Disaster Status (13 page)

+++

“What next? The Sea Swings?” Scott asked idly, distracted by the sun glinting on the gold strands in Erin’s hair.

She shielded her eyes and gazed at the enormous tilting carousel, its riders sitting on individual swings as they hurtled, legs dangling, through the sky. “Not sure it’s a good idea after lunch.” She turned back to him, sun-pink nose wrinkling. “What do you think?”

“I think I’m relieved. Besides—” he nodded toward the Santa Cruz wharf in the distance—“there’s a band. I’ve heard them before, great jazz.”

“Jazz?” She looked mildly surprised, and he told himself this was all part of getting to know each other. Music preferences, coffee flavors, front seat or tail end on the Dipper, Boston or Manhattan style chowder
. Got faith . . . or not?
His stomach tensed.

“Let’s go,” she said, smiling. “I love the wharf.”

They walked along the Beach Street promenade toward the pier, Erin talking all the while about how her grandfather fished from the wharf, how she once caught a starfish and hid it in her pillowcase . . .

Scott remained quiet, wrestling with his thoughts. He reminded himself that today was about diversion, not about pursuing a relationship. If he didn’t have an arm full of stitches, he’d be out swimming. Alone. The way he liked it. If Cody hadn’t been hospitalized, he’d . . . pursue moving away? He pushed away a niggling hint of guilt. His family knew his career goals, accepted them. Portland was a long shot at best. As for Erin, a new relationship wasn’t something he could do right now. And he already knew she was the kind of woman who expected far more than he had to give.

“Wish you were swimming?” she said, breaking his reverie.

“No,” he said, surprised to see they’d already walked a good distance of the pier and had arrived at the stage area. In front of them, the small jazz band—saxophone, bass, keyboard, and drums—had drawn a respectable crowd and competed with a background of barking seals, hungry cries of gulls, and the deep chug of idling fishing boats. He shuffled sideways to accommodate the crush of impromptu dancers—couples young and old, giggling teens, and a handful of children with painted faces and Day-Glo balloons. “No,” he repeated. “I’m glad I’m here.” Then he took a slow breath and a risk. “With you.”

She gazed at him, uncharacteristically quiet, and he noticed for the second time since he’d met her that there were flecks of copper in the green of her eyes. The sun had deepened the faint splash of freckles across the bridge of her nose, and all of a sudden his mouth was going dry, and his pulse had begun to . . . “Dance?” he asked, filling the awkward silence.

“Sure.”

He gathered her to him as the saxophonist began a solo, its rhythm smooth and slow, and they blended into the crowd, mindful of the knee-high children and occasionally buffeted by a helium balloon. Erin followed his lead as if they’d done this a dozen times before. Her hand felt warm and small in his, and despite navigating asphalt littered with popcorn and scrambling gulls, he knew in a matter of moments that she fit perfectly in his arms. Almost like it had been preplanned: the soft weight of her hand on his shoulder, the feel of his palm against the small of her back, and the way the breeze blew fine strands of her hair against his face. She smelled sweet, sort of like warm cinnamon toast. He heard her chuckle.

“I’ve never done this before. Dancing on a pier.” She turned her head. “What’s going on over there? See the crowd?”

“Probably nothing,” he said without looking, refusing to allow anything to interfere with the moment. “Fishing boat maybe. Big rock cod—seen one, seen ’em all.” He drew her close again.

Erin stopped dancing, slid her hand from his, and stepped away. “No, I think it’s some kind of emergency.”

Scott frowned, tempted to chide her about ER nurses’ imaginations. But then the jazz combo stopped playing. The people in the crowd near the boat rental building began to shout and wave their arms. The saxophone player set his instrument aside and hopped down from the stage.

Scott squinted toward a roar of voices sounding increasingly frantic. Erin took a few steps closer.

And then one shout boomed above the rest: “Someone call 911!”

Chapter Sixteen

“Shocked—electrocuted. That girl’s not breathing. Somebody do something!” The heavyset woman whirled, wild-eyed with terror, and stepped on Erin’s foot.

“Please let me through. I’m a nurse,” Erin grunted, breathless after racing down the pier. She pushed forward, clutching a fistful of Scott’s jacket, and stumbled along behind him as he parted the gawking crowd like a running back. All she could see other than people’s backs were glimpses of what appeared to be scattered construction equipment, electrical cords, and maybe a disassembled boat lift. She heard the stuttering sound of an engine coming to an abrupt halt, then breathed in the acrid scent of burning wire and plastic.

“Medic coming through! Everyone stand back!” Scott jogged a few more steps and stopped.

Erin bumped into him, then grasped his arm and moved aside to stare down at the scene.
Oh no.
A pretty young brunette in a thermal shirt, worn jeans, and a tool belt lay sprawled on the asphalt beside a tangled heap of electrical cords. Pale and motionless, eyes staring vacantly upward, lips dusky gray . . .
Not breathing?
Erin started forward.

But Scott grabbed her arm. He pointed to a burly, gray-haired man standing in front of an anxious group of laborers. “Have you cut the power?”

“Yes, as soon as I saw the problem. I’m the job foreman. Mattie—that’s her name—she had the drill, and maybe the asphalt was wet. But there was a flash and a huge pop. It threw her across the wharf, and we called 911.” He scrubbed his hands over his mouth and groaned. “I don’t think she’s breathing.”

Scott kept his voice calm. “We’re going to do what we can for Mattie; you keep the crowd back. That’s your job now. Give us room to work.”

In an instant, they rushed to the woman and knelt beside her, Erin at her head and Scott alongside her torso. Erin shook her gently and called her name without a response. Then she brushed aside Mattie’s dark hair and lifted her chin to open her airway. She leaned close—
look,
listen, feel—
checking for signs of respiratory effort.

“Not breathing,” she reported, dread making her mouth dry. “Got a pulse?”

Scott pressed his fingers into the side of their patient’s neck, repositioned them, and concentrated for a few more seconds before shaking his head. “No pulse. She’s probably in V-fib from the alternating current.” He rose onto his knees and positioned his hands, one on top of the other, over their patient’s sternum. “She’s young, and time’s on our side if we can keep her going until the medics get here with a defibrillator.”

“I’m starting ventilations.” She pinched Mattie’s nostrils, inhaled deeply, lowered her mouth to give a first rescue breath, and then stopped as Scott grasped her arm.

“Wait. I hope that’s what I think it is.” He pointed to a middle-aged woman barreling through the crowd, holding a plastic case over her head.

Erin held her breath.
Please, God, let that be an AED.

“Here! Will this help? It’s one of those HeartStart machines. We keep it on our charter boat.” The woman hurried forward, puffing and red-faced, to hand Scott the case.

“Oh, thank heaven.” Erin’s breath escaped in a rush as she began furiously hiking Mattie’s clothing up to expose her skin.

Her heart tugged as she heard the protective foreman warning people to stand back. “Hey, give my girl some privacy, would you?”

In the distance, a sound like approaching sirens mingled with the screams from the Giant Dipper. Hopefully the paramedics were close. But there was no time to wait.

“Great. Here we go,” Scott said, pulling the release handle to start the device.

In seconds he’d pressed the two large, adhesive-backed pads onto Mattie’s chest and abdomen, well ahead of the AED’s calm, verbal instructions:
“Place pads exactly as shown in the picture.”
The triangular yellow warning light flashed.
“Analyzing. No one should touch the patient.”

They leaned away, watching as the machine began to automatically analyze the heart rhythm.

Scott nodded at Erin. “At least with fib we’ve got something to work with. Sure wish we could see the rhythm.”

She knew he was feeling as helpless as she was, waiting for a machine to make the diagnosis instead of reading the monitor display themselves. So different from the equipment at hospitals and on ambulances. But the beauty of the AED was that it had been designed for use by the general public; it was simple and incredibly efficient and was responsible for saving many people.

The orange warning light flashed and the machine spoke:
“Shock advised. Stay clear of patient. Press the flashing orange button now.”

Scott depressed the button, and Mattie’s body jerked in response to measured joules of electricity.

Erin held her breath, praying as the rhythm was analyzed again. Then groaned softly as the orange light flashed a second time. Still in V-fib.

“Shock advised. Stay clear of patient.”

Scott pressed the button and delivered a second shock to the stubbornly fibrillating heart. He glanced up at the sound of sirens and an enthusiastic murmur from the crowd.

“Shock delivered. . . . It is safe to touch the patient.”

Erin pressed two fingers on the side of Mattie’s neck. “She’s got a pulse! It’s strong and regular. Good girl. C’mon, Mattie. Stay with us now. . . .”

Voices in the crowd drowned her out. Sirens filled the air and the crowd began dispersing.

Erin pulled off her vest and draped it across Mattie’s chest, then looked at Scott. Her head felt suddenly light, legs wobbly as Jell-O, the adrenaline rush receding like low tide. His eyes held hers for a long moment before he slowly smiled. Goose bumps rose and her eyes filled with tears. She bowed her head ever so slightly.
Thank you, Father. Thank you for saving this woman.

In seconds, the ambulance braked to a stop and the medics hit the ground running. Only moments later, Mattie’s dark and expressive eyes fluttered open behind an oxygen mask, and she spoke a few words. Confused, but miraculously alive. Her foreman hunkered close, tears streaming down his weathered cheeks. Several people in the crowd applauded. Then someone cheered . . . as Erin stood and moved into Scott’s arms.

“Nice job, Wonder Woman,” he murmured, his breath warm against her hair.

“You too.” She shivered and he tightened his arms around her. “That sure topped the Giant Dipper.”

A laugh rumbled deep in his chest. “Let’s get out of here. This is too much like work.”

+++

Leigh sighed, and her breath fogged the viewing window for an instant before fading away. Only four newborns this morning—three blue blankets, one pink—all of them wearing standard white polyester infant caps. Not like the ones she’d been knitting for the Save the Children project, with lollipop stripes, shimmery pom-poms . . .
“Knit One, Save One.”

She told herself not to do the math, not to count the months.
Our baby would be born in June.
Her hand drifted down the front of her scrub dress, palm spreading across her flat abdomen, and she closed her eyes for a moment to buffer the hollow and confusing sadness. She hadn’t wanted a baby; the timing was all wrong, but . . . No good came from dredging up what-ifs. She was having a divorce, not a baby. She’d be content with her work, escapes to the stable, knitting caps for Save the Children, and—

“Morning, ma’am.”

Leigh turned and smiled. “Good morning, Sarge.”

He shifted his weight to peer through the nursery glass. “Four babies this morning. And three kids up on peds.”

Her brows drew together in mild surprise that Sarge would know the pediatric census since he wasn’t assigned there. By the wrung-out look of him, eyes rimmed with shadows, a hint of beard growth, he’d probably been volunteering for extra shifts again. Maybe he needed the money. You never really knew about people.

He turned away from the window, nodded at Leigh, and began walking away.

“Oh, Sarge, I forgot. Will you do something for me when you go back to the ER? The drug reps brought microwave popcorn and one of the packages was torn. It spilled all over my office floor. I tried to get it up, but I’m still skidding on those things. Will you sweep it for me, please?”

“Yes, ma’am, I’ll do that for you before I leave.”

“Leave?”

“I worked a night shift on the second floor. South wing,” he added. “Stripping the floors, cleaning the baseboards . . .”

She apologized, realizing why he looked so tired. And trying not to imagine an amputee struggling with those arduous tasks. “Go home. Don’t bother with my office. I thought you were on duty now.”

“No problem. I’m glad to do it—I want to help.” Sarge raised his hand and touched it to his brow in the familiar salute. “That’s why I’m here, ma’am.”

+++

Scott ran his thumb over the broken shell, walked a few yards, then hurled it through the darkness toward the sea. The stitches over his wound pinched with the motion, reminding him that if it weren’t for the injury he wouldn’t be here. He’d have stayed home to swim, to go over B shift’s new training schedules, and maybe to tackle the equipment budget again. Still, being with Erin . . .

“Wait,” she called out, “let me dump my shoes. They’re filling up again.”

He turned and saw her grinning at him from where she’d plunked herself down on the sand.

“Besides, I want to stop for a minute and see the boardwalk lights.” Erin emptied her shoes, slipped back into them, and stood. “My grandfather used to say the bulbs on the Dipper looked like a million lightning bugs in a conga line.” She chuckled. “Of course I’d never seen a firefly. Still haven’t, except for fake ones at Disneyland. But Grandy was stationed in San Antonio for a while, so he knew. He knew everything.”

Scott crossed the stretch of sand to stand beside her and forced himself to look away from her face long enough to scan the boardwalk. Ropes of colored neon, illuminated flags and striped awnings, the white bridgework of the coaster track, and the Ferris wheel with lighted spokes in green, yellow, and red. “You always talk about your grandfather. Not your father.” He saw her expression change and wished he’d stayed quiet.

“That’s true, I suppose.” She leaned down to roll up the bottoms of her jeans.

He moved alongside her, and they walked down the darkened beach.

“I never knew him very well—my father. Good old Frank Calloway.”

“Calloway?”

Erin nodded. “I took my grandparents’ name.”

“After your father died?”

“Not exactly . . . dead.” Her voice took on a surprisingly bitter edge. “But it sure felt like it sometimes.” She stopped and kicked a dark mound of seaweed. “My father’s been trying to leave us all my life. I never knew what was worse: seeing him take off to chase his newest harebrained idea . . . or having him come back and promise he’d never do it again. Or that time someone spray-painted ‘Flimflam Calloway’ on the side of our car after he scammed the neighbors in an investment scheme. Then there was the joy of my entire Brownie troop seeing him at the movies. Kissing the secretary from our school.”

Scott winced.

“And now,” she continued, “he’s back again. After more than twenty-five years of bouncing around, he’s suddenly . . . sorry. Sending letters and e-mails to tell me he’s a new man, that he’s finally seen the light. And found God. My sweet, deluded mother believes him.”

“And you don’t?”

Erin looked at him like he’d lost his mind. “He’s
found
a lot of things before: Ponzi schemes, miracle diet programs . . . He even found a way to profit by reselling life insurance policies on cancer patients.” She swiped the tears from her eyes. “Do I believe Frank Calloway’s found faith? No. He spent his whole life chasing his ambitions—his self-righteous sense of personal glory—at the expense of his family. He’s never going to change, and I won’t ever trust him.”

Scott hadn’t a clue what to say, so he didn’t say anything.

“But I do believe, with all my soul, that my grandparents were the biggest blessing in my life. They really loved me. And they had the best marriage I’ve ever seen, faithful and honest and kind. They were each other’s world. Now that Grandy’s gone, all I’m thinking about is helping my grandmother put her life back together. Not living down my father’s reputation.” Erin reached out and touched his arm. “I’m sorry, Scott. I shouldn’t have dumped all that on you.”

He shrugged, relieved to see that her tears were gone and very aware of her touch. There it was again, that warm eddy in a cold ocean. “It’s okay, really. You and I have a strangely similar problem.”

She let her hand drop away. “What do you mean?”

“My father’s reputation followed him too.”

“Wait . . . did I hear something about him on the news? The night the reporter interviewed you at the ranch where the plane crashed? She said your father was a firefighter, right?”

“Yes. Gabe McKenna. He was with the Pacific Point department too. Killed on duty when he caught gunfire in a hostage situation. His crew was doing medical backup. And he tried to rescue a child.” Scott shook his head. “Mistaken for a cop. Happens too often.”