she had to be a big girl.
Her chin wobbled as she fought tears. Suddenly a loud boom split the air. The storm?
It sounded like thunder. No…someone had screamed.
Her heart pounding, she slipped from bed and padded toward the door to the den. Mommy would hold her and make everything all right. Would keep her safe from the storm, and tell her the screams were all in her head.
But when she peered through the crack in the door to the den, she saw her parents hovering together on the sofa. Her mommy was crying.
Then she saw the other man. A big guy in black clothes with a ski mask over his face. He was waving a gun at her parents.
Another streak of lightning fell across the room and he shoved her father back onto the sofa and pointed the gun at his head.
Her mother screamed, then a gunshot blasted the air. Blood splattered the floor and walls. Grace closed her eyes and sank to the floor in horror, then covered her ears as a second shot blasted.
Without looking she knew her parents were dead.
TIME TO GO under the knife.
Parker grimaced as the first strains of daylight stole into the hospital room. In spite of his resolve not to get involved with Grace Gardener, he searched the faces of the nurses for her sea-blue eyes. Another nurse prepped him for surgery and when she started to give him a shot to relax him before they transported him to the operating room, he finally accepted that Grace wasn’t coming.
She had given up on being his friend. He’d driven her away.
Good. He didn’t need or want her hovering over him. Doing him any favors. Smiling at him like he meant something special to her when she probably treated all her patients the same way.
Besides, he knew she wanted answers about her brother’s death. Answers he didn’t have. As soon as he’d joined the precinct, the serial arsonist had struck and he and his partner had been swamped with the case.
But when he got back on track, he’d investigate and see what he could find out about Bruno’s death. All he’d heard when he’d replaced the investigating cop was that Bruno had committed suicide, although some of the locals suspected he hadn’t killed himself. He’d been found with a bullet in his head and had fallen over a cliff. They wouldn’t have a body if a storm hadn’t washed it back in. Which made him suspicious.
That was probably the only reason Grace had been so friendly. She wanted his help.
Still, he felt a tug of disappointment in his chest that she hadn’t dropped by to see him this morning. Hadn’t he learned? People only used you when they needed something. Promises were only words that were broken.
The medicine kicked in and his head became fuzzy, the room a kaleidoscope of beige on white that swirled in a drunken haze.
Suddenly two blue circles appeared in the haze. Grace’s smiling eyes. Then her angelic voice penetrated the fog, calling his name.
“You’re going to do great, Parker,” she whispered. “And when this is over, you’ll heal just like you want. One day you’ll walk out of here and we’ll never see you again.”
He smiled, or at least he thought he did. His face felt funny, as if it was melting clay, and his lips seemed gluey, his tongue thick as if it was swollen inside his mouth.
“I’ll see you when you wake up.” She squeezed his hand and he tried to squeeze back to let her know he heard, that he appreciated her visit, but he didn’t know if he’d actually moved his fingers.
Then they were rolling him into a room with bright lights. The operating room. A mask slid over his face. Faces blurred, voices became a rumbling echo, distant and indiscernible.
Slowly the world faded into nothingness, where he dreamed about death. He was being buried but someone had stolen his body from the casket…
GRACE TRIED NOT TO WORRY about Parker during the surgery—after all, this was routine compared to the condition he’d been in when he’d first been admitted. But something about the tissue recalls disturbed her.
What exactly was the problem with the initial tissues? Although the hospital was affiliated with CIRP and took advantage of all the cutting-edge techniques, it had an impeccable reputation. The area had become a hubbub of high-tech medical research, and patients came from all over the States to utilize the latest treatments available. Sometimes in desperation, they agreed to new treatments offered through the research projects as a last resort.
But these tissue transplants were fairly common. Perhaps the problem wasn’t with the hospitals but with the tissue banks.
She spent the morning tending to other patients, and when the orderlies wheeled Parker to ICU after he was released from recovery, she rushed to check on his condition. He was breathing fine, his vitals were normal, and he had come through the surgery with flying colors. He didn’t need her, just a nurse to take care of routine tasks.
So why did she stay close to his side all morning? Why did she run every time she heard his breathing turn erratic or hear him moan in pain?
Furious with herself, she allowed another nurse to help him walk the first time. And when they transported him to a regular room, she was relieved. No more making a fool of herself over the man. He was on his own.
Still, the questions concerning the tissue transplants needled her. When she stepped into the hospital lounge for a midmorning cup of coffee, two surgical nurses hovered together in low conversation. “So far, we’ve had at least twenty patients affected,” one of the nurses said.
“The hospital will get flack for this,” the other nurse muttered.
“I just hope the police don’t ask questions,” the first nurse said.
“Why would they?”
“With this many patients involved, and with one of them a cop, the press will have a heyday. There’ll probably be lawsuits.”
Suddenly they spotted her and clammed up. But the rest of the morning, their conversation haunted Grace.
When she slipped into the hospital cafeteria for lunch, she spotted Dr. Whitehead and his colleague Dr. Nigel Knightly in deep conversation. She grabbed a chicken salad sandwich and a glass of sweet tea, half hoping to avoid Wilson Whitehead, but he cornered her and insisted she join them for lunch.
Dr. Knightly had performed Parker’s surgery so she decided to broach the subject of the tissue transplant with him. “The surgery with Parker Kilpatrick went okay?”
“Yes, it was a success,” Dr. Knightly said.
“This tissue was checked prior to surgery so we don’t expect any more problems,” Dr. Whitehead added.
She sipped her tea. “Did you get any more details on the recalled tissue?”
Dr. Knightly shrugged. “It wasn’t processed properly after extraction. That causes infection, rejection in some cases, and in one case now the patient has reacted, become septic and a limb had to be amputated.”
“Where
