Sophie's Path (4 page)

“Nurse Mattuchi!” Nate shouted.

“Yes, Doctor?” Sophie snapped out of it. Whatever
it
was.

“Are you okay?” He pulled off his latex gloves.

She looked down at Aleah's lifeless body. “She...”

“Never had a chance,” Nate said. “I'm surprised she lasted this long. Your assessment was on target. So was Dr. Hill's. I also think she was anorexic.”

Sophie's eyes flew to Aleah's body. She understood what Dr. Barzonni was saying. The improper balance of electrolytes alone, in an anorexic person, was enough to bring on a heart attack. Aleah had a congenital heart condition, anorexia and blunt chest trauma. “I thought she was rather thin. It just didn't register.”

“This was a massive trauma. She was hit very hard. I'll get more about it from the cops outside. But with her birth defect and the punctured lung...” He shook his head and put his hand on her shoulder. “You did all you could.”

“I wonder...” she started.

“No,” Nate said and turned to Dr. Hill. “Eric, you and I will have a lot of paperwork. Do you know if either family is here?”

“Just the girl's,” Bart interrupted. “We're still searching for the John Doe's family. He was driving without a wallet or any papers. Maybe the cops have an update.”

“I'll talk to the police,” Dr. Hill said.

“And I'll handle Aleah's family,” Nate volunteered.

“We still have Mr. Carter here overnight,” Dr. Hill said. “Nurse Mattuchi, you're on duty?”

“Yes, Doctor. I'll see to him.”

“I want a CT scan. I want no other—” He swallowed hard. “You know what I mean.”

“I do,” she replied, softly feeling a flood of empathy for both these highly trained professionals who had lost not one, but two patients in a matter of minutes.

Sophie checked the clock. It had only been twenty-five minutes since all three victims had been brought in. She'd been assigned to Jack Carter first. She'd spent fifteen of those minutes with him. Then five minutes with Aleah before the John Doe flatlined. In the final five minutes, they'd lost both of them.

Time. Sophie had never taken time for granted. She trained hard and worked hard. She spent time with her family and helped them out whenever she could. But this absurd, needless loss of two lives shocked her to her core. Aleah had only been twenty-one. The man was in his late thirties. They both had a lot of life in front of them. They could do anything they wanted to with their time. Laugh. Love. Try to find happiness and joy...

Odd that Sophie would think of happiness at a time like this, but she did. She felt tears fill her eyes as she covered Aleah's body, but not her face, with the sheet. Her parents would want to come in to see her. Sophie would meet with them and try to comfort them. She hoped she would find the right words to say. Good words. Or maybe no words. Maybe they would just ask her to go away.

Sophie wiped the tears off her cheeks with her fingertips. She wasn't just crying for this young woman. She was crying for herself. She believed she'd done all she could as part of the team tonight. These were tears of self-pity. They came from a deep and lonely place inside of her. A place she seldom visited and barely acknowledged. She guessed these tears had been trying to form for a long time, but she'd told herself that crying was for weaklings. She was strong. She was able to handle just about anything, including injury, illness and death.

But happiness? That was really tough.

Sophie's twenties were nearly behind her and she'd done little to grab happiness for herself.

She couldn't afford to wait any longer. Tonight had shown her how lives could be snatched away in an instant. Oh, she'd begun her self-evaluations and internal makeover, but she'd only stuck the spade into the first few inches of her psyche. She had a lot of digging to do before she'd find treasure.

For the first time, though, she thought she knew what she was looking for.

Happiness.

She just hoped she recognized it when she uncovered it.

CHAPTER FOUR

J
ACK
WAITED
ON
teetering legs for some definitive word about Aleah. He'd heard the commotion. He'd heard the second round of instructions for a defibrillator. He'd heard the second heart monitor announce the dreaded flatline bleep, but he couldn't see around the heads of the doctors and nurses. He watched people going in and racing out. Then suddenly, they all stopped moving and became still.

Aleah was dead.

Jack's mouth had gone dry and his blood had turned cold. It had been a long time since he'd experienced death that was close to him. Not since his father died. He'd mourned him deeply, but his father had battled cancer for over two years. The family had expected him to die. He'd been prepared.

Jack battled the biting tears and thunder in his chest. He'd liked being a mentor to Aleah. She and Owen were only a decade or so younger than he, but right now, he felt ancient.

All his concerns from earlier in the day came back to him suddenly: his banter with his sister and brother-in-law, his anxiety over the White Sox's loss to the Yankees. Even the ambitions he'd been mulling over after the seminar seemed trivial compared to what he was facing now. He would give everything he had to save his sweet, unsuspecting assistant from death.

He pinched the bridge of his nose. This shouldn't have happened. It was a mistake. Some cruel trick of the universe. And it was hitting Jack hard.

He wished he felt stronger because he wanted to do something. He was so confused, and Jack was seldom confused. He prided himself on his ability to stay focused. Responsible. That's what everyone in his family had called him. He was their rock. He was the leader.

If only he could remember the accident. Maybe he could have prevented it, but the pieces of his memory were as vague as the fog he'd been driving through.

Jack watched as Nate Barzonni shuffled down the hall with a somber face, his hands shoved into the pockets of his surgical scrubs. He moved like a man carrying a cross. Jack knew Nate and Maddie Barzonni both. He was almost a daily customer at Cupcakes and Coffee. Maddie's brew was legendary and her made-to-order cupcakes and icings were his must-have indulgence.

Jack hobbled to the entry of his bay. A sharp pain made a jagged path up his calf.

His ankle hurt more than he'd anticipated. “Nate, please. What happened?” He had so many questions.

Nate barely glanced at him, giving him a dismissive nod. Then Jack saw the raw pain in Nate's eyes. He understood.

“Jack, I'm sorry about your assistant. Real sorry. But I have to see her parents. Is that okay?” Nate choked out the words and shook his head sorrowfully. “I can't...not right now.”

“It's okay,” Jack replied empathetically.

Nate gave Jack a slight wave and then practically jogged to the ER exit doors.

Jack had never seen Nate like this. How often did a doctor lose a patient? Once a year? Once a month? And Nate had lost two in a matter of minutes. How did a doctor, with years of training and the most up-to-date studies and research, handle something like this? Did they take it personally? Even if there was nothing more they could do, this had to feel like a failure. Did it affect them emotionally?

As far as Jack could tell the rest of the staff went about their work as if nothing had happened. Except for Nate, Jack hadn't seen one iota of remorse from the other doctor or the nurses. He told himself they had work to do. Serious work. But it still stung.

Jack felt hollow. He glanced at the bed and wondered how he'd make it back under his own steam.

“Mr. Carter,” Sophie addressed him professionally as she rushed toward him. “What are you doing? You're not supposed to be walking around yet. It's dangerous. You have to stay in bed.”

She put her hands on his shoulders, and with more strength and force than he'd thought possible, she led him to the bed and pressed him into it. He sat on the edge, refusing to lie down.

“What happened to Aleah?” he asked.

“Cardiac arrest.”

Jack felt as if he'd been punched in the gut. Aleah's heart was young, but that wasn't enough to keep her alive. He lifted his eyes to Sophie.

She was composed and self-assured. Yeah, she was good. He had to give her that.

He felt hollow, yet his insides burned with the unfairness of it all.

He balled his fist. Flexed it. Balled it again.

She bent over and grabbed his ankles, favoring his sprain, and spun his legs up and onto the cot. “We have to get that CT scan. Dr. Hill is concerned...”

Jack pounded the gurney with his fist.

“Concerned? About me? He should have been
concerned
—” Jack nearly spit the word out “—when he had a chance to save Aleah. Maybe you should have been, too. You left her to go to that monster...that addict who killed her.”

Sophie's jaw dropped. “How did you know he was an addict?”

Jack jerked his head toward the ER entry doors where two policemen stood talking to Dr. Hill. “Cops. They said they have to get a statement from me.”

“Not yet. You have to rest.”

“I'm not taking orders from you—”

She placed three fingers over his lips. “Shh. Don't say something you'll regret,” she whispered.

“Regret? I'm not the one with regrets.
You
let Aleah die,” he growled.

Sophie's eyes widened with shock. “That man, that patient—” She stumbled.

Jack could see her ire rising as she continued. “He'd gone into cardiac arrest. At that very same moment, Aleah was holding on. My colleagues were stabilizing her. My judgment was that we had a chance to save them both.”

“Well, your judgment was incorrect. Your
judgment
was skewed.” Now that Jack's anger was ignited, he couldn't stop himself. “Frankly, I don't know where your priorities are. An addict who nearly killed all three of us and
did
kill Aleah, made the choice to drive high. He didn't deserve your concern, or Dr. Hill's.” Jack was so filled with rage that he felt light-headed. He wasn't sure if he'd made his point, so he balled his fist again and slammed it against the bed. The plastic beneath him crackled.

Jack felt woozy as he stared at his hand. How practical of hospitals to put plastic under the thin sheets. Plastic. So that the blood wouldn't ooze through when a person bled out. Plastic protected the mattress but did nothing to save the patient. Plastic, like the black bags they used to take bodies to the morgue.

“Plastic,” Jack mumbled as he dropped his head back onto the pillow.

“Mr. Carter? Jack? Can you hear me?”

He knew his eyes were rolling around because the room was spinning.

He heard Sophie dash over to the nurse's station.

“Doctor Hill. Stat!” she yelled into the intercom.

Jack hated that his head injury was getting in the way of his tirade. That's exactly what it was, he realized. He was accusing the hospital and its staff of bad practice. He didn't know if it was malpractice, but he blamed them all the same.

Aleah was dead. A terrifying fact that he knew he still hadn't come to grips with.

“Doctor Hill, I think he's in shock,” Sophie said, though he couldn't see her anymore. Where did she go? She was just here a minute ago. Now the room was dark. Vacant. Like that drainage tunnel he'd been in before. That was it. He'd gone back to the place where it all started.

Maybe he'd find some answers there. Perhaps even solace.

* * *

S
OPHIE
TOOK
J
ACK
'
S
blood pressure while Dr. Hill examined him.

“He's asleep. I would be out cold myself if I'd been through all that he has tonight. Take him down for the CT scan. He'll wake up once he's there.”

Sophie chewed her bottom lip as Dr. Hill straightened. “What?”

“Jack—er, Mr. Carter thinks we were negligent with Aleah. He thinks we should have let the other patient die in order to treat her.”

“Good thing Mr. Carter doesn't run this hospital. We used our best judgment. We're not divine. We do the best we can.” Dr. Hill touched Sophie's shoulder. “Besides, Mr. Carter here should be singing your praises. If it hadn't been for you getting that glass out of his eyes, he could have been severely impaired.”

“He doesn't know that. He thinks I was simply cleaning him up.”

Dr. Hill raised his chin and peered at her. “I don't mind setting him straight. Be glad to do it, especially if he's accusing us—”

She put up her hand to interrupt. “Not us. He's questioning
me
.”

Dr. Hill squeezed her shoulder gently and smiled. “Don't take it so hard. He's had a very rough night. You know as well as I do that irritability is a sign of concussion. He's confused and has complained to Bart Greyson of both double vision and sensitivity to light. Oh, by the way, I'll order an EEG, as well.”

Sophie was surprised because an EEG was only required when the patient had been having seizures. “Yes, Doctor.”

“I realize it's overly cautious, but just in case this fellow is more than simply irritable and decides to follow through with a malpractice suit, I want our examination to be as thorough as possible.”

Sophie hated how the medical world had been forced to adapt to the tort wars. Extraneous tests were performed as a standard course of action in even the simplest cases. A broken toe, if not properly x-rayed and treated, followed up on, double-checked and documented could cost the hospital hundreds of thousands of dollars in lawsuits. Sophie despised the whole system. The paperwork and extra steps she had to perform for the administration, which, rightfully, was trying to keep the entire hospital safe, took time away from her patients.

Her eyes dropped to Jack.
Patients like Jack
.

When she'd been tending him, she'd felt a pleasant and approachable energy that instantly caused her to like him. He'd looked at her with the anguish and wariness she often saw in patients. She'd sensed she was his link to the world in that moment. It wasn't the first time Sophie had seen that deep pleading, felt the clutch of fingers around her wrist or witnessed a tear slide down a lonely cheek. But there was something else...

When she'd placed her fingers over his lips, she'd intuited his tenderness. She didn't actually know anything about him except his blood type, blood pressure, height and weight, but she believed he was a gentle man.

That was why she'd been quite shocked when he'd turned on her. He was an enigma and that fascinated her.

“You're right, Doctor. It's best to be safe.”

“Cover our butts,” he replied, moving toward the curtain. “Page me when you're back down from Radiology. And don't let him sleep any more than two hours at a time.”

She chuckled. “That won't be a problem. This is a hospital.”

* * *

B
Y
S
ATURDAY
MORNING
,
Sophie was wired on too many cups of bitter break-room coffee and a late-night cafeteria meal that didn't sit well. The ER had been calm after the turmoil of the car accident. That alone was a blessing, she thought. Most of the staff went about their paperwork and duties with solemn faces, their thoughts easily readable in their anguished eyes. Sophie wasn't sure how many people died on ER tables typically. She'd only been working in the ER for a little over six months, but in a small town where everyone knew everyone else, or at least their business, death touched them all

Bart, who had just come back on duty, scurried from bay to bay, reviewing Donna and Bob's documentation in patient charts and checking in with the pharmacy about orders he'd placed. Though Bart appeared to have put the tragedies behind him, Sophie suspected his actions were all a cover-up.

She'd spent nearly the entire night with Jack Carter. She took his vitals every hour. Woke him up and forced him to drink water. She helped him to the bathroom and helped him back to bed. Jack shirked off her assistance at first, but when he realized he was dizzy and his legs were still wobbly, he insisted Sophie get him another nurse. Sophie tried to grant his wish, but she was told they were short-staffed. He was stuck with her.

Now Sophie was bringing Jack his dismissal papers, a list of follow-up appointments and home-care instructions, prescription Tylenol for the headaches he complained about and fresh gauze and bandages for his lacerations.

He was sitting up with two pillows behind his back. “Who put me in this gown?” he demanded roughly.

Sophie smiled. “Good morning to you, too.”

“Was it you?”

“Yes.” She wouldn't let him intimidate her with his sour expression. His dark stubble enhanced his good looks, even though his eyes were still so swollen and bruised he could easily be mistaken for a boxer who'd lost a match. She stopped abruptly.

She thought he was handsome? Where had
that
thought come from?

Don't go there, Sophie.

Jack Carter was her patient. That was all. He was certainly not the type of guy she would have had a fling with in the past. He was very, very different. For one, he despised her right now. And two, it was unethical to date patients. And she was done with flings, anyway.

Jack bristled. “Where'd you put my clothes?”

“In the closet. What's left of them, that is. I didn't have time to send them out to the laundry if that's what you want to know. But I did go down to the gift shop to buy you a T-shirt.”

She opened the plastic bag and pulled out a pink breast cancer T-shirt with the looped ribbon logo on the front. “It was all they had. I got a large.”

“It's pink.” He reached out and snatched it from her hand, his lips twitching. “My mother says I look good in pink.”