you need to let us check you out, to see how you’re doing.”
“We’ve stabilized him,” one of the paramedics said from the other side of the gurney, “but he’s not out of the woods yet. Not by a long shot.”
Rita threw the man a censuring look. The last thing this guy needed to hear was that he was still in danger.
“Am I—” He grimaced again, groaning. “Am I—gonna—die?” he demanded.
“No,” Rita said firmly, gritting her teeth at the paramedic, who just shrugged off her reproach. “You’re going to be fine. What’s your name?” she asked the old man.
He gazed at her warily for a moment, still clearly frightened, then, evidently deciding she was okay, he told her weakly, “Joe.”
“Do you have any family, Joe?” she asked as the others were working to monitor him, hooking him up to oxygen and an EKG. He fought the mask at first, but Rita soothed him, promising him it was for his own good and that it would only be temporary. “Is there anyone we can call who might make you feel more comfortable?” she asked again.
He shook his head, took another indifferent swipe at the oxygen mask, then surrendered to it. “No. No family,” he told her, sounding even weaker than he had before. After a small hesitation, he added, “But—but you kinda—” He expelled a sound of pain, then grabbed her hand again with a brutal grip. “You,” he tried again, “you—make me feel—more comfortable.”
Rita smiled again, flexing her fingers against the force of his grasp. “Well, then, Joe, I’ll just stay right here with you. How will that be?”
He nodded faintly. “That’d be good. Don’t—go nowhere.”
“I won’t,” she promised him.
“And later,” he said, his voice quavering as he spoke, “after—after they’s—done with me, if I—if I make it through—don’t—go nowhere then, neither.”
Rita patted his hand gently. “This is where I work, Joe. And you know, sometimes I feel like I never leave.”
That roused a brief, if feeble, grin from him in response, but he was clearly growing weaker now. She sent up a silent prayer that he would be all right. She knew nothing about him except that he had no home and no family and that his name was Joe. But he was obviously a fighter—and a survivor—and she had no choice but to admire that. Surely he’d survive this, too.
“This is Dr. Grayson,” Rita told him, nodding her head toward the surgeon who now stood on the other side of the gurney. “He’ll be looking at you here in a minute. He’s very good. The absolute best.”
When she looked up, she saw that Dr. Grayson was studying her with much consideration, as if he wanted to ask her something, and she opened her mouth to ask what. But Joe began thrashing and screaming then, and thinking he must be in pain, Rita glanced back down to tend to him. But it obviously wasn’t pain that was causing his reaction. He was looking right at Dr. Grayson and had somehow managed to lift his hand to point at the scars on the other man’s face.
“Don’t let ’im—come near me,” Joe said with much agitation. “He—he ain’t—no man. He’s a—monster.”
Dr. Grayson simply ignored the comment and reached toward Joe. Joe, however, shoved his hand away before the doctor could touch him, and began to thrash even more.
“Git ’im—away from me! Git ’im away!”
“Joe, please,” Rita tried again.
But the old man wouldn’t be calmed. “His face!” he cried, pointing at Dr. Grayson. “He’s like one a’them—one a’them gargoyles on—St. Michael’s. They—come after me sometimes—in my—in my dreams. To take me—to hell. They’s monsters! Git ’im away!”
“Joe, it’s all right,” Rita said firmly, grabbing his arms and holding them at his sides. “Dr. Grayson is here to help you. He’s an excellent surgeon and a wonderful man. No one is going to hurt you,” she said even more forcefully. “I won’t let anyone hurt you, I promise. I’m right here, and I won’t let anyone hurt you.”
For whatever reason, her vows reassured him. Or maybe it was just that he was too weak and in too much pain to fight anymore. Rita gave up trying to be a nurse then and let the other RNs tend to Joe’s medical needs. Instead, she picked up the man’s hand once more and held it tightly, and murmured soothing words about how he was going to be just fine because he had Dr. Matthew Grayson to take care of him.
And he would be fine, Rita told herself, feeling strangely attached to the old man for some reason. Because he did have Dr. Matthew Grayson to look after him.
Who wouldn’t be fine with someone like that to watch over him?
One
The coronary care unit at Boston General in the trendy North End was quiet for a Friday at dinnertime—no doubt the rowdy April weather outside was keeping many visitors at home—which meant that Rita Barone actually found five full minutes to steal away from the nurses’ station for a cup of bad coffee from the vending machine in the CCU waiting room. Coffee—even bad coffee—was her only hope to get her through the evening shift, one she hadn’t worked in months. After three years at Boston General, she had finally landed regular hours in the day shift, and only had to pull night hours now to cover for friends, like tonight, or to pick up extra Christmas money. Not that extra Christmas money was generally a big deal, since the Barones of Boston were never strapped for cash. But Rita was the kind of woman who liked to rest on her own laurels, and not the family’s, so she rarely, if ever, took advantage of the Barone family’s very fat coffers.
Three years, she reflected again as she watched the vending machine spit its dark-brown brew into a paper container that was in no way large enough to qualify for a respectable cup of coffee. In fact, it had been three years to the day today, she realized further. She had begun working at Boston General as a student nurse exactly two months before her June graduation from Boston University, and exactly one month following her twenty-second birthday. Now, at twenty-five, here she was celebrating her anniversary by being back on the evening shift.
She glanced down at her watch, then shook her head morosely. She’d only started two hours ago, and already she was hitting the caffeine. The six remaining hours had never seemed like such a long, looming stretch of time.
She kept a close eye on the too-full cup of coffee as she made her way back to the nurses’ station, then returned to her seat and set the hot brew to the side to cool a bit. Absently, she tucked a stray strand of dark-brown hair back into the thick French braid that fell to the base of her neck, then brushed at a stain of indistinguishable origin on the pants of her slate-blue scrubs. It wasn’t until she was reaching for a patient chart that she saw the small white package tucked sideways into her note slot on the desk.
And she battled a wave of apprehension that shimmied down her spine when she saw it.
It hadn’t been there when she’d gone for her coffee, because she’d had to reach into her mail slot to grab some of the spare change she always left there for the vending machines. So whoever had left it had done so just now, while she was gone. It was a small square box wrapped in white glossy paper, tied with a gold ribbon, obviously a gift. But instead of being delighted by such a surprise, Rita went cold inside. This was the third
