Читать книгу Next of Kin - C.J. Carmichael - Страница 11

LIFE WAS SO UNFAIR. Jackie knew this. But why, why did the mother of a helpless infant have to die in such a senseless manner?

Jackie’s parents had been killed in an accident, too, when she was just a toddler. Her heart went out to the little one in her arms, who wouldn’t have even a vague memory of his mother’s voice to sustain him in his life.

“His eyes are really getting puffy,” the cop observed, folding back a corner of the blanket to get a look at the infant’s blood-smeared face.

Was this kid going to end up blind on top of everything else? Not if she could help it. “We’ve got to get him to the ER. But look at this mess!”

To the far left, a painfully slow procession of emergency vehicles was finally showing up on the scene. But it would be a while before they were able to deliver patients to the hospital.

“I could transport you pretty fast on my bike.” He pointed. “It’s back about fifty yards.”

Jackie didn’t hesitate. At this point there were no other reasonable options. “Let’s do it.”

The cop took the baby, freeing her to scramble back over the rig. On an impulse, she’d grabbed the diaper bag in the car, and now slipped it over her shoulder, then reached out for the baby so the cop could follow. In less than a minute they’d woven their way to his parked bike.

“My helmet won’t fit you,” he apologized. And of course they had nothing for the baby. “But I’ll get you there safe.”

Their eyes met, and in those few seconds she reminded herself that though this man was a cop, he was also a stranger. She knew nothing about him except what she’d seen since the accident.

But what she had seen inspired trust. He was tall, fit and strong, and so far he’d reacted to every situation they’d encountered with calm intelligence, unselfish bravery.

“Let’s do it.” Without another word, she slid onto the back of his bike, the baby sandwiched between them. Placing one hand on his firm shoulder, clutching the infant with the other, she took a deep breath. “Okay.”

He glanced back once, to make sure she was securely seated, then took off, hugging the shoulder of the road. They passed the sedan that had been burning briskly earlier. Firefighters had managed to haul a hose across the highway and extinguish the flames. Now they were using crowbars to pry off the passenger door.

Jackie turned away. She didn’t want an accidental glimpse of whatever charred remains were found in that car. She’d already seen so much pain and suffering, and she knew this was only the beginning. When she made it to the hospital, she would be starting a twelve-hour shift. The people being carried by stretchers into those ambulances would soon be her patients.

Her neck was killing her now. The motorcycle might be a speedy and efficient mode of transportation, but it didn’t offer a smooth ride.

Glancing down at the baby tucked against her chest, she saw that the little guy had been lulled to sleep by the movement and noise. Poor wee thing. Please let him be okay.

Beneath her left hand, the cop’s shoulder felt rigid. Strong. She couldn’t resist leaning her head against his back for support. He didn’t seem to mind, so she let herself relax against him. It was lucky for her—and this baby—that he’d been on the scene so quickly.

She wondered what his name was, whether he had a family. She guessed he was around her age. She hadn’t thought about his looks earlier, but they had registered in some far corner of her mind. Now she recalled light-brown eyes, a high forehead, a mouth that would look fabulous when he smiled.

So far he hadn’t had much reason to smile. But she guessed by the faint lines around the corners of his lips that he usually did.

But why was she thinking about him like this? He was probably married. Weren’t most people by the time they turned thirty?

She had been married when she was twenty-five.

With lights flashing and sirens blaring, they were attracting quite a lot of attention. People on the sidewalk paused to stare. Cars pulled over to make room and drivers stuck their necks out open windows.

She’d never been so glad to see the pale stucco facade of Courage Bay Hospital. Fortunately the bay driveway to emergency was clear, except for a large white van. As the cop cruised in closer, she noticed the call numbers of a local TV station, KSEA, painted in bold colors on the back of the van. Just then, a camera flash went off in her eyes. She winced and held the baby closer. The cop glided his bike past the reporter, over the sidewalk, right up to the ER doors.

Turning to her, he asked, “You okay?”

She nodded.

“Sorry if that was a little rough.”

The journalists were back, this time with video cameras. The cop put up an arm to block her from their view. “Excuse me, ma’am…sir,” he said in a polite but firm tone, “but we’ve got a medical emergency here.”

“Is the baby okay?”

“Are you the baby’s mother?”

“What’s the situation back at the accident scene? Anybody killed?”

From under the cop’s protective arm, Jackie did her best to ignore the questions. Inside the ER, she was finally on home turf and knew exactly what to do. She raced to the admittance desk. Stout, gray-haired Izzy was working triage today.

“What’s wrong, Jackie?” She eyed the bundle in her arms. “Who is that?”

“I have no idea.”

“Oh, my Lord. Here.” Izzy passed a clean tissue for Jackie to mop up the fresh blood on the baby’s face. “What happened?”

“I was in a car crash on the PCH.”

“We heard about that. We’re expecting the ambulances shortly. So you got caught in the pileup? How terrible. And the poor baby…Oh, my Lord, he doesn’t look older than a couple of months.”

Jackie lowered her voice. “His mother died in the crash. I think he may have a glass shard embedded in his right cornea. I haven’t had a chance to examine him properly yet.”

Izzy gave her another clean tissue. “We’ll get a pediatrician right away. How’d you get here so fast?” Izzy’s gaze slid over to the police officer.

He nodded and held out his hand. “Officer Guthrie.” He turned to Jackie and added, “Casey Guthrie.”

She had to swallow before she could reply in kind. “I’m Jackie Kellison.”

It only took a few seconds to exchange their names, but Jackie had the weird sense of falling into a time vortex where the moment felt long and heavy with importance. Then the baby stirred in her arms.

She faced Izzy again. “Officer Guthrie was the first one on the scene. He gave us a ride on his motorbike.”

“Well, that explains the hairdo.”

Jackie supposed more hair was out of her ponytail than in. She’d also lost her sunglasses in the fray and her cotton shorts and blouse were smeared with blood. None of that mattered at the moment.

Izzy shoved aside the paperwork she’d been dealing with. “Come on, we’ll get that little one into an examining room.” She glanced back at the cop still standing by her desk. “Nice to have met you, Officer Guthrie.”

The baby started crying again and Jackie hurried after Izzy. She managed one last glance at the motorcycle cop, regretting she’d had no chance to say a proper goodbye. They’d made a good team.

He smiled at her, and his smile was nice, just as she’d thought. Too bad she probably wouldn’t see him again.

IN THE SMALL examining room, Jackie was finally able to take a good look at her patient. While waiting for the physician, she cleaned the abrasions on the baby’s face and hands, ensuring that she hadn’t missed any tiny pieces of glass. Tenderly she undressed the fussing infant, inhaling with mild surprise when she unfastened the diaper. Well, the baby was a girl. And her diaper was sodden. When had her mother last changed it?

Jackie cleaned the bright pink bottom gently, noticing an oval-shaped birthmark on one chubby thigh. The child was working herself into a frenzy again. Would the damn doctor never get here?

CASEY LINGERED IN THE ER waiting room for a while. He made a call to the station and confirmed that since he’d been officially off duty for the past hour, he wouldn’t be part of the team investigating the collision.

He passed on the information about the burning sedan, how there’d been a second explosion following the first. He’d seen cars catch fire because of a leaking fuel line before, but this one hadn’t fit the pattern.

After he’d concluded that call, he made another, leaving a message at the hotel where his friends were staying. “Sorry, something came up at work. A collision on PCH. I won’t be able to join you guys tonight.”

There was really no reason for him to cancel. He still had time to get home and shower and go out tonight. But he didn’t want to leave the hospital.

He wanted to make sure the baby was okay. Yeah, that was part of it, but he didn’t try to kid himself that that was the whole reason.

Truth was, he wanted to see that nurse again. Jackie Kellison. Hell, she sure was something. She’d been unstoppable at the accident scene. He was willing to bet she’d saved more than one life today with her quick thinking and fast action.

Never mind that she’d been a victim in the accident herself. Beyond the emotional distress of the experience, she’d obviously suffered whiplash. He’d noticed her holding her head tighter and tighter as time went on. That ride on his bike must have been murder.

He’d liked the way she’d rested her head on his back, though. He had a feeling Jackie didn’t lean on many people and he was glad he’d been one of them.

Anyway, she’d been in the accident and helped all those people at the scene, and now it appeared she was prepared to put in her full shift. Which only made him admire her more.

The desperate crescendo of sirens told him the accident victims were finally about to arrive. Tired after his long day, yet unable to relax, Casey began pacing. He wished there was something he could do to help. Waiting wasn’t his strong suit.

Perhaps he ought to go home and have that shower, and maybe a good long nap, too. But he couldn’t take the chance of missing Jackie, so he bought himself a coffee from the vending machine, then found he couldn’t drink it.

He tossed out the paper cup, wondering why he didn’t just go on his way. Izzy was shooting him quizzical glances, as if she, too, couldn’t figure out why he was still hanging around. She’d come over earlier to tell him the baby was about to go into the operating room. Later, she’d be transferred to the hospital’s infant care wing.

She. Despite the blue blanket, the baby was a girl. Shouldn’t have made any difference, but somehow he’d felt even more protective once he’d heard that. He hoped the doctor operating on her was good, that he was well rested and at the top of his game.

An hour went by, maybe two. Finally his patience was rewarded when Jackie came out to grab a can of cola from a vending machine in the hall. Dressed in scrubs, she leaned against the machine with exhaustion, a hand on her neck as she waited for the can to drop.

“Sore, huh?”

Her head shot up at his unexpected presence and she winced.

“Sorry. Shouldn’t have snuck up on you.” He wanted to make her sit down for a minute. Maybe get some ice for that neck. Or massage it for her. Instead he leaned over to snag her cola out of the machine. When he handed it to her, she pressed the cool can against the side of her neck.

“You should be at home, looking after yourself.”

“I’m fine,” she insisted. “It’s just a pulled muscle. I consider myself lucky.”

Whiplash would send most accident victims running for the nearest liability lawyer. Casey’s admiration for the woman increased. “How’s it going in there?”

“Not too bad. The burn victim…” She squeezed her eyes shut as if blocking a horrible mental picture. “He and our baby’s mom are the only fatalities. The really good news is that we had a young woman trapped in a car who couldn’t move her legs, but it turns out her injuries won’t be permanent.”

“What about the rig driver?”

“Amazingly, he walked away with minor cuts and a few bruises.”

“Life makes no sense sometimes.”

She looked at him as if what he had said was somehow profound. “Yes. Like that poor mother. Now that she’s dead, who’s going to look after her baby?”

He encountered tragedies like this all the time in his work. She must, too. Yet he had to agree that this particular situation hit harder than most.

“With any luck she has a good father,” he said.

“I hope they find him soon. Though I sure wouldn’t want to be the one to tell him what happened.”

He nodded, feeling again the sense of affinity that they’d shared at the accident scene. They’d been strangers, tossed into circumstances beyond their control, but their impulses had been identical. To help as many people as they could.

And now that the emergency was over, Casey was left with the strong feeling that he needed to see this woman again. Not because she was pretty, or sexy, though she was both those things. No, he felt a pull that had nothing to do with the usual reasons he sought out a woman.

“Jackie, I—”

She shifted her gaze from him to the floor and backed up a step. The movements were slight, but enough to make his confidence falter.

“I’ve got to get back in there. We need to treat a couple of fractured bones. Our baby’s still in the operating room…”

Our baby. He liked that she’d said it that way, connecting the two of them to the child they’d saved. “Is she okay? Do you think I could see her?”

The expression in her eyes softened. “That’s nice of you to be concerned. But her operation won’t be over for a while yet. I’m not sure if they’ll allow visitors after that.”

“Well, until they locate her next of kin, I feel kind of responsible for the squirt.”

“I do, too. But they will find her father soon, don’t you think?”

“Probably working on it right now.”

Jackie started to leave, then turned back. “Thanks for getting us to the hospital so quickly.”

Seeing Jackie smile at him, Casey felt an unaccustomed twisting of his heart. He really did feel the most inexplicable concern for that child—a paternal response that was shockingly out of character. He hadn’t been faking it just to win Jackie over.

But he had to admit that in the past, he wouldn’t have been above using tactics like that.

He suddenly felt ashamed.

“Jackie?”

She paused again, and he could tell she was impatient to move on.

“What time does your shift end?”

“Not for ten more hours. It was nice to meet you, Officer Guthrie.”

Then she was gone, having made it all too clear that she had no intention of seeing him again.

CASEY RODE ACROSS the street to the gas station, where he washed his regulation bike and filled it with gas. He chatted briefly with the woman at the till—he and Debbie were big fans of the Mighty Ducks—then headed the few blocks back to the station to park his bike in the garage and hand in his tickets for the day.

He found his lieutenant reading copy straight from the fax machine. Tank Gordon, in his forties but so clean-cut he could pass for ten years younger, checked him out.

“That was quite a mess on PCH today. You okay? What happened?”

“I’m fine. I was on my way back to the station at the end of my shift. The collision happened right in front of my eyes. First a sedan burst into flames. A tractor-trailer rig right next to it lost control and overturned. Cars piled up on both sides of the highway.” He shook his head, remembering.

“You left the scene without clearing an exit route for the emergency vehicles.”

Casey frowned. Was he being reprimanded here? “Backup had arrived, sir. We had lots of men on hand. I figured it was more important to get an injured baby to the hospital.”

“I heard.” The lieutenant was holding a grin in check.

“Huh?”

“They’re running footage on the evening news. Picked yourself a pretty little nurse, I’ll say that for you. Reminds me of Sally Fields in her younger days.”

Used to being teased about his ability to attract lovely women, Casey bristled this time. “Jackie Kellison was amazing out there. I’ll bet she saved more than a couple of lives.”

“So you didn’t notice her huge brown eyes? Or long, bare legs?”

“Cut the B.S., Lieutenant. In case you’ve forgotten, we had an injured baby on that bike, too. Her mother was killed in the crash.”

The lieutenant sobered with that. “Yeah. I know.”

“Any luck locating next of kin?” In those hours he’d paced the ER floor, Casey had worried a lot about the father. He couldn’t stop imagining the man coming home from work and wondering where his wife and baby were. Then the phone would ring and his life, as he’d known it, would come to an end….

Lieutenant Gordon turned to watch the fax machine slowly regurgitate a new sheet of paper. “Actually, the baby’s family is turning out to be a problem.”

“What do you mean, a problem?”

“We haven’t been able to ID the woman. And that car she was driving?” Gordon pulled out the latest fax and handed it to him. “Take a look at this.”

JACKIE’S SHIFT ENDED at dawn. She didn’t change out of her uniform since the shorts and top she’d been wearing yesterday afternoon were too torn and bloody to salvage. At the water fountain, she stopped to pop two muscle relaxants. She’d considered taking them earlier in her shift, but had worried that the medication might make her drowsy.

As a result she could barely move her head more than a couple of inches to either side. She hadn’t been this bad at the beginning of her shift, but now her muscles were seizing in protest. Driving would be impossible, but that was okay.

She no longer owned a car.

Declining a sympathetic colleague’s offer of a ride home, she took the stairs up to the infant care ward on the third floor. She had to see the baby to find out about his—no, her—eyes.

She checked the board at the nursing station and saw an infant listed as “Jane Doe.” She nodded to a nurse sitting behind a computer monitor. The buxom woman, in her early forties, was ponderously inputting chart information into the system.

“Excuse me. Is Jane Doe the baby from the accident on PCH yesterday?” Twelve hours had passed since Jackie’s shift had begun. The accident had occurred on Monday, so it was now Tuesday morning, very early.

The nurse stopped typing. She seemed glad for the interruption and eyed Jackie curiously. “Yes, poor thing, that’s her. The cops still haven’t figured out who she is.”

“But the accident happened over twelve hours ago.” Something was wrong here. “The mother died in the crash, but surely they must have located her father by now.” Her father and, Jackie hoped, a mess of brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles. As far as she was concerned, the more family the better.

“Well, the cop who keeps checking up on her is doing a good job looking after her for the time being.”

Cop? Was Casey Guthrie…? She shot a speculative glance down the corridor.

“He’s in with her right now,” the nurse confirmed. “Why don’t you go say hi? You two looked real good together on the six o’clock news.”