Annie stood on her toes to get a peek. Steele jogged beside the stretcher. A paramedic, standing on the bottom rail of the stretcher, leaned over Brad’s face as they rushed the stretcher to the trauma room.
Annie and Sadie tried to follow the paramedics, but a blue line formed in front of them. The cops weren’t letting anyone past.
“Damn,” Sadie said.
Annie took her by the hand. “Come with me.” Annie led Sadie past the triage desk and down a hall. She made a right turn toward X-ray and then stopped at a door on the right.
“Now what?” Sadie asked.
“We wait.”
“For what?”
Annie raised her eyebrows. “You’ll see.”
Thirty seconds later, the door burst open and an orderly rushed out. Annie stuck her foot in the doorway before the door closed and pulled it open.
“Let’s go.”
They entered the back of the emergency department where three trauma beds were located. All the activity was in the bed farthest from them. They inched their way over and slipped behind the paramedics. Nurses, doctors, and techs surrounded the hospital bed. A nurse stepped away from the foot of the bed, giving Annie and Sadie their first view of Brad. They reached for each other at the same time and staggered back to the wall.
Aside from a tiny sheet across his groin, Brad was naked. IV lines ran from bags on hooks to both arms. Cardiac monitor leads crossed his chest. A nurse was taking his blood pressure. But the most terrifying sight was the tube that went into the middle of his throat. A lady in red scrubs was using a bag device to breathe for Brad.
Annie’s vision blurred, and she slid down the wall. “Oh, god.”
Annie heard the whispered voices first, then her eyes focused. She was in a chair in a small room, had a cold towel on her forehead, and a blanket across her body. “Where … what happened?”
“You fainted.”
Annie squinted and searched for the voice. “Oh god, Sadie. Really?”
Sadie patted her hand. “Don’t worry about it. You just beat me to it.”
“You’re getting your color back.” Annie glanced toward a paramedic she didn’t recognize.
“Jill Cook.”
Annie nodded. “Brad talked about you.”
Sadie’s head swung quickly to Annie, then Jill.
“My partner and I treated Brad … Detective Coulter.”
Footsteps thudded down the hall toward them. “Are you okay?” Zerr knelt next to her, a hand on her arm.
“I’m fine. Just embarrassed.”
Zerr glanced from Sadie to Jill.
“Just syncopal episode,” Jill said.
“What?” Sadie and Zerr said.
“I fainted.” Annie straightened in the chair and swiped the cloth off her forehead. “How is he?”
Cook frowned. “Until they—”
Annie held up her hand. “No mumble-jumble bullshit. I don’t give a shit about tests hours from now. I want to know how he is. You’re a fuckin’ paramedic, so tell me what you know.”
Cook nodded. “He’s had the shit beaten out of him. His nose is broken. His jaw is broken. He has contusions to his head. So, likely concussion. Tests”—she held up her hand—“will tell us the extent of the brain injury. He has electrical burns to his chest, back and stomach. His wrists have friction burns, likely from ropes and a lot of cuts. That’s just the stuff we can see.”
“You forgot to mention the tube in his neck,” Sadie said.
“Right.” Cook chewed her bottom lip. She took a deep breath and exhaled. “With his broken nose and jaw, he wasn’t able to breathe well. I couldn’t clear the blood from his nose and with the broken jaw, I couldn’t put a tube into his lungs through either his nose or mouth. His heart rate was tachycardic, likely because he wasn’t getting enough oxygen. I had to cut into his trachea—his windpipe—and slide a tube in.”
“Was he without oxygen for a long time?” Annie asked.
“We don’t know. That’s what—”
“The tests will show,” Sadie said.
Cook held out a hand. “Do you want to go see him?”
Chapter Seventy-Six
Three Days Later
After two days in intensive care, Brad had been moved to a regular hospital room. Dull green walls, single window, TV mounted on the wall, hospital bed and nightstand. Flowers lined the shelf under the window with a view of downtown. In the space under the flowers, dozens of cards were lined up.
A portable tray table on wheels was next to the bed with a Styrofoam cup of iced water and a box of tissue. Zerr acquired two chairs from the waiting area and carried them to Brad’s hospital room, past the scrutinizing charge nurse’s eyes. He sat with Steele in two of the chairs in a semi-circle around the bed.
For two days, they met outside intensive care and watched Brad until Annie or Briscoe or someone else came.
Physically, the last hours of pursuing Toscana hadn’t been that difficult. Heck, they trained harder most days. But emotionally, it was draining. It was always that way at the end of a challenging incident. Just that this one had gone on for days. Overall, it had been successful—if killing Toscana meant success. The entire department was reeling from her betrayal. Processing the shock, Toscana was a murderer. Someone they’d worked with, trusted as a partner, respected colleague, who was dead.
This was the second time he’d been in the hospital waiting for Brad to recover. For Steele, it was the third. He wondered what they needed to do differently. Maybe latch on to Brad with short ropes. Once he was out of their sight, they could reel him back.
On his own, Brad got into trouble, significant trouble, and it typically ended with Brad in the hospital, then taking time to rehabilitate. Sleep had been difficult to get the past two nights.
Steele was just as exhausted. He could barely keep his eyes open, and his head bobbed. They passed a box of chocolates meant for Brad back and forth between them.
“I like the fancy locally made ones,” Steele said.
“La-de-da,” Zerr said. “Aren’t you the chocolate snob.”
Jackson wandered in with
