Sleight of Hand (24 page)

She didn't care about the Executive Committee or her career anymore.  She just wanted something that would force CYS to take Charlie into protective custody.

Then she could sleep soundly, knowing he was safe.

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Cooking for Drake was bad enough, the man was practically a gourmet chef, but meeting his mother too?  And the trip to Wheeling had her running late.

Cassie opened her freezer door and eyed the contents.  There, a package of frozen chicken breasts.  She dumped it in the sink, running hot water over it.  To hell with FDA rules for food safety, if they got salmonella, she'd apologize later.  

Maybe Drake was right, she should enter the twenty-first century, break down and buy a microwave.  Truth was, she hated shopping for things like that, all those salespeople asking you what you wanted when you had no idea.  Not to mention the noise the damn things made.

What else?  She rummaged through the rest of her foodstuffs.  Olives, she had fresh basil growing on the windowsill, have to use canned tomatoes, sorry Rosa, and capers–where'd she put the capers?–there.

Rosa's chicken and saffron rice.  The only wine she had was a pinot grigio, shouldn't go too badly.  Dessert?  She wrinkled her nose, slowly turning around her kitchen, hoping for inspiration.  Of course, Ed's wife had sent over some of her delicious Cuban pastries.  Cassie smiled.  This dinner was definitely taking on an international flavor.

She fled up to the bathroom, eager to shower off the stench of Wheeling.  Hopefully Mrs. Drake wasn't made violently ill by capers, didn't detest white wine and wasn't on a strict diet.  Because about the only other thing Cassie would have to offer her would be the choice of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich made with the remnants of a moldy loaf of bread or Hennessy's cat food.

Cassie rushed through her shower, then faced the question of what to wear.  Again the decision was made easier from a lack of choices.  She slid into a sleeveless sheath of  peacock green silk.  It had been the first nice thing she'd bought for herself after leaving Richard.  She twisted from side to side in the mirror liking how the dark color shimmered.  

The nickel religious medallion Sheila Kaminsky had bestowed on her was the only flaw.  She reached a hand to slip it over her head and was surprised by a surge of heat that seemed to radiate from the cheap medal.

From the shower, idiot.  She tugged it off.  Still, unease flip-flopped her stomach as she tossed Sheila's charm onto the dresser.  

Through the open window she heard a car pull up across the street.  Damn, they were early
.
  Cassie slid bare feet into her black leather all-occasion flats and ran down the steps.  Her hair was still damp, but there was nothing to do about it.

Music–she should've put on music, she thought as she opened the front door.  Oh well, she'd let Mrs. Drake chose.  And the table still needed to be set.  As soon as she got the chicken into the oven, she'd deal with that.

She stepped out onto the porch, waving to Drake as he emerged from the driver's side of his Mustang.  At least the rain had slowed to a drizzle.  She danced down the steps and crossed the street, skirting the puddles in the pavement.

Drake moved around to the passenger side of the car, opening the door for a slender woman with sleek dark hair and a graceful carriage.  Cassie moved to join them, well aware of the lace curtains being drawn aside in Mrs. Ferraro's front window across the street.

"Hello, Mrs. Drake.  I'm Cassie Hart."  She held out her hand, suddenly feeling uncertain of herself.  What if Drake's mother hated her?  After all, Cassie was responsible for her son getting shot.

She was rewarded with a warm smile that lit up Mrs. Drake's dazzling blue eyes.  "Muriel, please dear.  Mrs. Drake was my mother in law."  Muriel took Cassie's hand, then pulled her into a hug.  "I'm so happy to meet you at last."

Raindrops began to splatter them.  "Come inside, dinner will be ready soon."

Up the hill a car started its engine.  They were half way across the street when Drake stopped.  

"Wait, I forgot something."  He turned and ran back to the car, moving around to the curbside.

She paused for a moment to watch as he ducked his body into the back seat of the car and emerged, holding a bright bouquet of roses and a bottle of wine.  He raised them aloft in a gesture of victory.

Muriel continued on, but stopped short of the curb.  "Is everything okay?" 

Cassie laughed.  Mrs. Drake had no reason to know how difficult it had been for her son to bring her roses.  The last time he'd done that, he'd been greeted by a killer.

"Fine, Mom.  Go on inside," Drake called out, bundling the flowers under his suit coat as he started around the car once more.  

Cassie waited for him.  A little rain didn't bother her, not when it brought her Drake and a nice, normal night together.  A night blissfully free of murder, mayhem and madness.

As she watched, Drake's smile faded and his gaze left hers to jerk up the street.  "Look out!"

She heard the car just as he called out.  A black van, no headlights on, gunning its engine as it hurtled down the hill.  She pivoted and sprinted for the curb.  The van sped up, swerving toward her.

Muriel stood directly in its path, her mouth open in surprise.  Cassie leapt, tackling the older woman.  They slammed into the hood of a parked Ford Taurus just as the van careened off the side of the Ford, propelling the two women into the air.

Cassie heard the squeal of tires and Drake's voice yelling in a kaleidoscope of sound as she and Muriel hurtled across the hood of the Taurus, finally bouncing onto the sidewalk with a sickening thud.

Muriel hit headfirst.  Cassie threw her arms out, trying not to land on top of Muriel as she collided against the cement.  

She ignored her own pain, rolling over to check on Muriel.  The older woman's gaze met Cassie's, her eyes filled with confusion.

"So happy," she said, her words slurred.  "You two.  Remy–" Her mouth went slack.  

Drake was there, shouting into his cell phone.  "That's right, Gettysburg Street.  Medics and a patrol car.  Now!"  He put the phone down and knelt beside Muriel, taking her hand.  "Mom, you're going to be all right–you hear me?  The ambulance is on its way.  You're going to be fine."

Cassie moved to Muriel's head, immobilizing the woman's neck and swiftly checking her breathing.  Mrs. Ferraro was the first neighbor out onto the street, but not the last.  Soon there was a small crowd gathered around Muriel's still form.

Blood from the left ear canal, Cassie noted.  Probable basilar skull fracture.  Breathing good, pulse steady–should be faster though.  Pupils?  Damn, the left was bigger than the right.

She looked up, wiping the rain from her face, and met Drake's eyes.

"She's going to be all right," he told her firmly.

"We need to get her to Three Rivers."

The ambulance siren drowned out the rest of her words.  As the crowd parted, she spotted the vibrant color of crushed roses scattered across the black pavement.

She looked down, unable to face Drake.  So much for a nice, quiet evening in the Hart household.

CHAPTER 20

The paramedics knew Cassie and were glad of her assistance.  "Basilar skull fracture, left pupil blown," she told them, moving aside so that they could secure the cervical collar.  "We need to scoop and run.  I'll tube her en route."

With practiced hands they slid Muriel onto the backboard and loaded her onto the gurney.  Drake started to climb into the ambulance with them.

"No," Cassie told him, echoing what the medics had already said.  "Let me do my job.  Trust me."

The look in his eyes almost broke her resolve.  Fierce and pleading at the same time.

"She's in good hands," one of the medics told Drake as he closed the rear doors of the rig.  "Doc Hart's the best." 

The door slammed shut, locking out Drake and his lost expression.  Cassie shook her head, banishing all thoughts but those of her patient from her mind.

"Seven-oh ET tube, suction.  Do you have that IV started yet?  Fluids at KVO, head injury protocol," she instructed the medics as she worked.  "All right, tube's in. How're her vitals?"

The trip to Three Rivers passed like a carnival ride complete with lurching twists and turns, accompanied by the scream of the siren and horn when recalcitrant drivers failed to yield and punctuated by a snarl of fear that stabbed and twisted into Cassie's gut.

Every time she took her eyes off  Muriel, her vision was filled with the sight of the black hulk of metal hurtling toward her with menacing intent.

Someone had just tried to kill her.  

The ambulance lurched to a stop, and the rear doors opened once more.  She jumped out and accompanied Muriel into the trauma room, her hands squeezing the bag that forced oxygen into her patient's lungs.  Muriel was hers now and Cassie wasn't about to leave her in the hands of some green-horned resident.

To her relief, it was Ed Castro waiting for them, gowned and ready for action in the trauma room.  

"Pedestrian versus van, hit her head on a sidewalk, probable skull fracture with blown pupil, improved now," she gave him the bullet.  

"Neurosurg is waiting up in CT," Ed told her as he finished his exam and concurred with her diagnosis.  They'd cut Muriel's clothing from her, inserted nasogastric and foley catheters, started another IV line and shot X-rays of her spine, chest, abdomen and pelvis.  "Let's get her upstairs," he commanded, and the nurses began to push the gurney from the trauma room now littered with debris.

Cassie started to follow, but Ed grabbed her arm.  "You're bleeding," he told her.  "We need to check you out."

"I'm fine," she argued.  "I need to stay with her.  I promised Drake."

The door burst open and Drake, followed by Tony Spanos, ran in.  "Where is she?  How's my mother?"  His words came in a breathless frenzy.

"She's all right," Ed assured him.  "She's upstairs in CAT scan.  Dr. Park, the neurosurgeon is with her."

"Neurosurgeon?"  He glared at Cassie.  "You said everything would be all right."

Cassie flinched from his accusation.  Who could blame him–his mother lay comatose because of her.

Ed looked from one of them to the other and took over.  "She will be.  But she's showing signs of some swelling in her brain–probably caused by a blood clot.  Dr. Park can tell you more once he sees the CT scan."

"A blood clot?  People die from that."  Drake's voice had dropped to a low monotone.

"Not if they're treated quickly like your mother was.  If it is a blood clot, Dr. Park can operate and remove it."

"And afterwards she'll be all right?  Everything will be back to normal?"  

Ed was silent.  Cassie cleared her throat, trying to find the courage to break the news to him.

"Most people do well," she started.  "But there can be a long recovery process.  Sometimes there are residual defects."

His eyes hardened, and she knew he was thinking of Richard and his brain damage.  

"Where's this Park?  I need to hear it from him," he asked Ed, dismissing Cassie with a flick of his eyes.

"Jason will take you up to him."  Ed waved to the clerk.  

She watched as Drake left without a glance for her, his back rigid, his hands fisted at his sides.

The door shut behind him.

Spanos cleared his throat.  "He's just upset, doc," he said, clearly uncomfortable defending Drake to her.  He shifted his weight and retrieved his notebook from his pocket.  "I was first on scene.  I saw–no one could have done anything more than what you did."  

"Dr. Hart needs attention," Ed told him, leading Cassie by the arm down the hall.  

"That's okay, I've just got a few questions." Spanos trailed behind them.

Cassie was shivering.  She wrapped her arms around her, realizing that her precious dress had been torn and stained beyond repair.  Blood covered her arms and legs and somewhere along the way she'd lost a shoe.  Water and blood dripped from her clothing and hair.  As Ed led her down to an exam room she saw the ER personnel stop what they were doing to stare at her.  They quickly looked away once more, not making eye contact, and she knew that the hospital rumor mill would be working overtime.  Again.

Ed scowled at the other medical professionals.  "Back to work, people," he told them, ushering Cassie into an exam room and closing the door.  He handed her a gown.  "Get changed and I'll examine you."

She stalled.  There was nothing worse than being a patient–unless it was having your godfather, who was also your boss, being the one to see you naked.  "Ed, I'm fine.  Really, it's just some road rash." 

"Then where's all the blood running down your face coming from?"  He glowered at her, the same look he'd used when she was a girl and he'd caught her lying.  It still worked.  "You change, and I'll check on Mrs. Drake's CT."

He left, and Cassie kicked off her lonely shoe and stripped the remnants of her dress away.  It wasn't like Ed hadn't seen her as a patient before.  He was the one who'd flown through a snowstorm to transport her and Drake after the shooting.

She tied the flimsy gown around her, glad that at least she was wearing her good underwear.  Gram Rosa had been right about that.

Ed and Spanos returned, the policeman carrying a Polaroid camera.  "Need it for the report, doc," he told Cassie, blushing as she hiked up her gown to reveal the scrapes on her legs.

Being a patient was so damned embarrassing. 

"How was the CT?" she asked.

"Left epidural with mild cerebral edema and a right contusion."  

"So she's in the OR?"

"Yes."  Ed made quick work of the road rash, gently plucking pieces of gravel from the deeper abrasions and cleaning the wounds.  Cassie didn't remember hitting her head, but she must have because her scalp was split open above her right ear.  Ed numbed and cleaned that, finally stapling it shut as Cassie answered Spanos' questions.

"I never saw the driver's face," she told him.  "It could have been a man or a tall woman.  They were wearing a hat and a scarf was wrapped around their face."