Chapter 11

Back at Community General, Mark, Jesse, and Amanda were in Mark's office, discussing the case over the remains of dinner. Jesse was working the late shift to cover for a friend who had an unexpected family emergency, and Amanda was finishing up some reports that were overdue, so Mark had volunteered to bring dinner in for all of them.

"You know, the timing of Pete's murder still bothers me," Mark said. "How did the murderer know Pete would be coming back at that time? Did he – or she – follow him home from Terri's? Or did he hang around the parking lot just waiting for him?"

"Well, I'll tell you one thing," responded Jesse; "whoever it was would have to be nuts to hang around in those bushes – especially in the dark. There's about a million prickers in there! I was just in there for a few minutes in the daytime and I got scratches all over." He rubbed at the back of his neck. "It itches too," he complained. "I've got to remember to pick up some steroid cream at the pharmacy."

Mark's ears pricked up. "Jesse, let me take a look at your neck," he said, coming over to stand behind him. He looked down at the faint rash around the collar of his friend's shirt. "You know, this looks a lot like the rash on Terri's arm…" He raised his head, his eyes narrowed speculatively.

"Terri?" Amanda repeated in surprise, as she realized where Mark's thoughts were headed. "But Terri has blonde hair."

"Maybe she dyed it," suggested Jesse.

"That's what I was trying to remember!" Mark exclaimed suddenly. He looked around at his friends. "When I was talking to Tina, she mentioned that Terri had brought in her high school yearbook one time. Tina said she saw a picture where Terri and Karen looked like 'the Bobbsey twins'. You don't usually say that about people with different hair colors – and Karen has brown hair."

"But if Terri's hair was dyed blonde, then any hairs she left on Pete's jacket or the envelope should have had at least traces of dye on them too," protested Amanda.

"What if it's not dyed – what if it's a wig?" Mark suggested. "When I was back stage at the Tulip Club, I noticed that a lot of the girls had wig stands at their tables. Maybe Terri wears a blonde wig! She could have taken off the wig, and worn a shapeless coat and hat to disguise herself when she killed Pete."

"That would work," Amanda mused thoughtfully. "And she could have planted that anonymous letter herself."

Mark nodded. "That would also explain the timing issue," he said. "She could have slipped out of her house right after Pete left and taken an alternate route to his apartment, getting there before him."

"But why would Terri want to kill Pete?" asked Jesse.

Mark shook his head thoughtfully. "I'm not sure. But Steve mentioned that Karen told him that Terri had been seeing a psychiatrist and indicated that she'd had some serious problems." He pulled the artist's sketch out of the case file and covered the hat with his hand, trying to imagine what the person would look like with blonde hair like Terri's. Jesse and Amanda peered over his shoulder.

"Let me try something," said Amanda. Taking the sketch, she placed another sheet of paper over the top of the head, and lightly sketched something approaching Terri's hairstyle. The three doctors stared at the resulting picture.

"It could be," said Jesse.

Mark reached for his phone. "I'm going to call Steve," he announced, dialing his son's cell phone number. He listened as it rang, his brow creasing when he failed to get an answer.

"Try calling the club," Jesse suggested. They waited as Mark looked up that phone number and placed the call to the Tulip Club. When he hung up, his expression was one of deepening concern.

"Steve left with Terri almost an hour ago," he reported. He looked up Terri's phone number in the file, and dialed her house. "The phone's out of order," he reported, hanging up. "I've got a bad feeling about this," he declared abruptly. "I'm going over there. Jesse, call Cheryl and have her meet me at Terri's house," he ordered as he moved swiftly toward the door. "Tell her I think Steve may be in trouble."

"I'm going with you," said Amanda, running after him. Mark just nodded as he broke into a trot, and the two of them headed rapidly for his car, leaving Jesse anxiously dialing the police station.

Chapter 12

Mark and Amanda pulled up outside Terri's house just as Cheryl was arriving with a backup unit. Mark gave Cheryl a quick update on the situation as they approached the front door. As they knocked at the door, they heard a series of thumps coming from inside, followed by a crash of furniture falling. Glancing in through the window beside the door, they saw Terri standing beside an overturned table, a knife raised above her head. Wasting no time, Cheryl and another officer kicked open the door.

They burst into the house just in time to see 'Terri' plunge the knife into the fallen figure at her feet. With an anguished cry of "Steve!" Mark rushed to his son's side as Cheryl overpowered 'Terri'. Mark dropped to his knees beside Steve, his heart dropping as he saw the spurting blood that was a tell-tale sign of a ruptured artery. Automatically pressing his hand against the gushing wound in Steve's chest, he anxiously tried to ascertain the complete extent of the damage. The knife had carved a deep, ragged gash in the side of Steve's chest, narrowly missing the lung. "Call an ambulance and the paramedics," he called over his shoulder to Amanda who had come up behind him, her face shocked and anxious.

As Mark checked his son out, Steve opened his eyes, instinctively jerking away from the touch that, in his semi-conscious state, he assumed was a renewed attack. Mark held him down, attempting to calm and reassure him.

"Steve, lie still. It's okay, it's me," he said. Steve relaxed, his eyes focussing on his father.

"Dad?"

"I'm here," his father replied, keeping his voice as steady as he could. "You're going to be all right."

Even as Mark attempted to reassure his son, he could feel the cold dread invading his heart as he assessed Steve's condition. The artery was gushing at an alarming rate, and the amount of blood building up in the chest cavity was putting pressure on the lungs and heart. If he kept bleeding at this rate, the only question would be whether he died of blood loss or suffocation due to collapsed lungs. Either way, he'd never even make it to the hospital. Mark knew he had to find some way to slow the bleeding. Had the artery been located in a limb, he could have used a tourniquet to cut off circulation to the area; but he couldn't put a tourniquet on Steve's chest. His mind raced frantically – he refused to contemplate the possibility of watching helplessly as his son bled to death before his eyes. A cold, hard calm, born of desperation, descended on him, and he started issuing orders.

"Amanda, get the medical kit in my trunk," he commanded. As she ran to do as he said, Mark looked over at Cheryl, who had come to stand in appalled silence, watching as he ministered to her partner. "Cheryl, go in the kitchen and get me some clean towels." He looked back down at Steve, one hand firmly pinching the damaged artery, trying to stem the flow of blood. Steve looked up at him and struggled to talk. He was still feeling fuzzy from the drug, there was piercing pain radiating from his side, and he had to fight for every breath against the increasing pressure in his chest.

"Drugged," he uttered, his voice weak and slurred. "She drugged me…"

"Don't talk, son," Mark told him. "You need to stay quiet." He reflected that the fact that Steve had been drugged was a distinct advantage at this point. It would make what he had to do a little easier. Cheryl reappeared with the towels, and under his direction, used one to swab up some of the blood that was covering Steve's chest. As she did so, Amanda returned with the medical bag. Mark turned to her.

"Give me the suture kit," he ordered.

"Mark, you can't use regular sutures to repair an artery!" Amanda protested, even as she pulled out the kit as he had requested.

"I know," was the grim reply. "But I can use the suturing thread to try to tie off the artery."

Amanda looked at the grim determination in her friend's face and swallowed any further protests. She knew as well as Mark did that if they didn't stop that bleeding, Steve didn't stand a chance. She also knew that he realized perfectly well that he was talking about performing what amounted to minor surgery on an unanesthesized, conscious patient who also happened to be his son. She handed him the suturing materials he needed.

"What do you want me to do?" she asked.

"I want you to hold the wound open so I can get to the artery," Mark replied. "Cheryl, I want you to hold Steve down if necessary. The fact that he's obviously been sedated should help, but this is going to hurt." Mark's face and voice were devoid of any expression other than that cold determination. The situation was too desperate to allow emotions to affect him now. He knew what he had to do, and he knew the pain he was going to have to inflict to do it. But there was no other choice if Steve were going to survive. And he was not going to lose his son without doing everything humanly possible to save him, whatever it took and whomever it hurt – including both Steve and himself. He looked down at his son.

"Steve." Steve opened his eyes. "I'm going to try to stop the bleeding." Throwing up every emotional block he could summon from over 40 years of practicing medicine, Mark kept his voice perfectly level. "I'm afraid this is going to hurt, but I need you to keep as still as you can." Steve looked at his father, recognizing even through the pain- and drug-induced haze that matters were obviously serious. He nodded wordlessly and tried to brace himself for what was to come.

Even with the sedation and the warning, Steve's body jerked involuntarily as Mark started work. Cheryl kept a tight grip on her partner, pinning him as well as she could, grateful for the sedation and weakness that sapped his usual strength, allowing her to hold him immobile. Amanda kept her eyes glued to Mark's hands throughout the procedure, unwilling to see the pain in Steve's face; wondering at the steadiness of those hands as they worked. Not once did Mark falter, even when Steve emitted a groan that caused tears to spring to Amanda's eyes. Mark worked swiftly, knowing that the kindest thing he could do at this point was to get the torture over as quickly as possible; but to Amanda it seemed like an eternity before it ended. When he had finished tying off the artery, he had to insert a chest tube to drain the blood to relieve some of the pressure on the heart and lungs. The whole procedure took only a few minutes, but by the time it was all over, Steve lay unconscious, drenched in sweat, his face as bloodless as his chest was bloody; and Amanda's face was streaked with tears. She looked up at Mark, and saw that he still wore the expression of cold remoteness that he had maintained throughout the procedure, but he was almost as white as Steve. She couldn't even begin to imagine what it had cost him to do that to the son he loved, and she knew there would be a high price to pay later for this rigid suppression of emotion. She prayed desperately that it hadn't all been in vain, that they would succeed in saving Steve.

The arrival of the paramedics set off a new flurry of activity. Mark helped them set up an IV and put anti-shock trousers on Steve's legs, and supervised the loading of his son into the ambulance. Once in the ambulance, he used his cell phone to contact Jesse at the hospital, wanting to be sure that everything would be set up and ready when they arrived so that not a moment would be lost. Every minute counted now; tying off the artery had not stopped the bleeding, only slowed it, and he wasn't even sure how long the temporary fix would hold. He explained the situation to Jesse, giving him the details of Steve's condition, telling him to pull Steve's records to have enough blood of the proper type ready and to have an OR and surgical team set to go as soon as they arrived.

Everything was in place when they arrived at the hospital; Jesse was waiting for them at the ER, everything set up the way Mark had instructed. They transferred Steve to a hospital gurney and whisked him off to the waiting OR. Only after they had wheeled Steve out of sight did Mark allow himself to let go of that cold shell of single-minded determination that had enabled him to get them this far. He stood in the hallway, staring after the gurney, suddenly wondering if that was the last sight he would have of his son alive. The wall of detachment he had so determinedly maintained crumbled, allowing the rigidly suppressed anguish and grief to wash over him. He leaned against the wall, fighting the waves of nausea and weakness that were the physical reaction to the emotional and physical stress of the crisis. Suddenly, all he could think of was the pain he had just inflicted on Steve and the possibility that that might have been his last interaction with his son. To lose his son was agony; to have had no farewells, no exchange of affection, no chance to comfort – to know, instead, that the last experience Steve had had of his father was the infliction of further pain and suffering – was almost unendurable.

Amanda entered the ER, having followed the ambulance to the hospital, and saw Mark propped up against the wall, eyes closed, face gray and lined. Her heart ached for her friend, knowing that the grief and reaction were hitting him as hard as she had expected. She went up and wrapped her arms around him, gently pulling him away from the wall.

"Come on, Mark," she said gently. "Let's go somewhere quiet and sit down."

Mark opened his eyes and looked at her, grateful for the warmth and affection and concern she radiated. Dazedly, still feeling sick and shaken, he allowed her to lead him to an unoccupied lounge and sank onto the couch she steered him to. Amanda sat close to him, feeling the slight trembling that shook him, the cold of his hands – hoping to provide some physical, as well as emotional, warmth to her friend. She took his hands in hers.

"It's going to be okay, Mark," she said softly. The eyes that gazed back at her were drenched with pain. Mark shook his head slightly, more in grief than in denial.

"I didn't want to hurt him," he said, talking as much to himself as to her, "but I had to do something … I couldn't …" his voice choked up.

"Mark, you did what had to be done," Amanda assured him, her voice gentle but filled with conviction. "You know that. If you hadn't done what you did, Steve would have bled to death before he ever reached the hospital."

"He may still die," Mark said drearily. "And the last thing I'll ever have done for him was to hurt him…"

"What you did was give him a chance to live," Amanda insisted. "If you hadn't slowed that bleeding, he wouldn't have had any chance at all." She looked him straight in the eyes, trying to get through to him past the sea of grief and anguish that she knew were the inevitable backlash from the total emotional block that had carried him through the crisis. "You think Steve doesn't know that? You think he doesn't know how you feel about him? Doesn't know that you suffered with him through every step of that procedure?" She saw Mark's eyes fill with tears that he tried to blink away, and she pulled him into a hug. "He knows, Mark," she murmured reassuringly over his shoulder as she felt him cling to her. "Whatever happens, he knows."