Sleight of Hand Page 9

  "Is he going to be all right?"

  "The next few days will tell. One way to treat the brain swelling is to put a tube into Antwan's lungs and breathe for him, so that he doesn't have to work so hard. That's what I just finished doing. We're going to take a CAT scan to look at his brain and then he'll be going to the Pediatric ICU."

  "Is he brain damaged?" Mrs. Washington gasped.

  "I don't know. I can't answer that yet." Cassie paused to see if the mother had any other questions. She hesitated to ask about what was on her mind. The lawyers would surely advise her not to, but she had to know. "Mrs. Washington, do you remember me from yesterday? I saw Antwan for his earache."

  Mrs. Washington looked at Cassie, then nodded. "Yeah, you gave him medicine and a Sponge Bob sticker."

  "Did Antwan take his medicine? It was called Augmentin, he was supposed to take it twice a day and see his doctor if he wasn't better."

  The mother looked at Cassie and then Adeena, her eyes filling once more with tears. She bowed her head so that Cassie could barely make out her next words.

  "I couldn't afford it," she whispered. "I made his appointment at the clinic, but their first opening was in two weeks. He felt better after that ibu medicine that you gave him. I gave that every eight hours, just like you said, until he started to throw up." She looked back at Cassie, her eyes pleading for understanding. "What else was I supposed to do?"

  Cassie wished she had the words to comfort the mother. She grasped Mrs. Washington's hand, noticing that the woman had no wedding band and that her hand was roughened and calloused. What could she say to this hardworking mother who made too much money to qualify for free care, but too little to afford a two hundred dollar prescription?

  "I'm going to check on Antwan," she said. "Then we'll try to get you down to see him, okay?"

  The mother nodded, wiping her tears with a torn tissue.

  Cassie returned to the critical care room. Karl Sterling was there, completing his assessment of Antwan. She told him what she'd learned from Mrs. Washington.

  "I'll pull the chart from Monday for you," she finished.

  Sterling tapped his pen against the X-ray view box. Antwan's chest looked fine, but Sterling continued tapping an irritating rhythm, scowling into space. It was obvious that Karl Sterling was not happy with this case.

  "CT is ready," she reminded him. "I'll go get the mom, so she can go up with you."

  Sterling turned his gaze onto her. "I really don't want to see the mother right now," he said in a tight voice. "I'll have Adeena notify CYS when we get upstairs."

  "Children and Youth? Dr. Sterling, this mother loves her child, she never meant to harm him."

  The department head sighed. "Cases like this make my job as a pediatrician very difficult, Dr. Hart. But no good comes of ignoring the situation. You know the law as well as I do. Any suspected case of abuse or neglect must be reported. It's not up to us to decide anything–but in my mind this is a clear-cut case of medical neglect."

  "At least talk to the mom before you decide. She was doing the best that she could."

  "Well, that wasn't good enough, was it?" He gestured to the comatose child on the gurney. "It's my duty to protect that child, whatever the consequences for the adults involved. And if I were you, I'd prepare for a lawsuit. After all, you did see him yesterday."

  Cassie glared at the pediatrician. "What are you trying to imply? He was fine–just a cold and an ear infection. No signs of meningitis."

  Sterling shook his head in disbelief. "You really are naive, aren't you? Believe me, I've seen cases like this before. You should thank me for calling CYS. If they find the mother guilty of neglect, it will take you off the hook."

  "I'm not on the hook, I did nothing wrong. And that's no reason to threaten a mother with taking her child away. Dr. Sterling, don't rush into this–"

  "I'm taking my patient up to CAT scan now. Your services are no longer necessary, Dr. Hart. Thank you." With an imperious wave of his hand, Sterling led the way from the room.

  Cassie watched as the nurses pushed the gurney out the door. She balled her fists in frustration, clamping her teeth together to avoid screaming. There was nothing more she could do. Sterling had his mind made up and nothing she said would change it. She blew her breath out. She'd talk to Adeena, she'd know how to handle it.

  She opened the door, never noticing the chaos that swirled outside of the now silent critical care room. It all seemed ordinary to Cassie.

  Drake parked the Intrepid in one of the restricted spaces in front of the ER entrance. He ignored the security guard as he stalked through the ambulance bay and into the tile-walled corridors that framed Hart's world.

  An old man dragged his IV pole with one hand and held his gown closed with the other as he shuffled down the hall. In the curtained alcove beside the nurses' station a college-aged girl vomited into an emesis basin as a friend held her hair back from her face. Clorox and Betadine fought to overcome the smell of dried blood, vomit and urine–one of the never ending battles fought on this ground.

  He ignored all this, his vision tunneled to a form about five-four and slight of build, not looking left or right until his gaze locked onto Hart. She was leaving one of the resuscitation rooms, her gait heavy and slow compared to her normal rapid stride. One hand pulled her hair back out of her face, the barrette that restrained it long lost. She froze when she saw him, hand still tangled in her hair, mouth open like a small child caught in a forbidden act.

  Drake inhaled deeply, imprinting the image on his mind–he would paint it later, he was certain–and moved to her. He took her arm, pulled her past the gawkers at the nurses' station and into her office, closing the door behind him.

  "What the hell do you think you're doing?" she flared before he could say anything. Her eyes blazed as her unfettered hair fell around her shoulders. "Get out of my way, I've work to do. I'll deal with you later."

  He leaned against the door, determined not to give in to her.

  She shifted her weight into a fighting stance. He almost smiled, would've smiled, if not for the rage and fear that had been building ever since he left the House. Anger at her reckless behavior, fear that she wouldn't listen to him, that some day it would be Hart lying on a bed up in the ICU. Or worse, on a slab at the morgue.

  "I have a job to do also, in case you haven't noticed," he told her, his voice raised but steady. "A job I left to see if I could talk some sense into you."

  She narrowed her gaze. "Let me guess, Spanos told you about Morris."

  "Morris?" Now his voice was almost a shout but he couldn't help it. His vision reddened with anger. "Morris is a stone killer–every cop in the Zone knows it."

  "I don't care what Spanos told you," she continued, her voice loud enough to bounce off the concrete walls. "Your people," she hurled the last at him, lumping him in with incompetent cops everywhere, "put one of my nurses in danger through their stupidity. No way in hell was I going to let them turn my ER into a shooting gallery! Is that your answer to everything? Go in with your damned guns blazing!"

  "You can't just rush in! Look what happened the last time you got mixed up in something you shouldn't–" His words came as rapidly as machine gun fire, trying to hit her before she moved out of range. "Are you trying to get someone killed?"

  Silence. Head tilted up so that she could meet him eye to eye, she opened her mouth, then closed it again.

  The slap came from nowhere, stinging across his face.

  "How dare you! Don't ever–how could you even think–" Her words tumbled over themselves. Drake lost most of them as she buried her head in her hands. Then she looked up. "God, I'm sorry. I can't believe I did that."

  "Why the hell can't you trust anyone?" he asked, the bitterness in his voice betraying his true question: why couldn't she trust him?

  The haunted look in her eyes told him everything he needed to know. Everyone she'd ever placed her trust in had abandoned her.

  Her mother sacrificed herse
lf to save Hart's life when she was a newborn, she'd watched helpless as her father died when she was twelve, the grandmother who raised her had died mere weeks before she had married Richard King. And King–the worst betrayal of all. He'd devoured Hart with his love, whittling her down until her universe had shrunk to include only him, and then he'd returned her love with violence.

  Two months ago, Drake had saved her life, now he had to earn her love. And harder still, her trust.

  "Just leave," she said, her voice strangled with unshed tears. "I don't want to talk about it."

  "Of course not," he replied, holding his ground. "You never do." Action before words, always Hart's way. He rubbed his cheek, looking down on her. "Maybe that's part of the problem."

  Then he left. Got the hell out of there before he said something he would regret. Something they might both regret.

  CHAPTER 10

  Cassie didn't know whether to cry or scream. What she wanted to do was throw something, break something, hit anything. But the nearest thing to hand was the plastic pitcher that held the orchids Drake had brought her yesterday. Her fingers brushed against their delicate petals, showering them to the floor.

  Damn. She collapsed in her chair, focused on breathing. Something so simple even she couldn't mess it up.

  How dare he come barging into her ER, make a scene, and judge her without hearing her side of the story? Worse, how could he take Spanos' side over hers? She hugged herself, blinked hard. Cassie didn't cry, not easily and never at work.

  God, had she really slapped Drake? Maybe she had come back to work too soon. Maybe she had missed something yesterday with Antwan Washington, had mishandled the incident with Morris. Maybe everyone was right, she did need help.

  Drake had once trusted her with his life. If that trust was gone....

  She shook her head. The prospect was too much to face. He was upset about Morris, and he had a right to be. She should have called him. Only she had no idea of what to say, had put it off.

  She'd give him time to cool down, then would explain what really happened with Morris and Spanos.

  <><><>

  After her shift, Cassie found Antwan in a private alcove in the side hallway of the Pediatric ICU. His mother was asleep in the chair beside the bed, one hand covering his.

  Cassie noted by the bandages around his head and the wave tracing on the monitor that they'd inserted an intracranial pressure monitor; a small computer chip on top of his brain that recorded the pressure around it. The reading was high, but according to his bedside chart it had improved dramatically since admission. His blood pressure and pulse were better also, although she saw that he had had several seizures. That wasn't so good.

  As she was leafing through the bedside chart, Antwan's mother stirred. Cassie looked up, then moved to the chair beside her. Mrs. Washington said nothing, merely looked at Cassie with eyes that held fear and distrust.

  "I'm sorry I woke you," Cassie told her. "I just wanted to stop by and see how Antwan was doing."

  "You tell me, you're the doctor," Mrs. Washington replied in a frosty tone.

  "What has Dr. Sterling told you so far?" Cassie wondered if Sterling was the reason behind the mother's sudden hostility.

  "Nothing! No one will tell me nothing. They made me wait outside while they took those pictures of his brain. Then all the sudden there's thirty people racing down the hall, all pushing into the room where they got Antwan. I try to go in and they shove me out but not before I see that he was having a fit of some kind. Then we get up here and all they do is ask questions–what kind of home do we have, where do I work, what hours–I ask them what's this have to do with Antwan being sick, but nobody will tell me nothing!" Her rage vented, the young woman seemed to collapse back into herself, sinking into the chair. She looked frightened by her own indignation.

  Cassie took her hand. "How about if I try to answer your questions, Mrs. Washington?"

  Antwan's mother stared at her with suspicion, then gave a small nod of acquiescence. "You call me Tammy," she said. "You know as well as me there ain't no Mr. Washington. Makes me think you're talking to my mom."

  "Right, Tammy. The doctors here did a procedure called a spinal tap where they took a small amount of fluid from Antwan's back. I'm sure they talked about that with you, asked for your consent?"

  "They shoved a bunch of papers in front of me to sign before they'd let me come back. I didn't know about any needle in his back–but look at him, they've got needles and tubes in him everywhere."

  "Well, this fluid showed that Antwan does have that infection I was telling you about, the spinal meningitis. In his case it looks like it was caused by a certain bacteria called pneumococcus. It's common in children, causes everything from ear infections to pneumonia to infections in the blood and occasionally meningitis. It's so common that we've found that many children fight it off without even needing medicine, just with their own immune system. Kids also get shots to prevent it nowadays."

  Tammy frowned. "There was a shot the health clinic wanted to give him a while back, but they were out of it both times I went. Why can't he fight this off? Was it because I didn't give him that medicine or get him that shot? Is it my fault?" Tammy leaned forward, her eyes locked with Cassie's.

  Cassie sighed. The easy answer was yes, but medicine often had no easy answers. "Maybe–I can't tell you for certain. You see, there are some types of pneumococcus that don't respond to the antibiotics given by mouth and the new shot doesn't prevent. If that's what Antwan has, then there's no way anyone could have prevented this–"

  Tammy took a deep breath and rolled her eyes heavenward. "Oh thank you, God," she whispered and collapsed back in the chair. "I was so worried that I did this." She gripped Cassie's hand again. "I love my boy, doctor. He's all I've got. You've got to make him better."

  Cassie gave her a tiny smile. "We'll do everything we can. Now you try to get some rest, okay? I'll stop back tomorrow and see how you're doing."

  "Thank you, Dr. Hart."

  As she left the darkened PICU, she noted that Charlie's bed space was empty. Probably getting another test.

  She entered the bright and noisy world that was the rest of the medical center. But even as she traveled through the hospital back down to the ER, she could feel the atmosphere of the PICU cling to her like a fine coat of sweat.

  Tammy Washington didn't deserve to have her child taken from her–and she certainly did not deserve to be kept in the dark about the care her son was receiving. Cassie returned to her office in the ER and paged Adeena.

  <><><>

  Drake squealed into the Zone Seven parking lot, braking hard as he pulled the Intrepid into its space. He sat in the car, trying to calm down. His head was pounding, his chest clamped tight by a vice grip that refused to let any air through.

  Hart could have been killed today.

  A feeling of overwhelming doom settled over him. Suddenly he was back, on the cellar floor, pain lancing through his chest and leg, his breath coming in ragged gasps that sent fire through his lungs, sweating with the effort to push a tire iron inches across the floor to Hart's hand. He closed his eyes against the vision, leaned forward against the steering wheel.

  His fingers and face grew numb. God help him, he was dying, he was having a heart attack, right here in front of the House. As he struggled to breathe, slumped in the driver's seat of a beat up city vehicle, his mind was a prisoner of time, trapped in that godforsaken cellar, fighting for his and Hart's life with every ounce of energy he could summon. Crimson flares of color danced across his vision. What if he hadn't been able to get the tire iron to Hart? What if she hadn't used it?

  What if Morris had hurt her today? What would she rush into tomorrow?

  Infinite possibilities of calamity spun out before him, sucking him into their vortex of darkness. He was dead, Hart was dead, everything was lost–and it was all Drake's fault. Should have known better, should have called for backup, should have found a way out before anyone got h
urt, should have never gone in, should have been better, faster, smarter–

  Laughter sliced through the roaring in his ears. Drake took a deep breath. First one, then another, and gradually the red haze that clouded his vision cleared. The pressure lifted from his chest, and he looked around. Two uniforms were laughing as they walked down the steps.

  He wasn't back in the cellar, wasn't dying. Judas H, what was he doing sitting here, clammy with sweat when he had work to do?

  Hart's face, flushed with anger right before she'd slapped him, filled his mind. He pushed it away along with the memory of her passionate embrace from yesterday. Lots of work. Enough to drown out all thoughts of Cassandra Hart.

  Because if this was the kind of effect she was going to have on him, they were both better off taking time apart, getting some perspective. Breathing room.

  Maybe once he got a handle on this case...

  Drake shrugged thoughts of his personal life aside. He wanted to get through the case files and make a list of priority interviews for tomorrow. Maybe start working on more similarities between the victims, get an idea of the actor's mind set, however warped it might be. There was something nagging him about these cases, if he could just put his finger on it–

  Maybe there were more cases that Jimmy and his father had missed. It would take a solid week to go through all the unclosed homicides, but it might come to that.

  He left the car and inhaled deeply. Pittsburgh in springtime. A possible signature killer on the prowl. What more could a cop ask for?

  CHAPTER 11

  "Got your message." Adeena balanced a large stack of folders in her arms. Sometimes business was just too good.

  "Did Sterling talk to you about a CYS referral for Mrs. Washington?"

  She slumped into Cassie's spare chair. "Yes he did. He's pretty adamant about it."