Читать книгу Covert M.D. - Jessica Andersen - Страница 12

Emergency!

The call crackled over the intercom, and the hallway was suddenly filled with the noise of running feet as nurses and doctors rushed to answer the call.

In a supply closet nearby, Nia heard the commotion and felt her eyelid twitch. She shoved a box of syringes back onto its shelf, jammed the inventory list into her pocket and slipped into the corridor, hoping her tic was wrong.

She wanted a break in the case, yes, but not at the expense of a patient.

“Marissa! I told you to call me if she deteriorated!” Logan Hart shouldered Nia aside without apology and pushed his way through a knot of scrub-clad nurses into the patient’s room.

“I’m sorry, Dr. Hart. It happened so quickly, I didn’t—” The dark-haired nurse trailed off when she realized the handsome young doctor wasn’t listening. She made a face and turned away, then frowned when she saw Nia had witnessed the break in protocol. Her eyes flickered to Nia’s badge and she winced. “I’m sorry, Dr. French. That was unprofessional of me.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Nia answered automatically, though her attention was on the crowded doorway.

Inside the room Hart’s voice barked a string of commands and the chaos gained a sense of order. From the hallway she could just see one of the patient’s hands peeking out from beneath the sheet.

Marissa grimaced. “We’re all tense these days, especially when we’re monitoring one of the high-risk transplants. Like Julia here.” Her voice softened on the name, saddened.

High-risk. It connected in Nia’s head with an almost audible click. She turned to the nurse, who stared at the still figure on the bed with shadows crowding her broad face. “I’m sorry.” Nia touched the other woman’s arm when the tension inside Julia’s room swung from hectic to frantic. “I’m sure you did your best. Rare-tissue-type patients don’t have the best of prognoses to start with.”

It was a fishing expedition cloaked in sympathy, and it made Nia feel faintly slimy. But this, like danger, was part of the job.

The nurse shook her head. “Julia was one of the lucky ones—or she should have been. She was rare type, but they found a match quickly. A really good match.” In the room frantic turned to desperate, and Hart barked one order atop the next, sending nurses and junior doctors scrambling. But the bloodless fingers didn’t move.

A vise tightened around Nia’s lungs and heart. “She’s rejecting?”

“She’s dying,” the nurse said flatly, turning away. “If you’ll excuse me, I have other patients to tend.” She hurried away and didn’t bother to glance back as she slipped into a nearby ladies’ room.