Undercover M.D.. Marie Ferrarella

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      There was barely harnessed hysteria in the man’s voice. Terrance looked up from the bloodied woman on the gurney. Even if he were the most skilled doctor in the world, he could do nothing for her now.

      But there was something he could do for the father.

      Placing his body between the gurney and the man, he stopped the latter from plowing into it. Terrance clamped a hand on the man’s shoulder. “They’ve taken her into the exam room.”

      It took a second for the words to process. “Is she…is she…?” He couldn’t bring himself to utter the unutterable.

      Terrance’s hand remained on the man’s shoulder, holding him in place. “She’s alive,” Terrance assured him.

      “And my wife?” Utterly beside himself, the man was blind to the still figure that lay on the gurney directly behind Terrance.

      Terrance noted that the man referred to the woman as his wife, not his ex-wife. There were feelings there, he judged, vividly brought out by the tragic events of the moment.

      He wondered if there were doctors who got used to saying this. He knew he didn’t. “I’m sorry. She didn’t make it.”

      For a second Terrance thought the man was going to crumple before him at his feet. He seemed to get weak at the knees and sagged against Terrance as he saw the body of his wife.

      “Maybe it’s better this way. Maybe Jill’ll finally be at peace.” There were tears in his eyes as he turned them toward Terrance. “But why did she have to try to take Wendy with her? She’s just a little girl, a baby.” His voice hitched badly. “She’s got her whole life in front of her.”

      It never made any sense, but Terrance tried to find an explanation for him.

      “Maybe your wife thought that Wendy couldn’t survive without her.” That was the most common psychological profile when it came to mothers who killed their children and then themselves. It revolved around a fear that the children left behind couldn’t really function in a world without the parent.

      The man didn’t seem to hear. Instead he began to look around frantically, heading for the first curtained bed. “Where is she? Where did they take Wendy?”

      Terrance drew him away before he could frighten a patient. “To Room Four for examination.”

      He indicated the room Alix and the nurses had entered. The man hurried over to it. Terrance was right behind him, wondering if the man, in his grief, was going to have to be restrained. He cut him off before he had a chance to enter the room.

      “They’re doing all they can for her. If there’s even an infinitesimal chance of saving your daughter, they will. Dr. DuCane’s with her right now, and they’re sending for an internal surgeon.”

      At least, he assumed they were. Terrance knew he had to keep up a steady stream of conversation to distract the man. It was the best service he could offer in this situation. He knew how to treat common ailments, but what was going on behind the closed swinging doors to his right was beyond the scope of his expertise. Surgery for him meant removing pieces of glass from a cut or stitching up a simple wound.

      Cushioned fall or not, the little girl they had just brought in was going to need some serious surgery—and someone who was up on what they were doing. That left him out.

      Terrance thought of the lounge where patients’ family members waited for the results of operations. He’d passed it on his way in this morning. “Why don’t I take you someplace where you can sit down and—”

      But the man shook off the hand that Terrance placed on his arm. “I don’t want to sit. I want to be right here. Right here,” he repeated numbly, “in case they need me.”

      Angling around Terrance, he tried to get a better look through the windowed portion of the swinging doors. There was a ring of people around the table. He could make out the small form on the gurney.

      “She’s so little,” he sobbed.

      “Somehow they mend quicker when they are.” Terrance knew he was mouthing every platitude he could think of, but he needed to calm the man down. “She’s going to be all right.”

      He saw the head nurse he’d met only minutes ago looking in his direction. He could tell by her expression that she’d overheard him. Wanda shook her head. His earlier training reminded him that he was violating a cardinal rule at the hospital: you never made promises you couldn’t keep.

      But he knew how important it was to hand out hope, to offer it at least for a moment. Because he’d been on the other side of the operating room doors once himself, when his father had been the one the medical team were working over.

      Small bits of precious hope, however unfounded, had kept him functioning and sane, had enabled him to keep his mother’s spirits up. And, eventually, had helped him cope with his father’s death.

      It was the least he could do for the man who looked as if his whole world had shattered right before his eyes. The least and the most.

      Down the corridor he saw Wanda waving to the orderlies who were taking the woman’s body away. He thought of directing the man’s attention to that, then decided against it. Instead, he stayed beside the father, whose eyes remained fixed on the activity around his daughter’s table.

      “She’ll be all right,” Terrance repeated and prayed that Alix wouldn’t make him a liar.

      Chapter 3

      “Doctor, why don’t you go on in there now?”

      Unnoticed—a remarkable feat considering her size—Wanda had come up behind Terrance and the little girl’s distraught father as they stood outside the examination room.

      “I’ll take care of Mr.—” Wanda paused as she looked at the man. Her eyes were filled with understanding and compassion.

      “Carey,” the man mumbled without seeming to be aware that he had said anything. He leaned his fisted hands against the upper portion of the exam room door, as if to somehow brace himself and help ward off the very worst.

      “I’ll take care of Mr. Carey,” Wanda repeated, slipping a comforting arm around his shoulders. Though the man was taller than she, he seemed vulnerable and smaller. The events of the morning had diminished him.

      Wanda glanced over her shoulder toward Terrance when he made no attempt to move. She made a slight movement of her brows, narrowing them quizzically, as she led Carey away to the lounge.

      Terrance had no choice. Unless he wanted to arouse the head nurse’s suspicions, he had to go into the exam room. Feeling incredibly out of place, he pushed open the swinging door and entered.

      The instant he did, a wall of noise and chaos reached out and grabbed him, sucking him into its midst.

      Alix glanced up in his direction. There were tubes running into the little girl’s mouth and attached to both her arms. The readings didn’t look promising, but at least there was still activity going on.

      “Nice СКАЧАТЬ