hard as she stood, frozen, in the dark hospital corridor, watching a surgeon empty a large syringe of clear liquid into a patient’s IV drip.
Why? What is he doing here? Alone with a patient in a closed-off part of the hospital?
Abby shook her head. It didn’t make any sense.
Dressed in full scrubs with no ID badge that she could spot, the doctor’s figure towered over the male patient who lay lifeless on the gurney. As large as the surgeon looked in the narrow corridor, the male patient looked small even on the hospital gurney—his olive skin pale, his head round and bald. He seemed so still.
Abby sucked in a quick breath and decided to backtrack without disturbing the doctor and patient. She wasn’t comfortable confronting the tall, imposing surgeon herself, but something about the scene just didn’t seem right. Perhaps she could find a security guard... She stepped backward and her shoe squeaked as it turned on the tiled floor.
“How did you get in here? This part of the hospital is closed.” The doctor spun toward her, his voice booming through the empty hallway. His cold, gray eyes flashed in the dim emergency lighting and chilled her like an arctic blast. The rest of him was hidden beneath a complete workup of surgical scrubs, including face mask, gloves and hat.
“I was just cutting through here. I do it almost every day.” Abby forced her lips to move while her eyes stayed fixed on the surgeon. “I was on my way to Maternity. I hope that’s not a problem.”
“I don’t understand how you got into this area.” He advanced toward her, forcing her to take several steps back. “The entrances are supposed to be locked. This patient is highly contagious. This area is under restrictions. You shouldn’t be here.”
Contagious? Abby hadn’t heard about any restrictions. Surely there would have been signs, announcements. The sense of something wrong grew stronger. Pulse rising, she skirted to the side of the large man and looked down at the patient’s chart attached to the end of the gurney.
N. K. Hancock—TRANSFER.
In the dim lighting, that was all she could read, but she could see that the papers were solid white. If the patient were contagious, the chart would be marked with a prominent red stripe. Abby swallowed hard. Her heart drummed against her ribs. This doctor was lying—if he even was a doctor. She needed to find a security guard, stat. But first, she had to get away. She composed herself just enough to keep from sinking under the doctor’s menacing glare and looming figure.
“I’m sorry, Dr....” Abby waited but he did not supply a name. With each syllable, she inched herself away from the man and his patient. “I didn’t know we couldn’t pass through. Again, I’m sorry to disturb you, Doctor. I’ll just be on my way.” She turned and headed for the stairwell.
“Oh, no, you don’t.” He was behind her in seconds. Over her. Around her like a giant spider. He grabbed the top of her arm and squeezed her flesh like a vise. His cold eyes flickered in the dim lighting.
She trembled and fought against him, but her struggles were in vain as the grip of his stubby, sausagelike fingertips dug deeper and deeper into her skin. He pulled her tight against his stout belly. She had no hope of breaking free.
Was this her just deserts after finally deciding she would not join the Amish church, defying the wishes of her father?
She’d gone to school to become a nurse, but she hadn’t made her final decision about living the Plain life until recently. It had been time to put away one or the other and stop living on the fence. So last week, she’d laid aside her prayer Kapp and her frocks for good. She’d devote her life to nursing, delivering babies and helping others to stay healthy. But the choice had not come without a lot of pain, especially to her father, the Ordnung bishop.
Her father’s words still rang through her head—a verse from the Psalms. “If you stand in the counsel of the wicked, you will become wicked.”
Had she made the worst decision of her life? Right now, it certainly seemed that way. Tears filled Abby’s eyes. Crazy, desperate thoughts swirled around in her mind. She continued to try to break free of the doctor’s grip, but she could not come close to matching his strength. Her breathing came in short gasps. She would have yelled but there was no one to hear her.
“You’ve been exposed.” The doctor’s tone mocked her as he dragged her across the hallway. “I’ll have to give you an injection, too.”
“What?” Is he mad? “Please, stop. You’re hurting me. Let me go.”
With his free hand, he produced another full syringe from the pocket of his scrubs. The needle shook as it came at her. His fingers closed in tighter around her arm as he yanked her sleeve high, exposing the skin above his grip. The hot prick of the needle stabbed her and the drug burned like fire as it entered her bloodstream. “What? What did you just give me?”
The doctor yanked her to the end of the corridor and through the door to the stairwell, not seeming to care that he crashed the door frame’s metal edge into Abby’s forehead. The blow radiated across her skull. Nausea waved through her gut as the drug made her head light—too light. Her body began to collapse. She could feel her blood pressure fall...
Please, Lord, help me.
Finally, she felt his fingers release her. She slumped to the cold, tiled floor.
The empty stairwell spun around her. The strange doctor had vanished. With all her might, she tried to reach for her cell phone. It was in her back pocket. But the drug was hitting her full force now. Her hand shook uncontrollably and the device dropped from her fingers. Her eyelids closed as she groped the floor desperately for the phone. But it was no use. She was going under and there was nothing she could do to stop it.
Please, Lord...help...
Abby closed her eyes and the darkness overtook her.
* * *
“Code Blue. Code Blue. Paging Dr. Jamison. Room 307. Code Blue. Dr. Blake Jamison.”
The announcement blared through the overhead speakers. Everyone in the operatory stopped what they were doing and looked at Blake.
Code Blue? How could there be a Code Blue? It signaled that one of his patients needed resuscitation, but that couldn’t be true. He had taken on exactly three patients since transferring to Fairview Hospital. They’d been recovering well, awake, alert and resting as of two hours ago. This had to be a mistake.
“And clip.” He opened his gloved hand and waited for the nurse to place the suturing instrument in his palm. With a delicate touch, he closed up the tiny incision, returned the instrument to the nurse and removed himself from the operating area. The surgical staff would have to finish the cleanup after his first surgery at Fairfield Hospital of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Apparently, he had an emergency to look into.
“This way, Doctor.” One of the nurses tugged at his sleeve, guiding him toward the doors. “Take the service elevator. It’s faster. I’ll show you.”
A minute later, Blake entered a patient-recovery room where a crash team had assembled with a defibrillator. An unresponsive male patient, mid-to-late fifties, lay on the hospital bed. He was not one of the three patients Blake had seen earlier. Blake turned to the young nurse working near the monitors. “I’m Dr. Jamison. I was paged for a Code Blue, but this man is not my
