time?”
Luke had learned that during these short trips to the hospital’s various departments and wings, this question was a good one, as it immediately focused the patient on a topic they loved to talk about: themselves.
The unexpected inquiry had its desired effect.
“Oh no, I was sent to this country when I was ten,” Helga replied in a nostalgic tone. “I was born in Berlin, Germany.”
“Wow, ten years old leading up to World War II. Those must have been some crazy times,” Luke said. “I wasn’t a big history fan in school, but I’m sure your stories would give me a new appreciation of what was really going on.” The elevator came to a smooth stop as Luke inquired, “Did your family get out of Germany prior to the war?”
The lines on Helga’s weary face again hardened. “Just my brother and me.”
The elevator door opened, abruptly ending the conversation, as Luke still had a job to do and Helga had a surgery appointment.
“From the penthouse to the ground floor,” Luke chirped as he guided Helga’s stretcher down the O.R. corridor. “You know ... if you’re feeling up to it, I can pop in to talk with you later. Would that be all right?”
Helga had zoned Luke out, as she stared at the cold and heartless hallway before them. This wasn’t her first rodeo, as her young nurse had commented, but it was very different. The card attached to the flowers in her room made certain of that. The same message had been sent with another bouquet to her house the previous year, on the morning of a traumatic and life changing meeting. Its meaning wasn’t intended to bring a smile to her face then, or now.
All the best, Helga! See you soon!
As Luke tried to keep her mind off the surgery, when she’d be unconscious and defenceless against a perceived attack, Helga scanned the faces of the people in the various waiting rooms they passed, as well as anyone in scrubs.
She knew they were here.
“I present to you: Ms. Helga,” Luke announced to two nurses, as he positioned the stretcher against the wall and applied the brake. “She’s all yours.”
“Thanks, Luke,” one of the nurses said as she took the medical chart from him. “We’ll take good care of her.”
“Excellent,” he replied, stepping to the foot of the stretcher. “Now just relax. I hope I’ll be the one dispatched to take you back to your room.”
Helga held Luke’s warm gaze, ignoring the nurses as they began to fuss with her in preparation for her surgery.
“Remember what I said, Luke,” Helga whispered, “because you’re the only one who’ll know later on.”
Luke gave Helga a quizzical look, the way you respond to a child learning how to talk, or in this case, a crazy elderly patient hopped up on drugs to combat the pain of a broken hip. “I will, don’t worry. You’ll be fine.”
Luke walked out of the room and called the Admitting department on his radio. “Luke here. That patient from eight is down in O.R.”
“Okay, thanks,” came the bored reply of the female clerk. “There’s nothing on the board.”
Luke put the radio in the front pocket of his scrub top and simultaneously pulled out his cell phone to check his email. As he passed the O.R. Family Waiting Room, he heard a man with a thick accent say, “She just went in. What do you want me to do?” Luke slowed to see who was talking, thinking one of Helga’s relatives or friends had shown up in her time of need. Unfortunately, his eyes were greeted with the backs of three men, one at the payphone and the others on their cell phones in conversation. He would occasionally stop and say a few words to reassure the waiting party, but not knowing which of the men he’d overheard, or if they were even discussing Helga, Luke returned his attention to a new message from his girlfriend with the subject line: You!
“Hi, Luke?” his work radio squawked. “Can you get some labs on 4 West and then you can go on break?”
“I can, thanks.”
Making his way to the elevator he again wandered by the waiting room and noticed that two of the men he’d seen previously were watching the television hanging on the wall. The third man, an older grey-haired gentleman wearing an overcoat, was no longer present.
Probably went for a coffee, he assumed.
Luke unlocked the express elevator and the door opened obediently. Inside, he pressed the “4” button.
“And here we go,” he said to the walls, “another action filled adventure starts now.”
As if on cue, the elevator doors closed and sent the happy-go-lucky employee on his way, unaware that within the hour Helga would be dead.
TWO
“Malone!” Mitch Carson called out into the newsroom bullpen. “When you’re done gossiping about the new Liam Neeson movie with Cassie, can you give me an update on the Mayville story?”
Jennifer Malone gave a dismissive wave of her hand in the direction of her boss. “Give me a minute, Dad. This is like very important girl talk time,” she said, continuing her discussion with the paper’s Lifestyle section editor, who doubled as the relationship columnist under the penname Ms. Love.
Also ignoring Carson’s intrusion, Cassie Hendricks leaned forward and asked Jennifer in a low tone, “So that was the end of the date?”
“Not exactly,” Jennifer smiled. “A girl’s gotta eat, right?”
“You let him buy you dinner, knowing he wasn’t the one?”
“He was the one, just not the long-term one.” Jennifer gave Cassie a little wink and grabbed a manila folder off the desk marked Mayville. “It was fun while it lasted, trust me.”
Cassie laughed. “When you do find true love you won’t know what to do with yourself – let alone him.”
“I’ll know what to do. He’ll be the one needing to catch up.”
Jennifer stood and made her way into Carson’s office. He was giving her a strange look as she entered.
“Boy trouble again, Malone?”
Jennifer took a seat across from the desk, crossed her legs and folded her hands over the file folder. “What do you mean by ‘again’?”
“Oh sorry – I meant still.”
“That’s more like it,” Jennifer said. “There are simply no quality men in this city for me.”
Carson relaxed back in his chair and put both hands behind his head. “What was this last sap’s fatal flaw? Wasn’t he a stock broker – someone smart?”
“He was, although I don’t know how he achieved such a brainy position with his limited musical background.”
There was a pause as Carson shifted and began to shake his head, closing his eyes as in disbelief. “Are you for real?”
