'No. She hasn't even come out of the room.'
'Good. Make sure she stays there. And absolutely no visitors. That includes all medical personnel, except for the ones I specify in my orders.'
'Yes, Dr. Wettig.'
Wendy hung up and stared at her desk. During that call, three more flagged charts had been deposited there. Damn. She'd be taking off order sheets all evening. Suddenly she felt dizzy from hunger. She still hadn't had lunch, hadn't even had a break in hours.
She glanced around, and saw two LPN's chatting in the hallway. Was she the only person working her butt off here?
She tore off the order for the blood alcohol level and deposited it in the lab tech's box. As she rose from the desk, the phone began to ring. She ignored it; after all, that's what ward clerks were for.
She walked away to the sound of two lines jangling. For once, someone else could answer the damn phone.
The vampire was back, carrying her tray of blood tubes and lab slips and needles. 'I'm sorry, Dr. DiMatteo. But I need to stick you again.'
Abby, standing at the window, merely glanced at the phlebotomist. Then she turned back to the view. 'This hospital's sucked all the blood I have to give,' she said, and stared at the dreary view beyond the window. In the parking lot below, nurses scurried for the hospital doors, hair flying, raincoats flapping in the wind. In the east, clouds had gathered, black and threatening. Will the skies never clear? wondered Abby.
Behind her came the clatter of glass tubes. 'Doctor, I really do have to get this blood.'
'I don't need any more tests.'
'But Dr. Wettig ordered it.'The phlebotomist added, with a quiet note of desperation, 'Please don't make things hard for me.'
Abby turned and looked at the woman. She seemed very young. Abby was reminded of herself at some long-ago time. A time when she, too, was terrified of Wettig, of doing the wrong thing, of losing all she'd worked for. She was afraid of none of these things now. But this woman was.
Sighing, Abby went to the bed and sat down.
The phlebotomist set her blood tray on the bedside table and began opening sterile packets containing gauze, a disposable needle and a Vacutainer syringe. Judging by the number of filled blood tubes in her tray, she had already gone through the motions dozens of times today. There were only a few empty slots remaining. 'OK, which arm would you prefer?'
Abby held out her left arm and watched impassively as the rubber tourniquet was tucked into place with a snap. She made a fist. The antecubital vein swelled into view, bruised by all the earlier vein punctures. As the needle pierced her skin, Abby turned away. She looked, instead, at the phlebotomist's tray, at all the neatly labelled tubes of blood. A vampire's candy box.
Suddenly she focused on one specimen in particular, a purple-topped tube with the label facing towards her. She stared at the name.
VOSS, NINA
SICU BED
'There we go,' said the vampire, withdrawing the needle. 'Can you hold that gauze in place?'
Abby looked up. 'What?'
'Hold the gauze while I get you a Bandaid.'
Automatically Abby pressed the gauze to her arm. She looked back at the tube containing Nina Voss's blood. The attending physician's name was just visible, at the corner of the label. Dr. Archer.
Nina Voss is back in the hospital, thought Abby. Back on cardiothoracic service.
The phlebotomist left.
Abby paced over to the window and stared out at the darkening clouds. Scraps of paper were flying around the parking lot. The window rattled, buffeted by a fresh gust of wind.
Something has gone wrong with the new heart.
She should have realized that days ago, when they'd met in the limousine. She remembered Nina's appearance in the gloom of the car. The pale face, the bluish tinge of her lips. Even then, her transplant was already failing.
HARVEST
Abby went to the closet. There she found a bulging plastic bag labelled: Patient Belongings. It contained her shoes, her bloodstained slacks, and her purse. Her wallet was missing; it was probably locked up in the hospital safe. A thorough search of the purse turned up a few loose nickels and dimes in the bottom. She would need every last one.
She zipped on the slacks, tucked in her hospital gown top, and stepped into the shoes. Then she went to the door and peeked out.
Nurse Soriano wasn't at the desk. However, two other nurses were in the station, one talking on the phone, another bent over paperwork. Neither was looking in Abby's direction.
She glanced down the hall and saw the cart with the evening meal trays come rattling into the ward, pushed by an elderly volunteer in pink. The cart came to a stop in front of the nurses' desk. The volunteer pulled out two meal trays and carried them into a nearby patient room.
That's when Abby slipped out into the hall. The meal cart blocked the nurses' view as Abby walked calmly past their desk and out of the ward.
She couldn't risk being spotted on the elevators; she headed straight for the stairwell.
Six flights up she emerged on the twelfth floor. Straight ahead was the OR wing; around the corner was the SICU. From the linen cart in the OR hallway, she picked up a surgical gown, a flowered cap, and shoe covers. Completely garbed in blue like everyone else, she just might pass unnoticed.
She turned the corner and walked into the SICU.
Inside she found chaos. The patient in Bed 2 was coding. Judging by the tensely staccato voices and by all the personnel frantically pressing into the cubicle, the resuscitation was not going well. No one even glanced inAbby's direction as she walked past the monitor station and crossed to Cubicle 8.
She paused outside the viewing window just long enough to confirm that it was, indeed, NinaVoss in the bed. Then she pushed into the cubicle. The door swung shut behind her, muffling the voices of the code team. She pulled the curtains over the window, to shut off all view of the room, and turned to the bed.
Nina was sleeping, serenely unaware of the frantic activity going on beyond her closed door. She seemed to have shrunk since Abby had last seen her, like a candle slowly being consumed by the flame of her illness. The body beneath those sheets looked as small as a child's.
Abby picked up the nurses' clipboard hanging at the foot of the bed. In a glance she took in all the parameters recorded there. The rising pulmonary wedge pressure. The slowly falling cardiac output. The upward titration of dobutamine in a futile attempt to boost cardiac performance.
Abby hung the clipboard back on the hook. As she straightened, she saw that Nina's eyes were open and staring at her.
'Hello, Mrs Voss,' said Abby.
Nina smiled and murmured, 'It's the doctor who always tells the truth.'
'How are you feeling?'
'Content.' Nina sighed. 'I am content.'
Abby moved to her bedside. They looked at each other, neither one speaking.
Then Nina said, 'You don't have to tell me. I already know.'
'Know what, Mrs Voss?'
'That it's almost over.' Nina closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
Abby took the other woman's hand. 'I never got the chance to thank you. For trying to help me.'
'It was Victor I was trying to help.'
'I don't understand.'
'He's like that man in the Greek myth. The one who went into Hades to bring back his wife.'
'Orpheus.'
'Yes. Victor is like Orpheus. He wants to bring me back. He doesn't care what it takes. What it costs.' She
