“Is this connected in any way with what you are going through?”
Will studied the teacher’s expression and saw only concern. “As a matter of fact, it is, yes. I’m going to retrace some of my steps from that morning, to see if I can figure out who could have done this to me-and how.”
“I hope you find whatever it is you’re searching for,” Mark said. “You mean a great deal to Grace, and so you also mean a great deal to me.”
Will headed off, pausing for a moment to glance back at the fine man whom once filthy, intoxicated, angry Grace Peng would one day meet, beguile, and marry.
You never know, he thought, as much regarding his current plight as the one Grace had dealt with by finally letting go of her fears and immersing herself in recovery. You stay in the game when the going’s tough because you never know how it’s going to come out.
In the hopes that something, anything, would connect, Will headed back to the on-call room to re-create physically and in his mind the few hours between falling asleep that morning and stepping into the operating room. The idea of doing this had been his new attorney’s.
“We’ve got to start somewhere,” Micelli had said when Will called and agreed to pay a modest retainer to seal their relationship, “and I suggest the beginning. For the time being, I can handle the cops and the courts, but sooner or later, preferably sooner, we’ve got to come up with some answers. Before you tell me anything more, retrace your steps and cement every movement of that morning in your mind. We’ll talk later in the day.”
Ignoring the whispers and the stares, Will went to the surgical on-call room and unlocked the door using the keypad. It had been just after two when he went there for the first time that early morning. He then slept uninterrupted until the wake-up call he had put in for at five-fifteen. Could he have been called out of the room for something and simply not remembered? Impossible. Could he somehow have been drugged earlier in the night and then injected with fentanyl while he slept? Not impossible, but far out, and the powerful narcotic, rapidly absorbed, would have had to be in a time-release form-a mode of delivery that existed only in a skin patch. Being both superstitious and a creature of habit, it was not difficult to retrace his movements and actions from that morning.
When he reached the staff lounge in the ER, two of the nurses actually went out of their way to come in and ask how he was doing-bright spots in an otherwise gray homecoming. He fought back the urge to plug in the “I didn’t willingly take any drugs” tape and simply thanked them for being nonjudgmental. One of the women, a mother of two in her early thirties named Bobbi Hamill, checked the calendar and confirmed that the day he was drugged was her day to bring in the customary dozen doughnuts. Will and she had been quite friendly over the years, and there was no way he could imagine her purposely trying to ruin him. But then again, there was no way he could imagine anyone purposely trying to ruin him. The coffee they drank every morning in the ER was from a pot prepared in the room and replenished by whoever finished off the dregs. Neither of the nurses could remember someone pouring a cup for Will.
The OJ they drank came in individual cartons. Will wondered to himself whether someone might have injected one of those cartons with fentanyl, then set it aside until it was the right moment to hand it to him. The possibility didn’t seem that ridiculous, but he had no recollection at all of who had passed the carton over to him. Finally, he used Bobbi’s memory and the staffing chart from that day to make a list of all those who were or might have been in the room. The only person who stood out at all was Gordo.
Gordo.
As Will retraced the path he would have taken from the ER to the surgeons’ lounge, he wondered about the man who had been his partner and friend for so many years. He wouldn’t be the first to work closely with someone and even see him socially but not really know him. Everyone had a dark side. He tried to dismiss the possibility that Gordo was the one, but couldn’t. Somebody had done this to him. That much was certain.
The lounge was deserted. Will opened his locker using a key. Empty. No surprise there. His stuff-soap, shampoo, deodorant, watch, journals, change of socks and underwear-was undoubtedly packed in an evidence box at the Fredrickston police station. Mentally, he retraced the steps he would have followed when dressing for the OR. Nothing unusual. The hair covers, shoe covers, and paper masks were all in boxes by the door to the scrub room. Gordo was already in the OR when Will was dressing. Could he have tampered with a paper mask or hair cover knowing that Will was likely to be the next person to take one? Again, far out but remotely possible.
With several scenarios playing in his brain, each one of them seriously flawed, Will headed back to the ICU. Anne Hajjar, the nurse he had felt closest to over the years, was standing just inside the glass doors.
“Welcome back,” she said. “We’ve been worried about you.”
Another kindness. Will’s battered faith began, ever so slowly, to return.
“It’s been hell,” he said, “but I’m still out there turning over stones to find out how this could have happened to me.”
“You just make sure you’re okay as far as drugs go,” she said, her almond eyes fixed on him, “because if you’re not, if you’re fooling yourself, nothing will be okay.”
“I appreciate that,” Will said, and he did. “Grace Davis’s husband around?”
“He’s in with her.”
“She okay?”
“She’s alive. Given what she went through, that’s okay. The kid who did the trach had never done one before.”
“What a brave thing to do.”
“You said it. He had a horrible decision to make and went with what he believed. We’ve done everything we can to make sure Grace and her husband understand that. Unfortunately, while he definitely saved her life, the guy made a bit of a mess of things. The ENT people are going to have to repair the damage to her trachea. But before they can do that, she’s aspirated some blood and now has a bit of a pneumonia.”
“Just make sure she gets you taking care of her until she’s out of here.”
“That’s very kind. No problem. I’ll stay close to her. Speaking of getting out of here, it looks as if your patient Kurt Goshtigian is going to make it.”
“You know what?” Will said. “I’ve been so wrapped up in my own deal that I completely forgot to check on him. Of course, that may also have something to do with the fact that he and his family are suing me for like a gazillion dollars.”
“Maybe they’ll back off once he’s home. He really has had a tough go of it. I lost the pool when he made it through last Sunday. His family’s in there with him now, so you may want to steer clear of room one.”
“Thanks for the warning.”
“I think you’ll remember the room Grace is in,” Anne said with a wry grin. “It was yours.”
Will paused at the doorway to Grace’s cubicle and tried to imagine what he looked like when he was transferred there from the ER on a vent. Grace looked surprisingly good. She was pale and extremely weak, but awake and alert, communicating with her husband by hand signals, some carefully mouthed words, and the clipboard and blank progress notepaper Will knew only too well. She had oxygen running into her lungs through the tracheotomy that had saved her life. On the wall to the right side of the room, her latest chest X-rays were displayed on an illuminated view box-two views, one shot from her back through her front and one taken from side to side. At a brief glance, Will could easily make out the fluffy white density in her left lung that represented the pneumonia he had been told about.
“Greetings,” he said.
Grace managed a weak smile and a wave. In addition to her pallor, her respirations were slightly rapid and shallower than normal. So long as her condition remained like this, the ICU was exactly the place she should be.