and Dan knew that the man had recognised that neither of his in-laws was capable of taking in the possibility of any other outcome. As far as they were concerned, Zara would wake up as quickly and easily as though she’d fallen asleep in front of the television the way she sometimes did after a long flight.
‘Excuse us,’ Frank said suddenly, getting out of his seat after a quick glance at his watch. ‘It’s our time to go and sit with Zara. We wouldn’t want to miss it.’
‘By all means,’ the consultant said, getting up courteously to open the door for them. He glanced back at Dan as though asking whether he wanted to leave, too, but he didn’t move. There were so many more questions he needed to ask, particularly about the lab results and the level of concentration of the paracetamol that had been found in Zara’s blood.
At the last moment, just as the door swung closed, he caught sight of a slight cotton-clad figure in a wheelchair out in the corridor.
‘Just a moment, sir,’ he requested, and hurried across to open the door again, to find Sara making her laborious way towards her sister. Her parents must have passed her just seconds ago but had clearly left her struggling on her own.
‘Sara,’ he called gently to attract her attention, and stifled a wince when he saw how gingerly she turned her head towards him. She shouldn’t be wheeling herself about when she was so badly bruised. She should be lying in bed, giving her body time to heal.
‘Did you want to have a word about Zara?’ he invited. ‘The latest lab results are in.’ He glanced over his shoulder to find that the consultant hadn’t been quite so quick to mask his reaction to Sara’s injuries. ‘Do you have any objection if she joins us, sir? Zara is her twin, but Sara is a doctor on the staff here, down in A and E.’
‘I’ve no objections at all. Come in, my dear. Let me hold the door for you.’ He hurried to hold the door wide while Dan strode out to take hold of the handles and provide the propulsion she needed. ‘My word, your family is in the wars. What on earth happened to you?’ he asked as he gently shook her hand as though afraid she would shatter.
‘A hit-and-run accident on my way home from work,’ she said, as she used her hand to shift her cast to a more comfortable position, the wry smile that she sent him doing nothing to lift the evidence of pain from her face.
Dan ached for her, wishing there was something he could do, but there was no one on earth who would be able to persuade her to take painkillers if she’d decided against them.
‘How bad were the results?’ Sara asked quietly, as ever going straight to the point. ‘How much damage has she done to herself? I suppose she got the barbiturates on one of her foreign trips.’
‘Actually, my dear, it’s not the barbiturates that are causing the biggest problem,’ Mr Shah explained. ‘The majority of the drugs your sister took were paracetamol.’
Dan wouldn’t have believed that Sara could have gone any paler until he saw it happen. Her lips were almost colourless and she had to lick them with a flick of her tongue before she could speak.
‘So, she’s on IV N-acetylcysteine? What concentration has the paracetamol reached? Is it still rising or is it on the way down now?’
‘It’s not rising any more, but it hasn’t started dropping yet,’ the consultant said apologetically. ‘As you say, we put her on IV NAC, but she quickly developed side effects. We’ve had to administer antihistamine and drop the dosage of the drip right down.’
The small frown pleating her forehead told Dan that she had worked out for herself the reasons why they couldn’t use the alternative antidote, and admired the fact that her brain was still working just as fast as usual in spite of everything that had happened over the last day.
‘Also,’ Mr Shah continued inexorably, ‘we have no way of knowing how long the drugs have been in her system. If it is only a short time—less than eight hours—then it will not be such a big problem, but we cannot assume anything.’
Dan was watching Sara’s face as the consultant was speaking, so he saw the sudden widening of her eyes and the deepening of her frown. The expression must have pulled her stitches if the wince and the protective hand that came up to cover the dressing was any indication.
For a moment it was obvious that she was conducting some sort of internal debate and the way her hazel eyes darkened told him it wasn’t a pleasant one. Then her hand dropped to the curve of her belly in a protective gesture as old as time and panic roared through him. Was she in pain? Was she suffering a delayed reaction to her accident? Was she miscarrying?
‘Sara,’ he began, fighting for self-control when all he could think of was the precious picture propped on his mantelpiece, ‘is everything all right? Are you feeling—?’
The sudden sound of a hasty knock at the door cut him off as the consultant excused himself before calling, ‘Enter.’
‘Mr Shah, Zara Walker seems to be waking up. Did you want to—?’
‘Thank you. We will come now,’ he said swiftly, already pushing back his chair. ‘Do you want to follow me?’ he threw over his shoulder, but didn’t wait for a reply as he hurried out into the corridor.
‘Here, let me. It’ll be quicker,’ Dan said as he took over the propulsion of her wheelchair, leaving Sara to slump back into the seat.
She must be really close to the end of her tether, he realised when he saw the slump of her shoulders. Zara might be the professional model but Sara had an innate elegance and style of her own and poor posture wasn’t a part of it.
‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ he asked, taking advantage of the fact that there simply wasn’t enough space for the wheelchair in Zara’s room—there were just too many people in there at the moment. ‘For a moment, back in the interview room, you looked … worried. Is it the baby? You’re not having contractions, are you?’
‘Babies,’ she corrected softly. ‘And, no, I’m not having contractions, thank goodness. I was just …’ She paused for a moment, then shook her head. ‘No. It’s nothing.’
‘Are you sure?’ Some sixth sense was telling him to press her. ‘If it was something that could possibly help Zara …’
There it was again, a look of indecision, as though she couldn’t bring herself to say something … detrimental about her twin. He had no right to insist that she speak to him and was still trying to find a way to persuade her to trust him with … well, with whatever it was putting that frown on her face when an all-too-familiar voice called his name.
‘Danny?’ it quavered, but whether the weakness was real or feigned he wouldn’t like to hazard a guess. It could just as easily be either, knowing Zara. ‘Is Danny there?’ There was a plaintive note this time and he had to stifle a wry smile. Now certainly wasn’t the right time to question Sara, but he was definitely going to make a point of it before he left the hospital this time.
‘I’m here, Zara,’ he confirmed lightly, straightening up so that she could see him above the general mêlée of medical staff and her parents. Her vital signs had already been checked and if he wasn’t mistaken, there was more blood being drawn for another lot of tests to track the progress of the antidote.
‘Come closer, Danny,’ invited Audrey, beaming widely and beckoning with the arm not wrapped around her precious
