"Cowboys, Pair of Kings"
Copyright 2007 Penn O'Hara
T
Usual disclaimers apply.
oOo
Chapter Eleven
The elevator door closed upon the heart-wrenching scene of Mike flanked by the two orderlies, his eyes appealing to Carolyn to get him out of there. Carolyn was torn, wanting to do just that, yet mindful that Mike's welfare was best served by medical professionals. He needed to be dragged back to bed and made to stay there, but his obvious distress cut into her, pulling at her nerves and making her feel ill.
The nurse who accompanied the orderlies gently touched her arm. "I'm afraid he left his ward without Doctor's permission. I'm sorry you had to witness such heavy-handed treatment but Detective Logan has already demonstrated he can be a bit of a handful."
Carolyn nodded, staring at the closed doors. "I know. I'm his partner. But maybe he's well enough–"
"Did he look well enough to be released?" the nurse asked gently.
Carolyn's chin dipped before she slowly met the nurse's sympathetic eyes. "No…not really. How–?"
"We're still running tests. Doctor Trudgian will know more soon, but Detective Logan really must stay in the ward under observation. He was on the ferry?"
"Yes." Turning back to Bobby and Alex, Carolyn silently asked for suggestions of a course to take. She would honor the call back to duty but seize upon the okay to tend to the man she loved.
Bobby's nod in the direction of the elevators was all the encouragement Carolyn needed. She thumbed the button that would bring the car back down to the Ground Floor, then swung around as the hospital outer doors burst open with a flurry of uniforms holding back dogs on leads. The bomb squad that Bobby had requested earlier poured into the hospital and split upon cue as they began their sweep of the premises.
"Is this necessary?" the nurse asked, startled.
"Explosives were used on the Ferry," Bobby explained, "and I believe the perpetrator may now be in this hospital. The dogs will be able to find traces."
Carolyn noticed how he watched the opened doors closely, careful that no one slipped out while the bomb squad came in. He didn't add the possibility that he feared Nicole wasn't finished in her destructive spree, and could target the hospital. They were between a rock and a hard place, needing the hospital to be in lock-down to keep Nicole contained, but that meant the public were at risk if she had more destruction planned.
"Perhaps you could let people out the front way, one by one–" Carolyn's suggestion was interrupted by the elevator doors pinging open and she hurried in, leaving Bobby to make the decision.
The nurse entered the car with her and selected the first floor. Carolyn willed the doors to shut, agitated by their reluctance to close.
"He'll be fine," the nurse assured her.
Carolyn swung guiltily toward her, disturbed that she was allowing her anxiety over Mike's welfare show.
"I'm sure he will, Nurse…" Carolyn checked her I.D. for the first time. "…Clarence."
The doors opened and she strode out, looking left and right before realizing she had no idea where to go. Taking a breath and bunching her hands into fists, she forced herself to wait for Nurse Clarence to go first.
About to take a step after the nurse, Carolyn hastily jumped back as a trolley separated them, wheeled past at breakneck pace. A clutch of medics was driving it, faces set and determined. A patient wheeling his I.V. stand down the corridor flattened himself against the wall with a yelp, wide-eyed.
"Get back to your room!" Nurse Clarence ordered. "We're in lock-down, sir. You must remain in your room."
Carolyn had little experience in emergency wings but knew a 'crash cart' when she saw one. Following its progress, she saw a Doctor running down the corridor from the other direction, pushing past two nurses who weren't as fast as he. They were all congregating onto one room, the same toward which Nurse Clarence now hurried.
Her heart beating painfully in her chest, Carolyn followed them into chaos. Patients were hanging out of their beds, pointing toward the floor at the far end of the room, their explanations agitated as they tried to get the Doctor's attention.
"She just walked out…"
"…never came back…"
"…said she was getting a Doctor…"
"…one down, two to go…"
The medics were heaving a body from the floor, a man in a hospital gown with an arm in a cast…
"Oh my God! Mike!"
Carolyn rushed forward but Nurse Clarence whipped round and pushed her back. "Detective! No! Give them space!"
Carolyn felt her arm grasped with a strength that hurt, but it didn't stop her. She dodged around and dragged the nurse with her as she pushed past staff to stand at the foot of the last bed. Three medics were laying Mike out on its surface as a Doctor bent over him, cutting off her view. Carolyn ducked round him but her other arm was grabbed.
"Okay!" She spun on them. "I'll stay back, but you gotta let me be with him!"
"I'm sorry, you can't. We have to close the curtains to shield the other patients and let the Doctors work."
"I'm not going–"
"While we're fighting you, Detective, we can't be with the others helping your partner. Please…come with us. Now!"
Carolyn grudgingly allowed herself to be ushered out of the room and found the doors summarily shut in her face. She peered through the window pane but the curtain was drawn around Mike's bed and the two nurses who had escorted her out were with the other patients, placating them back into their beds.
She could hear very little, but flurried movements of the curtain around the last bed hinted at the urgency with which the doctors and nurses were working. Her face pressed against the window, palms pushing against the closed doors, Carolyn could barely breathe as she waited and prayed Mike would be all right.
What had the other patients said? She just walked out… Nicole had been there. Had been with Mike and done God-knows-what to him.
She thrust open the doors. "He's been poisoned! Look for poison!"
Grabbed again by nurses, Carolyn kept yelling as she was back-pedaled out of the room. "Test him for poison, Goddammit!
One down and two to go…
Had the patient heard correctly? Had Nicole said that?
Bobby and Alex were in danger.
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