Damon stood the big boy up in the claw-foot tub.
Ali blinked and sprayed out a mouthful of water, his eyes gleaming from the game.
'I'm swimming!' he declared.
'Not yet you're not,' Jannie said, all business. 'But you're definitely getting there, little bro.'
She and Damon were practically as soaked as he was, but no one seemed to care. It was a blast. Jannie was kneeling right in a puddle, while Damon stood up and gave me a conspiratorial oldest-child look that said, Aren't they crazy?
When the phone rang, they both sprang for the door. 'I'll get it!' they chorused.
' I'll get it,' I said, cutting them off at the pass. 'You're both sopping wet. No swimming until I get back.'
'Come on, Ali,' I heard as I started out of the bathroom. 'Let's wash your hair.'
The girl was a genius.
I trotted down the hall to catch the phone before the machine picked up. 'Cross family YMCA,' I said, loud enough for the kids' benefit.
Chapter 74
'IS THIS ALEX CROSS?'
'Yes?' I said. I didn't recognize the voice on the line though. Just that it was a woman.
'It's Annie Falk.'
'Annie,' I said, embarrassed now. 'Hi, how are you?'
We were acquaintances, not quite friends. Her son was one or maybe two grades ahead of Damon. Annie was an ER doc at St. Anthony's.
'Alex, I'm at the hospital -'
I suddenly made a connection, and my heart skipped the next beat. 'Is Nana there?'
'It's not Nana,' she said. 'I didn't know who else to call. Kayla Coles was just admitted to St. Anthony's. She's here in the ER.'
'Kayla?' I said, my voice rising. 'What's going on? Is she okay?'
'I don't know, Alex. We don't know enough yet. It's not a good situation though.'
That wasn't the answer I expected, or the one I wanted to hear.
'Annie, what happened? Can you tell me that much?'
'It's hard to know exactly. What's certain is that someone attacked Kayla.'
'Who?' I practically shouted into the phone, feeling horrible, as though I already knew the answer to my own question.
Damon stepped halfway into the hall and stared at me, his eyes wide and scared. It was a look I'd seen far too many times in our house.
'All I can tell you is that she was stabbed with a knife. Twice, Alex. She's alive.'
Stabbed? My mind screamed the word, but I held it in. I swallowed hard. But she's alive.
'Alex, I'm not supposed to talk about this over the phone. You should get down here to the hospital as soon as you can. Can you come right now?'
'I'm on my way.'
Chapter 75
NANA WAS STILL AT HER CLASS, but it only took a couple of minutes for me to get Naomi Harris from next door over to stay with the kids. I jumped into my car and sped the whole way. A siren would have helped.
The drive to the hospital was fast; that's all I really remember about it, and that Kayla was on my mind the whole way. When I pulled up outside the emergency room, her car was parked under the canopy by the entrance.
The driver's door hung open, and as I ran past and looked inside, I saw blood on the front seat. Jesus, she drove herself here! Somehow, she got away from him.
The waiting room was crowded, as it always is at St. Anthony's. There was a line of forlorn, raggedy-looking people at the front desk. The walking wounded and their friends and relations. Maria had been pronounced dead here.
'Sir, you can't -'
But I was already sliding through the doors to the treatment area before they could close. Once inside, I saw it was another very busy night at St. Tony's. Paramedics were wheeling gurneys; doctors, nurses, and patients crisscrossed every which way around me.
A young male lay on a cot with a gash in his hairline, leaking blood onto his forehead. 'Am I gonna die?' he kept asking everybody who passed.
'No, you'll be fine,' I told him, since nobody else was stopping to talk to him. 'You're all right, son.'
Where was Kayla, though? Everything was moving way too fast. I couldn't find anyone to ask about her. Then I heard a voice call out my name.
'Alex, over here!'
Annie was waving to me from down the hall. When I reached her, she took my arm and ushered me into a trauma room – a bay with two beds partitioned by a green plastic curtain.
Several medical personnel stood in a horseshoe around the bed. Their hands were moving quickly, many of them in bloodstained gloves.
Other hospital people came and went, pushing past me as if I weren't even there.
That meant Kayla was alive. I assumed that the goal here would be to stabilize her if possible, then get her to the operating room.
I craned my neck to see as much as I could, and then I saw Kayla. She had a mask over her mouth and nose. Someone was just lifting a red-soaked compress from her belly where they had already cut her shirt away.
The head physician, a woman in her thirties, said, 'Stab wound, abdomen, questionable spleen injury.'
Other voices in the room blended together, and I tried to make sense of them as best I could, but everything was turning foggy on me.
'BP seventy, pulse one twenty. Respiration thirty-four.'
'Give me some suction here, please.'
'Is she okay?' I blurted out. I felt like I was in a nightmare where no one could hear me.
'Alex – ' Annie's hand was on my shoulder. 'You need to give them some room. We don't know very much yet. As soon as we do, I'll tell you.'
I realized I'd been pushing forward to get closer to the bed, to Kayla. My God, I ached for her and was finding it hard to breathe.
'Call the seventh floor, tell them we're ready,' said the woman doctor who seemed in charge of everyone else in the room. 'She has a surgical belly.'
Annie whispered to me, 'That means the stomach's hard, no digestion going on.'
'Let's go. Hurry up, people.'
I was being pushed from behind, and not with any kindness. 'Move, sir. You have to move out of the way. This patient is in trouble. She could die.'
I stepped sideways to make room as they wheeled her gurney into the corridor. Kayla's eyes were still closed. Did she know I was there? Or who had done this to her? I followed the procession as near as I could get. Then just as quickly as they had done everything else, they loaded her onto an elevator, and the metal doors slid shut between us.
Annie was right there at my side. She gestured toward another elevator bank. 'I can take you to the waiting room upstairs if you want. Believe me, everybody's doing the best they can. They know Kayla's a doctor. And everybody knows she's a saint.'
