Famiily Crisis
By Janet Brayden
It was a perfect day to go to the movies. The Riptide Detectives, and Cayce McKenna, were tired of the heat and humidity bearing down on them as they walked along Pier 56 so they headed to the theater to see the new movie Raiders of the Lost Ark.
It was late afternoon when they exited the theater. Cayce and Boz chatted excitedly about the movie they had just seen and hoped that there would be a sequel or two to come.
Nick and Cody slowly pulled away from their friends without realizing that the pair was falling behind. They crossed the street in front of the theater and were waiting patiently for the other two when Cayce stopped to empty some gravel out of her loafer that was annoying her foot. Murray didn't notice at first that she wasn't with him and kept on going. He was halfway across the street when a driver ran the stop sign and headed straight for him.
Cody looked up just as the car was approaching his friends.
"Boz! Look out! Look out!"
Nick's voice echoed Cody's warning but both partners were too far to do anything about it. Cayce, hearing Nick and Cody's cries, summoned the speed that had made her a track star in high school and ran toward the slender computer genius. Her tackle caused the car to miss Murray by a fraction of an inch. To the horror of the oldest members of the group Cayce was struck a glancing blow by the car's bumper and fell heavily striking her head on the curb.
Cody, with Nick right on his heels, dashed across the street and to their friends. Murray was shaken and his glasses had fallen off but he was unharmed thanks to Cayce's quick action. Cayce, herself, was not so lucky. She lay motionless in the gutter with a nasty looking gash on her left temple which was bleeding steadily and there was a bruise on her left cheek.
With shaking hands Nick reached out for a pulse breathing a sigh of relief when he found it. Exchanging looks with Cody, the Italian ran into the nearest business – a bookstore whose clerk had witnessed the whole thing – and used the phone to call an ambulance.
Cayce's color was not good – she was very pale and the bloody gash scared even the normally calm Cody. She was also very still and that really scared Cody because Cayce was the kind of person who was always on the go.
The wail of an ambulance's siren broke into whatever thoughts the men were having and two paramedics, accompanied by two ambulance attendants carrying a stretcher, arrived on the scene. Quickly, and efficiently, they assessed Cayce's condition and, after placing a collar around her neck – strictly as a precaution they assured the men of the Riptide – they gently loaded her onto the stretcher and loaded her into the ambulance which would take her to King Harbor General.
Once there the three men answered the usual questions about Cayce's age, weight and drug allergies that were standard in all hospital Emergency Rooms then they went and took seats.
"We'd better call the Colonel," Cody said. "He'll be pretty angry with us if we keep this from him."
"I'll do it," Murray volunteered seeing the stricken look on Nick's face.
"Thanks, Boz," Cody said with a sad smile.
"It's my fault," the youngest member of the trio, "if it hadn't been for me Cayce wouldn't be hurt."
"No, Murray," Nick told him. "That driver was reckless and probably drunk. It's their fault and nobody else's that Cayce's hurt."
"That's right, Murray," Cody agreed. "You could have been killed but Cayce wouldn't let that happen. The fault lies strictly with the driver of that car. I'd like to get my hands on them and wring their neck!"
Murray, slightly reassured by his partners as to who was responsible for Cayce being in the hospital went to make the call to Fort Irwin to let Colonel Brian McKenna know about his niece's accident. Upon hanging up he returned to the waiting room to let his friends know that the Colonel was going to get an emergency pass and would arrive in a few hours.
The three men sat back to wait, in brooding silence, for some word of how Cayce was doing. After fifteen minutes Nick, unable to sit still any longer, got up and started pacing. Cody went to the nurse's station to see if he could get any answers only to be told that they would hear from the doctor as soon as there was anything to tell.
A few minutes later a nurse came out with Cayce's jewelry which consisted of a Claddagh ring her uncle had given her and an arrowhead necklace that the Riptide detectives had presented her with on her last birthday.
"Maybe you'd like to hold onto these for her," the middle-aged woman said to them.
"Can you tell us anything about how she is?" Nick asked anxiously.
"Are you family?"
"As close as she's got except for her uncle," Cody told the woman. "He's on his way out from Fort Irwin but it will take him at least a couple of hours."
"Unless you're family I can't really tell you anything," the nurse replied. "The doctor will speak to you when he finishes his examination."
So saying the woman turned and went to the nurse's station leaving three very dejected young men in her wake. The detectives took seats in the waiting area again. Cody stared at the floor playing tic-tac-toe mentally on the square floor tiles, Murray riffled the pages of several magazines before giving up any hope of concentration and tossing the magazines back on the table. Nick continued pacing like a wild animal enclosed in a cage. It was impossible for any of them to think of anything but the accident and they were anxious to know if Cayce was going to be all right.
Two hours later the doctor came out to speak to the men. Nick was the first one to spot him and nudged his partners into alertness. "The doc's here."
Cody and Murray were on their feet in an instant. The doctor, a man in his mid-forties with black hair just starting to go gray, approached them.
"Gentlemen, you're the ones who brought Cayce McKenna in?"
"Yes, sir," Cody answered. "We were leaving the movies when she got hit. How is she?"
"That's what I'd like to know."
"Colonel McKenna!" Nick exclaimed turning to shake hands with the new arrival. "You made good time, sir."
"I left as soon as I got Colonel Bozinsky's call."
Brian McKenna was forty-two with the same brown hair and green eyes as his niece and stood just over six feet tall. The expression on his face was one of deep concern. It was obvious that he loved his niece dearly and was concerned about her.
"Dr...."
"Fredette. And you are?"
"This is Cayce's uncle, Colonel Brian McKenna," Cody made the introduction.
"Dr. Fredette, how is my niece?"
"She's got some nasty bruises and it took five stitches to close the gash on her head and she's got a slight concussion but her vital signs are good. She's being moved to a regular room right now. You can see her tomorrow."
"Dr. Fredette I did not drive two and half hours to be at my niece's side only to be told I can't see her until tomorrow."
Brian McKenna was not about to be put off and the two older members of the Riptide Detective Agency knew the look in his eye. Dr. Fredette would let them see Cayce as soon as she was in her room or the sheep dip, as he would say, would hit the fan.
Apparently the good doctor got the message loud and clear for the four men soon found themselves in Cayce's room.
Cayce lay in the bed with her eyes closed. Her chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm indicating that she was resting quietly and not in any distress.
Brian McKenna approached his niece's bedside and picked up her right hand. The men of the Riptide crowded around the other side of the bed and the foot and watched as he gently stroked her hand and softly called her name. Cayce's eyelid fluttered at first but after hearing her beloved guardian's voice for a minute she forced them open.
"Uncle Brian?"
"Yes, macushla, it's me. How do you feel?"
"M' head hurts."
"That's to be expected," he told her. "I'm told you hit it pretty hard on a sidewalk curb."
The words "sidewalk curb" penetrated the fog in Cayce's brain.
"Boz! Is Muray ok?"
She sat bolt upright in the bed causing her to gasp as a sharp pain went through her head. Colonel McKenna caught her and eased her back down.
"He's fine. He's right here. So are Cody and Nick." McKenna reassured his niece while gesturing for the others to come closer and speak to her.
"I'm fine Cayce," Boz told her.
Cayce turned her head toward the sound of Murray's voice. Cody had yieled his place closest to her so that she could see for herself. She smiled when she saw the bespectacled computer whiz looking at her anxiously.
"You're ok?"
"Yes, I'm fine," he reassured her. "You scared us though."
"Sorry. Nick? Cody?"
"We're here, Cayce," Cody told her.
"Wish it were one of you here 'stead of me," she grinned impudently at them – a sure sign that she was going to be just fine.
The men all laughed and Cayce went to sleep content that her family was safe and sound. As for the men – they were glad that this family crisis had turned out okay. It could have been so much worse.