Rescue Team (20 page)

“So you did,” he managed to say, though his pulse had taken off as if he’d been the one jogging. “And . . .” Wes closed the space between them in a heartbeat, wrapping his arms around her. She giggled, breath warm against his neck, then clung to him as his hug lifted her nearly off the ground. “I missed you,” he whispered hoarsely with his lips pressed to her hair. “I know I told you I wouldn’t be able to see you today. Then you said you’d be home early . . .”

“And you . . .” Kate regained her footing and leaned back just enough to blink up at him. Her expression was like a child reaching for a soap bubble let loose from a wand, not sure it would last if she touched it. The look blossomed into a smile that warmed his heart. “You couldn’t stay away?” she asked.

“No.” He reached out to rest his hand along the side of her face, brushing his thumb over her moist skin. “I couldn’t.”

There was a sharp crack overhead and then a huge rumbling roll of thunder.

“Oh, wow.” Kate stared at the sky.

The ground trembled.

“I think the temperature just dropped like a rock,” she said, hugging her arms around herself.

“Texas.” Wes shook his head. “There’s a saying: ‘If you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes and it’ll change.’” He took hold of her hand, wanting the connection again. “I’ve been following the reports. Dust storm in Monterrey, Mexico, blowing into south Texas. And a band of showers headed in from the west. We could see some strange weather.” He glanced away as a pair of joggers passed them, heading through Zilker Park.

“I’m glad I got most of my run in, anyway.” Kate’s warm fingers moved inside his, making him very aware that talking about weather was a big waste of time.

“I’ll drive you home.”

“It’s like five minutes away. Less.” Kate shook her head. “I could walk there before I climbed into that big truck and got my seat belt fastened. Besides, we both have meetings to get to. If the weather doesn’t interfere.”

Wes eyed the trail that headed toward the greenbelt, thinking of its trees and dense stands of shrubbery. Kate had just come through there, and Gabe thought the inmate was going to reveal the area as a crime scene.

“Wes?” She smiled at him, that bubble-wand look back on her face. As if she weren’t used to someone being concerned for her safety. “I’m fine walking. It’s all good.”

“I’m driving you,” he insisted, drawing her into his arms again. “Right after—” Wes cast a discreet glance at the mercifully vacant trail, then sighed and dipped his head low—“this.”

-  +  -

Kate lifted her face for Wes’s kiss, not sure if the insistent thrumming in her ears was her heartbeat or another roll of thunder. The first splash of rain hit her forearm just as his lips met hers. She didn’t care. He was tender, thorough, and—

“Oh! Water down my back!” She laughed against his lips as rain streamed between her shoulder blades. Her laugh turned to a sigh as Wes pulled her closer to kiss her again. And again. Her lips, cheek, neck . . . Rain trickled along her scalp, dribbled from her ear, its cool contrast making the warmth of his skin against hers even more wonderful.

“It’s pouring!” Kate leaned back, breath almost catching at the sight of his handsome face soaked with rain. She blinked as drops wet her lashes. Then glanced down at the puddle forming around her feet. “You said two feet can carry an SUV away,” she continued, raising her voice over a humid gust of wind. “I’m a lot smaller.”

There was another flash of lightning, and thunder rumbled.

“My feet are soaked through to my socks. I think we should—” Kate gasped as Wes hoisted her high into his arms.

“Hey, wait,” she protested, half-laughing as he began to stride toward the road, carrying her under the darkening sky. “What—?”

“Consider yourself rescued,” he told her as she squirmed in a weak show of resistance. “Like it or not.”

I do,
she decided, smiling. Not that she’d tell him, of course.

They were at her house in five minutes and he’d driven off to his meeting in less than seven, time for one more kiss—two if you counted the one that happened when she ran back to grab the water bottle she’d left on the seat. They’d managed it with impetuous acrobatics, Kate on her tiptoes and nearly doing a chin-up on
the driver’s window and Wes leaning out. Both of them dripping from the rain.

She wasn’t sure if she’d run or floated on air to the shelter of the house.

Kate decided she’d shower and fix something to eat before heading back to the hospital. She grabbed the TV remote and gave it a click, laughing when she saw the puddle she was leaving on the hardwood floor. She’d get a towel to wipe it up. Hopefully the weather would clear before she left the house again. It didn’t really matter because even a Texas “thunder bumper” couldn’t dampen how she was feeling right now. Warm despite her soaking clothes. Cared for, safe . . . hopeful? Yes, maybe even that.

She looked at her mother’s photo on the mantel, feeling her throat tighten. “Mom, I’ve met someone,” she whispered. “I think it’s good. I think—”

The TV news blared, interrupting her.

“Police are asking for anyone who might recognize this young woman—” Ava Smith’s shadowy image filled the screen—“in connection with the death of a newborn infant abandoned in the emergency department of Austin Grace Hospital,” the newscaster continued. “Any information should be—”

Kate switched off the TV, shuddering against the chill of her sodden clothing for the first time. She glanced toward the window as rain continued to pelt even more heavily. Thudding like a lumberjack’s boots now. She squinted and walked closer, confused at what she was seeing. The window glass was brown with . . .
mud?
It looked like mud, streaks of it. But the windows had been cleaned a week ago. What on earth was happening?

She walked, clothes still dripping, to the front door. Then out onto the porch, her mouth sagging open in confusion. She stepped
onto the driveway, felt the sloppy brown grit splash her skin. It really was—

“Raining mud!” her landlord shouted over the rosemary hedge and another menacing rumble of thunder. He raised his golf umbrella, splotched with the sludge. “Mexican dust storm hit that west Texas front. It happens.” He pointed to her car. “Don’t wipe it down. It’ll scratch your paint. Use the hose.”

“Oh. All right. Thanks.” She stepped back into the house, stunned. Mud from the sky? Strangely, she thought of fireflies. One of her favorite things about Texas. Bright, magical, hopeful. What happened to fireflies when it rained mud?

She stared at the blank TV screen, remembering Ava Smith’s face on the security camera clip. And Barrett Lyon’s comment that Kate had done well when questioned by the police detective, his unnerving confidence that she would continue to do as he dictated. Kate glanced once again at her mother’s photo. Only moments ago she’d been giddy and hopeful enough to risk saying out loud that this new relationship with Wes could be good. Then it rained mud.

Her cell phone played its text ringtone. She walked to the coffee table, picked it up. Her father.

Arrived in Phoenix. Home tomorrow. Seeing you was good, Katy.

She closed the message with a sigh.

If her landlord hadn’t said that raining mud wasn’t unheard of in Texas, Kate would have thought it was some sort of awful sign. From God, maybe. That her unforgivable mistakes doomed her like fireflies snuffed out by muddy rain. She’d have thought hope was impossible. But now . . .

She hugged herself, remembering the warmth of Wes’s arms. Lauren’s friendship. And this newest proof that things were okay: her father’s text. Tomorrow he’d be in California. Before long Kate could forget that he had sat in this room and bared his soul.

Yes. Things were back to normal. Better than that—they were bordering on “good” for the first time in forever. She took a slow breath.
Right?

“A
NEAR DROWNING FROM THE STORM?”
Kate peered at the ER tech from under her umbrella, raising her voice over the insistent drumming of rain on the ambulance bay overhang. She saw him nod confirmation.

Until yesterday, Kate wouldn’t have believed such a thing was possible. But the downpour hadn’t quit except for a few hours around dawn. Last evening’s budget meeting had been canceled, and Kate lost count of how many times she’d been awakened in the night. By thunder, howling wind, and incredible flashes of lightning so bright she could see them through her closed eyelids. She glanced up at the sky—at least it was standard-issue rain, not muddy sludge.

A handful of gathered staff hoisted a rainbow of umbrellas and awaited the Code 3 ambulance arrival. Kate caught sight of Dana Connor, saw her adjust her umbrella to avoid eye contact.

Kate turned back to the tech. “This homeless woman was swept away by rushing water?” Sirens wailed as the ambulance pulled in behind the hospital.

“From a group camping under a bridge,” he explained, raindrops beading on his rust-colored beard. “Water rose and grabbed her sleeping bag and tent.” He shook his head. “A teenager. Runaway, I’d bet.”

Kate’s stomach shuddered.

“She was probably dragged down by the wet sleeping bag—like the proverbial cement overcoat—and hauled downstream,” the tech continued. “Then got tangled in an uprooted cedar tree, facedown. Good thing someone had a working cell phone.” He stepped forward, rain sluicing over his surgical cap as the ambulance pulled to a stop and began its backing-up beeping. “Here we go.”

The ambulance doors burst open, and through a humid blur of rain, Kate saw the young girl on the stretcher.
Very young.
A paramedic hunched over her, one hand holding a face mask and the other squeezing a plastic Ambu bag. No cardiac compressions, but—

“Trauma room one,” Kate directed above the din of voices, then closed her umbrella and trotted alongside the hustling stretcher shoulder to shoulder with Dana.

“Carly Udall. Near drowning,” a paramedic reported as they clattered into the trauma room. “Sixteen-year-old, no available medical history. Underwater for unknown time; Glasgow Coma Scale 9 or 10. Glucose check 78. Some abrasions, no obvious head or neck injury. BP 100 over 60. Monitor shows sinus tach at 108. Respirations 32 and shallow. Lips dusky. Wheezes, crackles—pulse ox 87 percent on high-flow oxygen with bag assist.”

The girl’s face was pale behind the rescue mask, her chin tucked into a protective cervical collar. She groaned and tried to raise her arm. A second medic lowered it, checked the tape on the IV, then gently plucked a twig from her soaking blonde hair. “Easy, Carly . . .”

The paramedic squeezed the Ambu bag, supplementing her breathing efforts.

“Let’s move her,” the ER physician instructed. “On my count. One, two . . .”

“I’ve got it,” Dana said, moving alongside. Her eyes, unreadable, connected with Kate’s. “I can handle this.”

“Right.” Kate stepped away from the stretcher, glancing to where the respiratory therapists were preparing for ventilatory assistance. BiPAP, probably, to enhance breathing through bi-level positive pressure. They’d also opened the intubation tray and laid out both the standard and fiber-optic laryngoscopes, as well as an assortment of endotracheal tubes—just in case. Kate moved to the crash cart, pulled out the necessary drugs for emergency intubation. Sedation and a paralyzing agent—this doctor called himself old-school in his preference for Versed and vecuronium.

“Let’s cut these wet clothes off.” The tech looked toward the warming unit being wheeled into the corner of the room. “Good, the Bair Hugger’s here. We’ll have her temp reading in a minute.”

“X-ray’s standing by for a portable,” Kate reported, her throat constricting as the young patient’s eyes met hers.
So lost and alone.
She caught the doctor’s attention. “Think you’ll have to intubate?”

“She’s tired but still making a fighting effort.” The physician, a father of teenagers, looked at the girl’s face and sighed. “With her Glasgow well above 8, I’m going to give her some time on
BiPAP while we run arterial gases. I expect her PO
₂
’s will be low—we can support that. But if her PCO
₂
’s are high, there’s a ventilatory problem, and she’ll get that tube.” He nodded at Dana. “We’ll get her dry and warm. Let me know as soon as you have a temp. Start another IV line, pull blood for labs—I’ll write those orders. Tox screen too. Pregnancy test. Put in a Foley cath. We’ll want to x-ray her neck, clear it before we get complete chest films. Once I have a better look at her, I’ll be able to tell you what else I’ll need.”

“Yes, sir,” Dana told him, getting the monitoring equipment ready as the techs cut away the girl’s multiple layers of soaked clothing. She glanced at Kate, her expression wary.

“Good,” Kate said, not entirely sure who she was addressing. “I’m going to see what the social worker’s found out about contacts and family.” She took another look at the pale girl battling to breathe. If this had happened to Kate in Las Vegas, they would have notified her father.
And he’d have discovered my pregnancy.

Kate stepped into the outer corridor, surprised to find Lauren.

“I’m filling in for Dana for a couple of hours,” Lauren explained. “Didn’t she tell you?”

“She barely looks at me these days. But I’m always glad to have you. What’s going on with Dana?”

“Baby Doe. That church is having a memorial service today. She wants to be there.”

“Oh.”

“One of the ICU nurses is married to a PD officer; she told me undercover detectives would be there too.”

“In case the mother . . .” Kate’s voice caught. “Shows up.”

“Sad business all around.”

“Yes,” Kate agreed, remembering what Lyon had said about the
optimal outcome for all of this. That the mother
“. . . stays lost, the church buries Baby Doe, and it all dies down.”

“Miserable situation. This morning’s not much better. I’m on my way to find the social worker—” Kate nodded toward the trauma room—“for our near drowning. A teenager from a homeless camp. They rescued her from a flooded creek.”

“I heard.” Lauren’s lips hinted at an incongruous smile. “From your rescue man.”

“My . . .” Kate tried to deny the sudden quiver. “You mean Wes?”

“You have more than one?” Lauren teased, hitching her thumb over her shoulder. “He’s nursing a cup of scalding coffee in the ambulance bay. And he’s drenched. Someone should put plastic caution cones around that man.”

“I’ll see about that,” Kate told her, hoping her face didn’t look as pink as it suddenly felt. Caution cones? She smiled. It was too late for that.

-  +  -

“Will you mention it again, please?” Judith peered through a narrow opening in the window separating the waiting room from the emergency department registration office. She wanted to be sure Beverly understood the seriousness of the situation.

The clerk stared back at her, holding a phone receiver protectively against her shoulder. Likely a personal conversation Judith had interrupted. They were all too frequent.

“I’m certain the triage nurse would want to know that Mr. Beck has begun to perspire,” Judith explained. The sixty-year-old truck driver’s face had gone suddenly pale, maybe even gray. Something was definitely wrong. Judith searched for the word she’d seen in
her Internet medical research. “Tell the triage nurse that Mr. Beck has become . . . diaphoretic.”

Beverly frowned. “I get it. He’s sweating. I’ll check the thermostat. People complain it’s cold. Then it’s too hot. This humidity is making things all wonky. All I can do is—”

“No. Wait,” Judith insisted. “That’s not what I meant, Beverly. He’s not sweating because it’s hot in here. He’s sicker.”

The clerk leaned toward the window, stared into the waiting room. “Is he having chest pains? It doesn’t say chest pains on his admission note.”

Judith was tempted beyond reason to lie. “Not exactly. He told the nurse it’s his gallbladder. He ate chile rellenos last night. He knew it was a bad idea. But some people can’t tell the difference between indigestion and cardiac pain. And with this sudden heavy sweating, I think—”

“Sure. I understand, hon.” Beverly’s patronizing smile pointed to an essential truth: Judith was a volunteer. Her role was to fetch coffee, direct patients to the restrooms, work puzzles with the children. And push wheelchairs . . . with careful supervision. Medical diagnosis was not part of the deal. “I’ll tell the triage nurse what you said.”

“When?” Judith jutted her jaw and felt her angel earrings rally. “How long will Mr. Beck have to wait? It’s been close to forty minutes now.”

The clerk’s smile vanished. She held up a finger, whispered something into the phone, and disconnected. “The nurses in the back are busy with that girl who almost drowned. That is a priority. Meaning they probably won’t have time for Mr. Beck right now.” The barely tolerant smile returned. “But as soon as the triage
nurse is finished with the baby she’s seeing now, I’ll tell her that Mr. Beck’s gallbladder situation is worse. No worries, hon.”

Judith bit her lip, made herself nod patiently despite rising anger.

No worries? It was Beverly who should worry. That woman was sadly mistaken if she believed Judith would put a patient at risk so she could resume her personal phone call. And nibble on that warehouse-size bag of cheese puffs she kept in the desk drawer. Judith would do what was right. She’d check on Mr. Beck again and take whatever actions were necessary to—

Except that he was gone.

Judith stood at the vacant chair, her anxiety rising. “Where’s that man who was sitting next to you?” she asked the woman who’d injured her wrist in a fall at a grocery store. “Balding. Wearing a blue jacket with a trucking company logo. You were talking to him . . .”

“He went to the bathroom.” The woman pointed her ice pack toward the far hallway. “He looked like he was going to vomit.”

“How long’s he been gone?” Dread made Judith’s mouth dry.

“Quite a while. Poor man—he said something about bad Mexican food.”

Oh, please . . .

Judith jogged toward the hallway bathroom, heart pounding.

-  +  -

“You found me,” Wes told Kate, remembering that she’d used those exact words yesterday. The prelude to some very memorable minutes in the rain at Zilker Park. She had raindrops in her hair right now. His pulse quickened and he reminded himself that it
was completely inappropriate to pull her into his arms. “You must have seen Lauren.”

“Yes.” Kate stepped closer to the sheltered visitors’ bench, the Bambi eyes moving over his rescue attire: rain suit, boots, vest, radio. “She said you were drenched. I’d say she has accurate assessment skills.” A smile teased her lips, quickly replaced by a flicker of concern. “You went into the creek after that girl?”

“Climbed out on the fallen tree mostly. The swift-water team provided the real expertise. How’s Carly doing?”

“Awake, still confused. On BiPAP by now. We’ll know more when we see the blood gases. But . . .” Her eyes held Wes’s long enough to make his breath snag. “You got to her in time.”

“The team—”

“You saved her life, Wes.” Her fingers brushed his shoulder. It took all he had not to capture her hand, raise it to his lips.

He cleared his throat. “I’m glad we found Carly. She’s just a kid.”

“Social services will try to locate contacts, phone numbers—family.”

“That group she was with is familiar to PD. Transients.” Wes hesitated, knowing the impact the scenario must hold for Kate personally. “She’s probably . . .”

“A runaway.” Kate crossed her arms, rubbing the sleeves of her scrub jacket as if suddenly chilled. “The tech thought so.” She gazed at the continuing rain. “Lousy time to be on your own.”

“The year I was gone was a terrible time in my life.
”
Wes recalled the pain on Kate’s face when she shared that confidence. He hated to imagine what she’d endured.

“Are the counties anticipating more flooding and rescue calls?” She looked toward his truck parked nearby: tailgate still down, his twenty-four-hour pack, helmet, and the rest of his gear inside.

“The rain’s supposed to continue until tomorrow sometime. But lighter, I think.” Wes reminded himself to check the weather feed on his phone app. “Those west Texas cells are moving through. TV and radio stations are broadcasting the usual warnings about low-water crossings.”

“‘Turn around; don’t drown.’ I’ve seen the ads. And those videos. Scary.”

“You’d be surprised how many people take the risk anyway. Drive right into the water.”

Wes saw Kate flinch and knew she was thinking about his mother. He was glad she didn’t know the whole story.

“I suppose the greenbelt is flooding too.” Kate frowned. “There goes my jogging. Such as it was.”

“For a while probably. Reports say there’s at least one major sinkhole on the trail. Near the Zilker trailhead. And mudslides, trees down. Lots of debris. They brought bulldozers in during the break this morning, started some of the cleanup. The rest will have to wait a few days. Meanwhile it’s all behind barricades.”