“Any idea how bad it is?” one of the cops asked the senior paramedic. Grace was completely unconscious and had never stirred since they found her. All she'd done was gasp for air, and they were giving her oxygen with a bag and mask.
“It doesn't look good,” the paramedic said honestly. “She's got a head injury. That could mean anything.” From death to retardation to a permanent coma. There was no way for them to tell there. She looked terrible in the light as they raced uptown to Bellevue.
Her face was battered almost beyond recognition, her eyes were swollen shut, there was a knife wound on her neck, and when they pulled open her shirt and unzipped her jeans, they saw how bad the bruises were there. Her attacker had very nearly killed her. “It looks pretty bad,” the paramedic said to the cop in a whisper. “There's not much left of her. I wonder if the guy knew her. What's her name?”
The policeman opened her wallet again and read it aloud to one of the paramedics, as he nodded. They had work to do here. They had to try to keep her going till they got to Bellevue.
“Gome on, Grace … open your eyes for us … you're okay … we're not going to hurt you … we're taking you to the hospital, Grace … Grace … Grace … shit…” They had an IV going and a blood pressure cuff on her and it was dropping sharply. “We're losing her,” he said to his colleague. It was going down, down, down … and then it was gone, but the paramedics were quick to respond and one of them grabbed a defibrillator and literally yanked her bra off and put it on her.
“Stand back,” he told the cop as they pulled into the driveway, “got'er,” her body received a huge shock, and her heart started again, just as the driver yanked open the doors and two attendants from the emergency room rushed forward.
“She was in cardiac arrest a second ago,” the paramedic who had shocked her explained as he covered her bare chest with her jacket. “I think we're dealing with some internal bleeding … head injury …” He told them everything he knew and had seen as all five of them ran into the emergency room, running beside the gurney. Her blood pressure plummeted again as soon as they got inside, but this time her heart didn't stop. She already had an IV in her, and the chief resident came in with three nurses and started issuing orders, as the paramedics and the policeman disappeared, and went to the front desk to fill out papers.
“Christ, she's a mess,” one of the paramedics who'd come in with her said to the policeman. “Do you know what happened to her?”
“Just your average New York mugging,” the policeman said unhappily. He could see from her driver's license that she was twenty-two years old. It was too young to give your life to a mugger. Any age was, but especially a young kid like that. There was no way of telling if she'd been pretty, or ever would be, if she even lived, which seemed doubtful.
“Looks like more than a mugging,” the paramedic said, “nobody can beat up someone like that unless they've got a beef with them. Maybe it was her boyfriend.”
“In a doorway on Delancey? Not likely. She's wearing designer jeans, and she's got an Upper East Side address. She was mugged.”
But when his partner went to St. Andrew's, Father Tim suspected that it was more than bad luck that had felled Grace Adams. He'd had a visit from the police only the day before to tell him that a woman called Isella Jones had been murdered by her husband that day, he had killed both of his kids as well, and then disappeared. And the policeman had suggested that Father Tim warn his nurses and social workers that the man was violent and on the run. It was possible that he would never come to St. Andrew's at all. Or he might, if he blamed them for encouraging Isella to leave him and try to get home to Cleveland. But it never dawned on him to say anything to Grace. She had been in California when Isella had shown up, beaten and terrified, with her children. Father Tim had warned the others and told them to spread the word and watch out for a man called Sam Jones. They had been going to put a bulletin on the board to alert everyone, but they had had so much to do for the past two days that they never did it.
When Father Tim heard what had happened to Grace, he was sure that the incident was related, and they put out an APB on Sam Jones, with a mug shot and his description. He'd been in plenty of trouble before and he had a record an arm long, and a history of violence. If they ever found him, the murder of his wife and kids would put him away forever, not to mention what he had done to Grace in the doorway on Delancey.
Father Tim looked sick when he asked him, “How bad is it?”
“It looked pretty bad when the ambulance left, Father. I'm sorry.”
“So am I.” There were tears in his eyes, as he pulled off a black T-shirt, and grabbed a black shirt with a Roman collar. “Can you give me a ride to the hospital?”
“Sure, Father.” Father Tim quickly told Sister Eugene where he was going, and hurried out to the patrol car with the officer. Four minutes later they were at Bellevue. Grace was still in the emergency room and a whole team of doctors and nurses was working on her. But so far, none of them was encouraged by the results. She was barely hanging on at that moment.
“How is she?” Father Tim asked the nurse at the desk.
“Critical. That's all I know.” And then she looked at him, he was a priest after all, and she probably wasn't going to make it. That's what one of the interns had told her. She was so bashed up inside, it was almost hopeless. “Do you want to see her?” He nodded, feeling responsible for what had happened. Sam Jones had gone after Grace, and nearly killed her.
Father Tim followed the nurse into the room and he was shocked at what he saw there. Three nurses were hovering over her, two interns, and the resident. She was almost naked, swathed in sheets, and her whole body was black it was so bruised and swollen. Her face looked like a deep purple melon. She was covered in ice packs, swathed in bandages, there were screens and scans and IVs and instruments everywhere. It was the worst thing he'd ever seen, and at a nod from the resident, he gave her last rites. He didn't even know what religion she was, but it didn't matter. She was a child of God, and He knew how much she had given Him. Father Tim was crying as he stood in the corner and prayed for her, and it was hours before they stopped working on her, and looked up. Her head was wrapped in bandages by then, they had stitched up her face and her throat. He had only used the knife on her neck, he had lacerated her face with his fist. One arm was broken, and five ribs. And they were going to operate as soon as she was stable. They knew by then from scans that she had a ruptured spleen, and he had damaged her kidneys, and her pelvis was broken too.
“Is there anything he didn't get?” Father Tim asked miserably.
“Not much.” The resident was used to it, but this time it looked bad even to him. She had barely survived it. “Her feet look pretty good.” The doctor smiled and the priest tried to.
She went to surgery at six o'clock and it was noon before they were through. Sister Eugene had joined him by then, and they were sitting together quietly, praying for her, when the chief resident came to find them.
“Are you her next of kin?” he asked, confused by the priest's collar. At first he'd just thought he was the hospital priest, but now he realized that he was there specifically for Grace, as was the woman with him.
“Yes, I am,” Father Tim said without hesitation. “How is she?”
“She made it through the surgery. We took out her spleen, patched up her kidneys, put a pin in her pelvis. She's a lucky girl, we managed to get all the important stuff put back together. And the house plastic surgeon sewed up her face and swears it'll never show. The big question mark right now is the head injury. Everything looks okay on the EEG but you can't always tell. It could look fine and she might never wake up again, and just stay in a coma. We just don't know yet. We'll know a lot more in the next few days, Father. I'm sorry.” He touched his arm, and nodded at the young nun before he walked away to get some rest. She had been a tough case, but at least she'd made it and they hadn't lost her. For a while there, it had been mighty close. Grace had been lucky.