Double Dose, page 26
(“Then let’s find him and make these bozos eat their words.”)
Daley laughed. “That’s the spirit! We just have to watch out for Sandoval. She’s got it in for me.”
(“She’s only doing her job, which is to protect the hospital, and she thinks you’re trying to pull a fast one on the patients. We simply have to change her mind.”)
“Then let’s get to it.”
Feigning supreme confidence, Daley stepped out and strode toward the emergency entrance where an ambulance was just pulling away.
(“I’m going to disappear so you don’t start talking out loud to me. Not exactly a confidence builder.”)
Good idea.
As the automatic doors slipped open to admit her, she was assaulted by a man’s piercing screams. Sounded like the horrors.
That ambulance must have brought him.
(“Should we?”)
Daley wondered about that. Who knew if they’d ever make it to Milton’s office before a security guard recognized her and ejected them? An opportunity had presented itself.
Let’s see if we can help.
She followed the screams to a curtained-off alcove where a middle-aged Hispanic man lay limp on a gurney, staring slack-jawed at the ceiling. Every few seconds he would tense and let loose a howl of terror. An IV ran into his left arm while a slightly younger Hispanic woman stood on his right side, tearfully clutching his hand. Daley moved opposite her.
“Los horrors!” she moaned. “Los horrors!”
“Marido?” Daley said, pulling off her left glove. Her Spanish was rudimentary at best but she knew a few words.
A nod. “Yes.”
She held up her golden hand. “May I touch him?”
The woman looked confused but said, “I guess so. Who are you?” Her English was undoubtedly better than Daley’s Spanish.
Daley grabbed his wrist. “Just trying to help.”
Okay, Pard. Do your thing.
He waited the necessary ten seconds or so to establish contact, then said, (“Going in.”)
And do not pop out of his chest.
She prayed Pard could work his magic in there. If not—
“Excuse me,” said a male nurse as he pushed through the curtains. “Are you a member of the family?”
Daley didn’t bother answering that—the briefest glance made it pretty obvious she was not.
“I’m here to help.”
“He’s got the horrors. I’m afraid there is no help for—”
The man screamed again, an agonizingly terrified sound, and Daley’s heart went to him and his devastated wife.
“Just let me hold his wrist for a minute, okay.”
The nurse’s eyes widened. “Hey, wait. You’re her, that phony. Get outa here right now!”
He started moving toward her but the wife grabbed his arm. “It’s okay. She’s not—”
“She not supposed to be anywhere near here, ma’am.”
Come on, Pard. Finish up. We’re busted.
And then Sandoval stormed in with two security guards behind her.
“It’s really you! When they told me they’d spotted you on the security cams I didn’t want to believe it, but it’s you!”
The nurse pulled Daley’s hand free.
(“Damn,”) Pard said. (“I haven’t finished.”)
Daley took a step back.
“Don’t you move!” Sandoval said, jabbing a finger at her. “I’m calling in police and—”
“What’s going on here?” the wife said. “He has the horrors.”
Sandoval turned on her. “Oh, no! Don’t start that with me!” Back to Daley. “Do you think we’re all idiots? You send a plant in here so you can pretend to cure him and expect us to buy it?”
“A plant?” the wife said, looking from Sandoval to Daley. “What does she mean?”
Sandoval grabbed the husband’s shoulder and shook him. “Okay, mister, you’ve got a good scream, I’ll grant you that—I heard you all the way down the hall—but we know you’re a fake, so you can cut the act.”
The wife stared at her. “Act?” she said as she came around the gurney and got in Sandoval’s face. “He collapsed and started screaming in front of our children and you call it an act?”
“That’s exactly what I’m calling it.” She pointed at Daley. “She hired you two to fake—”
The woman’s face twisted in rage. “Fake?”
She slapped Sandoval across the face with a resounding smack! Then followed it up with a barrage of punches.
As the guards tried to pull the woman off their CEO, Pard said, (“I think that’s our cue to exit.”)
But Daley was already easing around the far edge of the curtain. Once out of the alcove, she made a beeline for the hospital hallway and then quick-walked toward the hospital offices, pulling her glove back on as she moved just short of jog speed.
I think Doctor Milton’s office is right down this hall here…yep.
She stopped before the door labeled Alfred Milton, MD—Chief of Medicine, knocked, then pushed inside without waiting for a response.
Leave this to me. No interruptions or distractions, okay?
(“You have the floor.”)
A startled Dr. Milton looked up from his computer as she entered and shut the door behind her.
“Yes?” Then he frowned. “Wait…aren’t you—?”
“Yes. Daley. From yesterday.”
His expression turned angry as he rose behind his desk. “You’re not supposed to be here.”
“Not even if I’m here to cure horrors patients?”
“Especially not. As I recall, you told me yesterday you weren’t able to do that.”
“That was yesterday. Today is different.”
He reached for his desk phone. “I’m calling security.”
Daley raised a hand. “Wait. Listen to your gut.”
He frowned, his hand resting on the receiver. “Pardon?”
“Yesterday you said you knew in your gut I was somehow at the bottom of the cures. Give me a chance with one patient—any patient of your choosing, with you standing right beside me.”
She could see him wavering—at least he seemed to be—then he lifted the receiver.
“Sorry.”
“What have you got to lose, Doctor Milton?”
“How about my reputation and self-respect. You told me flat-out yesterday that you did not cure those three cases. Now you’re saying you did?”
She spread her hands. “It’s really, really complicated.”
“Fakery is fakery. Nothing complicated about that.”
“Think! If there’s a possibility—even the most remote possibility—that I can cure even one more, with no downside, how can you refuse?”
“No downside? There’s always a downside. Just what do your supposed ‘cures’ involve?”
She held up her left hand. “I remove this glove and wrap my fingers around the patient’s wrist.”
“A laying on of hands? That’s it?”
She nodded. “That’s it.”
“Hocus-pocus bullshit.”
“But no risk to anyone. Don’t you have an obligation to do everything you can for your patients? I repeat: you choose the patient and you stay right on top of me.”
He slammed the receiver down. “Okay, damn it. One patient, and I know just the one.”
Pard, who’d been standing off to the side, clapped his hands but they made no sound. (“Yes!”)
Daley opened the door and Milton followed her into the hall. “Stay close to me,” he said. “We may run into flack.”
They made it to the elevator without a problem, but then Sandoval and her two security guards rounded the corner. An angry red welt graced her left cheek.
“There she is!”
“She’s with me,” Milton said, “and we’re headed upstairs.”
“Oh, no. This one’s headed straight out the door where the police will—”
Milton took Daley’s upper arm and propelled her into the elevator, then turned and held up his hand.
“Your sphere is administration, I believe. This is a medical matter. You can wait down here until we’re done.”
The doors pincered closed, cutting off the CEO’s glare.
(“No love lost between those two.”)
I’ll say.
Milton turned to Daley. “It appears you have strange effects on people.”
“Oh?”
“Doctor Sandoval, for instance. Usually she’s just irritatingly officious, but you’ve managed to turn her into…” He hesitated.
“A harridan?”
“I wouldn’t go that far. And then there’s Doctor Stabler, a well-respected surgeon, who is convinced you’ve grown a new hand. And now me…I’m taking an admitted con artist up to see one of my patients.” He shook his head. “Bizarre.”
“Speaking of this patient…is there something special about her?”
“Amelia Horowitz…I will tell you only that she was one of our earliest horrors patients and I happen to know her personally.”
“Good. So there’s no chance she’s a plant.”
“Absolutely none.”
“Let’s just hope she’s light on her sedation.”
Milton frowned. “Oh. And why is that?”
“If she’s knocked out, how will you know whether or not my ‘hocus-pocus bullshit’ worked?”
His lips twisted. Suppressing a smile?
“I deal in science, Ms. Daley. I owe it to my patients to recommend only therapies that have been proven to work.”
“So you’re not into alternative medicine, I take it.”
“When ‘alternative’ precedes a therapy it means the therapy has not been proven to work. Once we know a therapy works, it stops being ‘alternative.’”
Pard had been leaning against the rear wall of the cab. (“I think I like this fellow.”)
Daley said, “Well, you’ve got to admit that what I’m about to do is alternative as all hell.”
“I do admit it. And I also admit that I’m desperate as all hell. I can’t see how a laying on of hands will do a damn bit of good, but primum non nocere—it will do no harm—so, for Amelia’s sake, I’m placing my rationality on hold and going with it.”
(“Yep. Definitely one of the good guys.”)
The elevator deposited them on the second floor and Dr. Milton led the way down the hall. Pard trailed along. Somewhere along the way he’d switched to surgical scrubs.
As Milton passed the nursing station he slowed and said, “When’s Amelia due for her next dose?”
The nurse checked a sheet. “Right about now.”
“Come with me and bring it along.”
They continued to the last room on the left where Milton stopped next to the window bed. A sixtyish woman lay propped on her side, out cold.
“Here’s your patient.”
The nurse said, “Her patient? But she’s—?”
“Yep,” Daley said as she pulled off her left glove. “The fraud. The con artist.”
(“A designation we hope to change,”) Pard said.
Let’s not waste any time.
Daley grabbed Amelia’s wrist. After the necessary pause, Pard dove in for the merge. Daley prayed he could still do this.
Milton said, “I’m holding off on Amelia’s sedation for now. But at the first sign of distress—which is inevitable, I’m afraid—I’ll have Nurse Ames here dose her. We won’t mention this in the chart. You simply visited the patient. And then I’ll deliver you to Doctor Sandoval.”
“Not an optimist, ay?” Daley said.
With every passing second she edged closer to pessimism herself. Pard seemed to be taking a long time. Or was it just her nerves?
“I consider myself a realist,” Milton said.
“Where’s the fun in that?”
This earned another hint of a smile.
Pard reappeared at last. (“Did it. At least I hope I did.”)
Hope?
(“I think it’ll work. I did what I could to clear some of the sedative from her system but she’ll be under for a little bit longer.”)
Daley released Amelia’s wrist. “There. Done.”
Milton blinked. “That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“She’s just the same as before,” Ames said. “You did nothing.”
Daley turned on her. “Thank you for stating the obvious. She’s still sedated. When that wears off, we’ll see.”
Ames said, “This is nonsense, Doctor Milton.”
He sighed. “Most certainly, yes.”
What’s taking so long?
(“The damn sedation…I hope.”)
Hope…that word again. Daley could feel her muscles bunching with tension. If they failed…
I can’t stand this. What do we do while we wait?
(“Well, she’s got a roommate. Let’s give her a try. If Amelia doesn’t come around, maybe this one will.”)
This was torture.
“And it isn’t right,” Ames was saying. “If Amelia gets too light and starts screaming…”
“I appreciate your concern, Ames, but if we’re going to give this a fair shot, we have—”
“Hey!” Ames cried. “Stay away from her!”
While those two were talking, Daley had slipped over to the wall bed and grabbed the much younger occupant’s wrist. As Ames rushed over, Daley held up her free hand to stop her.
“No harm being done,” she said as Pard slipped in for the merge.
Milton stepped to Ames’s side. “This wasn’t part of our deal, Ms. Daley.”
“Just putting the wait time to good use.”
“I think you’d better—”
“Alfred?” said a croaking voice. “Alfred, is that you?”
All eyes turned toward the window bed where Amelia was up on one elbow and looking around with a dazed expression.
“Oh, Alfred,” she sobbed. “It was awful, just awful!”
She’d come out of it. She was conscious!
A few feet away, the tray with the syringe that Ames had been holding clattered to the floor as she cried, “Oh, my God! Oh, my God!” and ran out of the room.
Weak with relief, Daley sagged against the wall bed. She felt like crying.
Milton rushed to the bed, saying, “Amelia! You’re back? Really back?”
Daley could have done a happy dance, but stayed in contact with the roommate because Pard was still merged.
Dr. Milton and Amelia threw their arms around each other and sobbed together.
Pard suddenly reappeared.
You did it!
(“So it would seem. Look at that clinch. Now that’s what I call a close doctor-patient relationship.”)
How’d you do with this gal?
(“Same as with Amelia—blocked the pathway. Give her some time.”)
Daley retreated to the side wall as Nurse Ames rushed back in with two other nurses and they crowded around Amelia’s bed with cries of wonder. Then the twenty-something in the wall bed rolled over. Her voice too was hoarse.
“What—what’s going on? And can I have some water?”
One of the new nurse arrivals squealed, “Kathy! Kathy, you’re awake?”
Kathy’s confused expression said she had no idea where she was.
Daley used the ensuing chaos to step out into the hall and gather herself.
Pard leaned against the wall by her side, grinning. (“Success! I’ve still got it!”) He held up a hand. (“Slap me five!”)
I don’t high five.
(“All humans high five.”)
Not this one. Only pitiful, needy souls in constant search of affirmation. And that’s not even a real hand.
He kept his hand up. (“You gonna leave me hanging, babe?”)
Babe?
He brought it down to thigh level. (“Low five then?”)
If you insist.
She jabbed her index finger at the center of his palm. Of course, her finger went straight through.
(“A one?”)
That’s as far as I go.
(“What’s bothering you?”)
I’m thinking we just put an end to the life we used to live.
(“Yeah, I’m afraid so. Now we’ve got to figure out a way to adjust and make the best of the new one. But the important thing is we did it!”)
You did it.
(“I’m useless without you. We’re a team, Daley. Never forget that.”)
Nurse Ames stepped out of the room and approached Daley as if walking barefoot on broken glass.
“Ms. Daley,” she said in a small voice, “I…I don’t know what you did or how you did it, but this…this is a miracle and I just want to apologize for, you know, doubting you.”
Daley shook her head. “Please don’t apologize. You were only looking out for your patients, which is exactly what a good nurse should do.”
“Doctor Milton’s such a good man and you brought his sister back. He thought she was lost forever.”
“Amelia is his sister? He never let on.”
(“I guess that explains the warm embrace.”)
As if he’d heard his name, Dr. Milton appeared at the door to the room and stared at Daley with damp eyes and a dumbfounded expression.
“How?” he said in a hushed tone. “How did you do this?”
What do I say?
(“Not the truth—he’ll never believe the truth. Make up something close to the truth.”)
He won’t believe that either.
(“Who cares? We’re not here to create believers, we’re here to kick the horrors’ ass.”)
You have such a way with words.
(“I’ve had a great teacher. Oh, yeah, and don’t forget: We’re also here to find out where the horrors comes from.”)
Daley looked from Milton to Ames and said, “Do you really want to hear this?”
They both nodded, and Milton said, “Desperately.”
Recalling—though not fully understanding—what Pard had told her, she said, “The horrors victims have a neural pathway running from their pineal gland directly to the amygdala. The horrors feeds through the pineal gland and travels along that pathway to the fear center in the amygdala.”
Milton frowned. “‘Feeds’ from where?”
