Daniel stared at Stephanie. He could feel his irritation sweeping back over him. “Whose side are you on, anyway?” he demanded. “We decided on a goal to cure Ashley to save HTSR and CURE, and by God, we are going to get there.”
“I’d like to think that I am crossing over to the side less motivated by self-interest,” Stephanie said. “Today, when we realized the OR was not equipped with the necessary X ray, we should have stopped the procedure. We were gambling with someone else’s life for our own benefit.” Then she held up her hands as Daniel’s face flushed and his mouth opened to respond. “If you don’t mind, let’s cut it off right here,” she added. “I’m sorry, but this has become exactly the kind of discussion I did not feel capable of having tonight. I told you I’m drained. Maybe I’ll feel differently after a night’s sleep. Who knows?”
“Fine!” Daniel said sarcastically, with a wave of his hand. “Go to bed!”
“Are you coming?”
“Yeah, maybe,” Daniel said angrily. He got up and went to the minibar. He needed another beer.
Daniel wasn’t sure how many times the phone had rung since his exhausted mind had incorporated the jangle into the nightmare he was having. In his dream, he was a medical student again, and the phone was something to fear. Back then, it was often a call to an emergency he was untrained to handle.
By the time Daniel’s eyes popped open, the ringing had stopped. He sat up and looked over at the now silent phone on the side table and wondered if it had rung or if he’d just dreamed it. Then his eyes darted around the room to orient himself. He was in the living room, still in his clothes, with all the lights on. After two beers, he’d fallen fast asleep.
The door to the bedroom opened. Stephanie appeared in her silk shorty pajamas, squinting and blinking in the bright light. “Carol Manning is on the phone,” she said, in a voice thick with sleep. “She’s upset and needs to talk with you.”
“Oh, no!” Daniel said worrisomely. He swung his legs off the coffee table. He even still had his shoes on. Without standing up, he leaned across the length of the couch and picked up the phone. Stephanie stayed in the doorway to listen.
“Ashley is acting strangely,” Carol blurted into the phone after Daniel identified himself.
“What’s he doing?” Daniel asked. The old medical school fear of incompetence in the face of an emergency came flooding back. With as many years as Daniel had been away from clinical medicine, he had forgotten most of his doctoring skills.
“It’s not so much what he is doing, it’s what he’s complaining about. Excuse my language, but he says he smells pig shit. You told me that if he smelled something strange, it might be important.”
Daniel felt his heart skip a beat and the optimism he’d felt earlier vanish. Immediately, there was not a modicum of doubt in his mind that Ashley was having an aura heralding the onset of another temporal lobe seizure. At the same time, the last vestiges of clinical confidence Daniel was holding on to crumbled as he acknowledged he was about to face handling an episode of what Dr. Nawaz predicted would be worse than the first. “Has he been aggressive or is he acting out in any way?” Daniel asked nervously. Frantically, he looked around the room for the black pouch containing the sedative and syringes. Thankfully, he spotted it on the table in the foyer.
“Acting out is a little strong, but he has been irritable. Then again, he’s been irritable for the last year.”
“Okay, be calm!” Daniel said, as much for his own benefit as for Carol’s. “I’ll be right down to the room.” He looked at his watch. It was two-thirty in the morning.
“We’re not in the room,” Carol said.
“Where the hell are you?”
“We’re in the casino,” Carol admitted. “Ashley insisted. There was nothing I could do, and I tried. I didn’t call you because I knew there was nothing you could do either. When he makes up his mind, that’s it. I mean, he’s a senator.”
“Good God!” Daniel complained. He slapped a hand to his forehead. “Did you try to get him to come back to the room when he smelled the pig poop?”
“I suggested it, but he told me to go out and jump in the shark tank.”
“Okay! Where in the casino are you?”
“We’re at a bank of slot machines on the ocean side of the room, beyond the roulette tables.”
“I’ll be right down. We’ve got to get him back to the room!”
Daniel got to his feet and glanced at Stephanie, but she had disappeared back into the bedroom. He dashed over and looked in. Stephanie was tearing off her pajamas and pulling on her clothes.
“Wait!” she called out. “I’ll come with you. If Ashley is going to have a seizure anything like what he had in the OR, you’ll need all the help you can get.”
“Okay,” Daniel said. “Where’s the cell phone?”
Stephanie nodded toward the bureau as she hastened to button her blouse.
“Bring it along! Where are the numbers for Newhouse and Nawaz?”
“I’ve got the numbers already,” Stephanie said, stepping into her pants. “They’re in my pocket.”
Daniel ran to the medical pouch. Just to be sure, he pulled open the zipper. He felt some reassurance after seeing the vial and the syringes. The trick was going to be getting the medicine into Ashley before all hell broke loose.
Stephanie appeared at the bedroom doorway, still struggling to get into her loafers and tuck in her blouse. By the time she got over to Daniel, he had the door to the hall open. Together, they flew toward the elevators.
After hitting the down button, Daniel took the cell phone from Stephanie, handed her the medical pouch, and dialed Dr. Nawaz’s number.
“Come on!” Daniel urged, as the phone rang and rang. Just as the elevator arrived, Dr. Nawaz answered sleepily.
“It’s Dr. Lowell,” Daniel said. “We might get cut off. I’m stepping into an elevator.” In response to Stephanie pressing the lobby button, the doors closed. “Can you still hear me?”
“Just barely,” Dr. Nawaz said. “What’s the problem?”
“Ashley is having an olfactory aura,” Daniel said. He was watching the floor indicator. It was supposed to be a high-speed elevator, but the numbers seemed to be decreasing agonizingly slowly.
“Who is Ashley?” Dr. Nawaz questioned.
“I mean Mr. Smith,” Daniel said. He glanced at Stephanie, who rolled her eyes. For her, it was another small episode in the continuously unfolding and unfunny comedy.
“It will take me about twenty minutes to get to the clinic. I advise you to call Dr. Newhouse. As I said earlier, I suspect this seizure might be worse than the first, especially considering where those cells are. We might as well have the same team.”
“I’ll call Dr. Newhouse, but we are not at the clinic.”
“Where are you?”
“We’re at the Atlantis resort on Paradise Island. At the moment, the patient is in the casino, but we are going to try to get him back to his room, which is registered under a Carol Manning. It’s called the Poseidon Suite.”
There was a silence that lasted for several floors.
“Are you still there?” Daniel said into the phone.
“I’m not certain I’m believing what I am hearing. This man had a craniotomy some twelve hours ago. What the hell is he doing in the casino?”
“It would take too long to explain.”
“What time is it?”
“It’s two-thirty-five. I know it sounds like a lame excuse, but we had no idea Mr. Smith would go to the casino when we brought him back here, but he is extremely strong-willed, with a mind of his own.”
“Has there been any progression beyond the aura?”
“I haven’t seen him yet, but I don’t think so.”