through the fence, Nora saw the ER’s doors open across the street, releasing two figures pushing a gurney laden with equipment. A man dressed in surgical scrubs sprinted past them, a blue blur as he bolted across Mathilda Street, almost getting hit by a car. Seth Cochran. Lord, couldn’t it have been anyone else?

  “You’d better call the police,” Nora told Lydia, wrapping her free hand around the woman’s wrist—the only comfort she could offer until help arrived.

  “Already on it. We’ll have Trauma One ready and waiting for you.”

  Nora squeezed her cell phone so hard it almost slipped away. Before hanging up, she added, “Lydia. She’s going to need a rape kit.”

  “Nora!” Seth called from five graves away, startling a solitary bird from the holly bushes. He was too loud for this place. That was Seth, always somehow larger than life—too alive, too vibrant, too . . . much. “Are you all right?”

  Of course she was all right. She was always all right. Even as she knelt in wet grass, hands covered in sticky neon paint and another woman’s blood, her insides churning, bile clawing its way up her throat, Nora was all right. She had to be. It was her job.

  “Multiple stab wounds, she’s shocky, blunt trauma.” Nora reported as she concentrated on the woman’s pulse fluttering beneath her fingertips.

  “What the hell?” He skidded to a stop beside her, kneeling at the woman’s head. “Help me turn her over. Watch her c-spine.”

  Elise Avery, one of the flight nurses, ran to join them, bringing with her a paramedic, a stretcher, and a backboard. Seth cradled the woman’s head in his large hands, supporting her cervical spine as they rolled her onto the backboard. The woman now lay face up, the extent of her injuries revealed.

  “My God,” Elise said as she fastened the c-collar. “It’s Karen Chisholm.”

  Seth’s face blanched the same chalky white as the tombstone beside him. Karen was a nurse anesthetist at Angels. She was also the reason Nora and Seth had split up five months ago, after Nora discovered Karen and Seth naked together in a hospital call room.

  But she couldn’t think of any of that now. Now Karen was a patient. Her patient. Nora’s fists tightened with the effort as she clamped down on her emotions.

  “Get the O2 on her,” she ordered.

  Seth listened with his stethoscope. His hands shook. Anyone except Nora would think it was from the cold.

  “Left lung is down, heart sounds distant,” Seth pronounced, his voice grim as he palpated Karen’s naked chest, ignoring the graffiti and blood. “I need to crack her chest.”

  They maneuvered the backboard onto the stretcher. “I lost her pulse,” Nora announced, starting CPR. Elise grabbed a bag to force oxygen into Karen’s lungs.

  “Call the ER,” Seth ordered the EMT as they pushed the gurney over the grave sites and bounced back onto the pavement. “We’re going to flash and crash. Tell them to get the OR ready.”

  “Room thirteen?” Elise asked, now jogging beside the gurney as traffic stopped to let them cross the street. “Not upstairs?”

  Seth was shaking his head. “She won’t make it upstairs alive. Room thirteen is our only choice.”

  “Not much of a choice,” Nora replied. The small but well-stocked operating room behind the ER was used only for patients too unstable to survive the short elevator ride upstairs to the main operating rooms on the fourth floor. Most OR 13 patients died.

  They pushed past the ER’s doors and raced down the hallway. Ahead of them two night-shift nurses were scrambling, getting the lights on in Room 13 and unpacking sterile instrument trays.

  “Anesthesia and the trauma team are paged,” Lydia Fiore, the ER attending on duty, said when they banged through the operating room’s doors.

  Nora continued CPR. Elise prepped the patient, throwing some drapes over Nora’s hands and splashing her with Betadine, while Lydia intubated and hooked up a ventilator and monitor.

  “C’mon, people, let’s hustle.” Seth snapped on gloves, not bothering with a gown or mask as he grabbed a ten blade and sliced open the left side of Karen’s chest. Dark maroon blood splashed him, puddling at his feet.

  Golden-brown Betadine soap swirled around the neon glare of the spray paint, not hiding the hateful words so much as highlighting them. Nora threw on gloves, their bright purple color clashing with the graffiti punctuated by dozens of stab wounds across Karen’s chest and abdomen. Nora slid into position beside Seth, grabbing a sponge and a Satinsky clamp.

  “IV’s in, blood on the rapid infuser,” Elise announced.

  “Clamp,” Seth said, holding his hand out blindly. Nora slapped the Satinsky into his palm as she reached in to clear the field with the sponge. “Aorta cross clamped, someone mark the time.”

  �
�Five hundred cc’s out of the chest tube already,” Lydia told him. “And her belly’s distended.”

  “One thing at a time,” Seth muttered as he delicately snipped a hole in the bulging membrane surrounding the heart. A gush of blood poured out.

  “I’ve got a pulse.”

  “Good.” Seth straightened, a smile of satisfaction flickering across his face. Two surgical nurses rushed in, gowned and scrubbed and looking askance at Nora in her civilian clothing. She stepped aside as Seth dumped more Betadine over Karen’s abdomen. “Okay, let’s get to work on that belly. Knife.”