David looked up and caught Jenkins's hard stare. 'I'm sorry,' he repeated.
'Listen, Doctor, I need to know right now where my sister is.'
Seventeen years in the ER had left David not unfamiliar with how to deal with hard-ass LAPD cops. He forced a curt smile. 'Nancy's in Trauma Twelve. I'll be happy to take you back to see her once I check on her, make sure a visitor won't interfere with the doctors and nurses who are still treating her. I'm sure you don't want to do anything to endanger her.'
Jenkins's nostrils flared slightly. David debated asking him to step out through the swinging doors to Admit but decided not to fight that battle.
David backed up and pointed Carson toward the Central Work Area, saying in a low voice, 'Get a female nurse over to keep an eye on Mr. Jenkins, please, and ensure he stays put.' Jenkins was aggressive and upset-a woman would more likely calm him down, and he probably wouldn't pick a fight with her. 'And I heard we've had some press milling around triage. Have security clear them out.'
David passed through the CWA, dodging nurses, and ducked into Trauma Room Twelve. Nancy's body lay bare on the gurney, pale except for the red blisters on her face and throat. She was still unconscious, the ventilator pushing air into her lungs. Two nurses continued to irrigate her face and eyes.
A young nurse sat on a chair in the corner, sobbing, her yellow hair falling over her face in thick, yarnlike clumps. She was new to the ER, but David recognized her: one of Nancy's college roommates whom she'd recruited to the Division. In fact, he recognized the faded Aztec-print scrub top that was shaking with her sobs as one of Nancy's.
Pat crouched in front of her, rubbing her upper arm in tight ovals. A lapse in her usual truck-driver toughness.
David pulled a sheet up over Nancy's body, to just below the wounds on her upper chest. Her arm rested atop the sheet, and David noticed the band of pale skin around her ring finger. She'd caused something of a paperwork mess a few months ago when she'd changed back to her maiden name on all employee files.
The younger nurse continued to cry. David crossed to her and leaned over so he could see her name tag. 'Jill,' he said softly. 'I know this is very hard for you, but I'm going to have to ask you to head back to the doctors' lounge. We have some family coming in. Her brother.'
Jill stood unsteadily, her thick locks damp and sticking to her wide freckled cheeks. David touched her arm reassuringly. Pat led her out, passing Diane as she entered.
'I see you got someone from head and neck to revise the crich to a formal tracheostomy,' David said. 'Nice call.'
Diane nodded. 'Monkey see, monkey do.'
A grin touched David's lips. 'How flattering.'
'We're getting ready to move her to the ICU. Woods is eager to scope her.'
'I'm bringing Nancy's brother back to take a look. He's LAPD.' David stepped closer to Diane and lowered his voice. 'A real hard-on. Brace yourself.'
Diane sighed, blowing her bangs up in a puff. Her cheeks were flushed, accenting the icy tint of her green eyes. She beckoned with both hands. 'Bring it on.'
David went to find Jenkins. It wasn't hard. He hadn't budged. He stood dead center in the hallway, thick arms crossed over his chest, making patients and personnel swerve to go around him. With a small nod, David gestured for him to follow back to the room.
When Jenkins saw his sister's body lying supine on the gurney, some of the protective cruelty washed from his face, and David caught a glimpse of his features unflexed and more softly arrayed. It was easy to forget how young Jenkins was, but in the split second before his veteran's toughness snapped up the slack in his face, David saw the pain striking his youthful core.
Jenkins shuffled forward, lips trembling as he viewed his sister's face. David rested a hand on his shoulder. Jenkins's cheeks colored in twinning ovals, though the rest of his face drained of color. An eerie effect. He raised a fist and coughed into it. 'What is this?'
'She sustained a bad alkali exposure to the face,' Diane said. 'But she will survive.'
Nancy's head was still cocked back in the sniffing position, the clear plastic tube running into the hole in her neck. A milky white eye gazed out blankly from between swollen lids.
Jenkins's hands fisted, then relaxed. 'Sustained,' he muttered. 'Why are her… why are her eyes all screwed up? Is she blind?'
'I'm afraid she probably is,' Diane said. 'When she comes to, she'll be able to distinguish light from dark, but that's about it. She'll also have uveitis, which will cause extreme photophobia.'
'She'll be sensitive to light,' David said. 'It'll hurt her eyes.' He saw Diane's chin dip ever so slightly and knew she was scolding herself for not speaking to Jenkins in nonmedical terms.
'Once the inflammation stops,' Diane said, 'she might be able to have a corneal transplant. If she does, her sight could recover up to ninety percent.'
'How long does that take? For the inflammation to stop?'
'Could be weeks, could be months. But we have a top ophthalmologist, Dr. Jenn-'
'What do you do in the meantime?'
'Keep irrigating, for now. We want to minimize the chance of scar tissue causing adhesions between the eyeballs and the eyelids.'
'The eyelids,' Jenkins repeated dumbly. Some color was returning to his lips, but his eyes retained their glassy sheen.
He reached a hand toward Nancy's forehead; it hovered above the raw, weeping skin. He bit his lip hard, fighting a tremor into submission. 'Why's she…?' His finger traced a path around the tube running through her trachea.
'She ingested some alkali, which caused her throat to swell,' Diane said. 'That's why we had to intubate her. We've already had an excellent gastroenterologist down here-he's going to scope her right now so he can figure out how much damage her esophagus sustained. It may have been badly compromised.'
'In which case…?' Jenkins's face was hardening again, the skin drawing tight across his high cheekbones.
'In which case it'll have to be removed and replaced. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.'
The two nurses worked industriously with their saline bottles. Nancy's limp body shone with moisture from her scalp to the line of her breasts.
'How about the scars? On her face?'
Diane took a deep breath. 'We'll get her into plastics and see about-' The intensity in Jenkins's eyes stopped her midsentence. She looked down, studying the tip of her sneaker that protruded beneath the wide cuff of her scrub pants. 'It'll scar,' she finally said.
Rage erupted through Jenkins's entire body at once. He turned and backhanded a loose IV pole. The force of his swat sent it flying back into a supplies cabinet, where it cracked the thick glass. One of the nurses emitted a little yelp, and the other dropped her saline bottle, which rolled back and forth on the floor in an oscillating arc.
Just as quickly as it had come, Jenkins's rage dissipated. He stood slightly hunched, shoulders rolled forward, breath hammering through his nostrils.
Diane caught David's eye and mouthed, Security? He shook his head.
Jenkins's breathing evened out. 'I'm sorry,' he said, to no one in particular.
David calmly walked over, picked up the dropped saline bottle, and handed it back to the nurse with a reassuring nod. Cautiously, the nurses went back to work on Nancy.
'Alkali,' Jenkins said. 'That's the same as lye, isn't it?'
'Yes,' David said.
'I don't understand. I've spilled that stuff on my hand before. Burns a little, but it doesn't… ' His voice trailed off as he regarded his sister.
'If it's washed off quickly, the damage can be dramatically reduced. But if it's left on, it's terribly corrosive. It's especially harsh on the soft tissue of the throat and eyes.' David stepped around into Jenkins's line of sight. 'We'll continue to do all that we can.'
'Thank you.' Jenkins touched a fist to his mouth. 'Who's working the case?'
'Two UCLA PD detectives,' David said.
