Jacked (52 page)

“HIS LIVER IS
lacerated. You can see it clearly here. Shit.” Bile threatened to erupt as I scanned the next picture.

“Ribs four and five are also fractured. A fragment punctured the lung. Blood is pooling in his abdomen,” Doctor Ben Parata said, pointing at his screen with the tip of his pen.

“These fractures on his ribs here are already mending. Jesus. I wonder how long he’s been going through this?”

We tore our eyes away from evaluating the MRI results and numerous X-rays to stare at each other, both of us at a complete loss of words. There was no restraint to the level of abuse this child had endured. That much was evident.

Ben blew out a deep, forlorned breath, echoing my own sentiments. “This kid is six?”

I nodded.

“He’s a baby for Christ’s sake. How? This is just… Unbelievable. This is the worst case of child abuse I have ever seen. I hope the person who did this goes to jail for a
very
long time.”

I couldn’t agree more. “Child Protective services have been notified. How could a parent do something like this?” The plethora of life-threatening injuries peppering this little boy was incomprehensible.

Ben shook his head. “I have no idea.”

My God, the unfathomable injustice. Do all women mentally snap after childbirth?
The thought petrified me.

“What do we got?” Doctor Nate Tomic from Pediatrics stood beside me, resting his hands on his hips.

I reviewed the patient’s injuries with him, quickly forming a game plan for emergency surgery. “We have him stable but he’s on borrowed time. We’ll need Orthopedics to handle the clavicle fracture.”

“Agreed,” Doctor Tomic said, wasting no time to schedule an O.R. “Is the family here?”

“I’ll check.” I glanced at my pager, but it had been my cell that had vibrated my pocket. Adam’s latest text would have to wait.

Ben was fuming. “Whoever did this to this child should suffer the same treatment.”

He needed to chill. “I’ll speak to them.”

Ben shot me a fleeting look, silently laced with encouragement and appreciation. I knew if he stumbled upon the abuser, he just might put them through the waiting room wall. Ben’s daughters were close in age to the patient.

I checked in on my patient one more time before addressing the family, assuring myself that he was still stable. His blood pressure was concerning me. So was the discoloration of his fingertips and the bluish tint to his lips. I checked his arms and legs, even down to the bottoms of his feet, looking for something I might have missed. I checked his pupils. “Oh, little man, hang in there. We’re going to fix you, sweetheart. I promise.”

This wasn’t right. No. No. I’d missed something. My gut was telling me that there was something else happening here. I scrolled through his chart on screen.

I snagged the R.N. who assisted when this little boy first arrived. “Kimberly, did we get the tox screen results back?”

“I don’t think we ordered it.”

My frustration spiked, but that didn’t mean I had the right to take it out on her. “I ordered it when we started working on him. Check, please. We need a tox screen on him, stat.”

“For?” she asked.

I checked his lips and mouth around the tape holding the intubation tube. “Heroin is my guess right now. A beating like this? He got into something he shouldn’t have.”

Her face blanched.

I was hoping my hunch was wrong, but instinct was telling me otherwise.

ADAM HAD BEEN
texting me all night. He was just what the doctor ordered, cheering me up without even realizing it. How a parent could purposely beat their child to within inches of death was weighing heavily on my mind, like a torrent of unfettered rage waiting to be unleashed. After reviewing the test results, my hunch that the trauma was a result of him getting into somebody’s drug stash had been confirmed.

Each of Adam’s messages were growing more and more suggestive, and the note I was reading on my phone right now was making me blush in several places.

I grabbed my dinner out of my backpack and shoved my stuff haphazardly into my locker, grinning for the first time all night. I needed his brand of healing as I typed:

Ten seconds later:

It was impossible to hide my happiness.

The truth of “dirty scrubs” with God-knows-what decorating them seemed too disgusting.

I couldn’t type “OK” fast enough.

He’d been working at his headquarters for the last few nights instead of being out on patrol while investigating his case, which, in all honesty, after dealing with a gunshot wound yesterday, made me a bit more relaxed. I could tell he was itching to get out on the streets, as sitting on his ass at a desk was clearly not his thing. Two days ago he informed me that he had to go to Manhattan to sign a new television appearance contract and then had suggested (and then persuasively insisted) I switch schedules so I could go with him.

He promised me that he’d give me some peace so I could study in the car on the ride up, which had been the only thing really concerning me. “I know your fellowship is important to you,” he had said after he’d made love to me. We were in his bed, wrapped around each other, enjoying a moment when the outside world wasn’t demanding anything of us. Just the simple fact that he was making concessions to assure I was happy was enough to make my heart swell.

Regardless, the constant hounding from the network that produced his television show was adding to his frustration. Unfortunately that was just part of my worries.

Jen was grinning at me while bouncing in her chair in our break room. “You look like you’re in love.”

I rolled my eyes and shoved my cell in my pocket. After reviewing the child abuse case, my spirit was still withered and broken, but Adam’s messages were helping me cope. “Hello to you, too.”

“You are,” Jen teased, nudging me with her elbow when I sat down next to her. “Finally. I’ve gotta tell ya, it’s nice to see you smile again. I’ve missed it.”

“Thanks.” I shoved a spoon into my yogurt. Blueberry was my favorite.

Sherry raised her hand in solidarity. “I agree. You have that rosy, post-orgasm glow in your cheeks, Erin. It’s lovely.”

It took effort not to crawl under the table from their remarks about my resuscitated sex life.