Page 6 of What Doesn't Kill Her

With an air of efficient competence, Dr. Brundage helped transfer Kellen off the stretcher and onto the table beneath the overhead light. She cut the jeans off Kellen’s hip. “How’d you do it?”

The adrenaline that had kept Kellen going through the rescue attempt had faded, and she couldn’t come close to meeting the doctor’s enthusiasm. “Tile fell off the roof. Broke. Got me.”

“I’ll say!” The doctor glanced up. “Max, this happen at your place?”

“Yes.” He stood in the door, looking visibly displeased.

“You taking care of the insurance?”

“Yes.”

“Great. Don’t worry about it. Shouldn’t cost you too much. Unless she decides to sue.” Dr. Brundage peered at Kellen. “She doesn’t look like the type.”

“I won’t sue,” Kellen said.

“There you go, Max. Now go fill out the forms so I can work on my patient.”

“Right,” Max snapped back and headed toward the waiting room.

He didn’t even ask Kellen how she was feeling. She guessed right now he considered her more trouble than she was worth. “Maybe that’s true, but I did save the guy’s life.” She blinked at the doctor’s face. “Know what I mean?”

“Not really, but I am glad you saved someone’s life.” Dr. Brundage’s voice changed. “Hi, Rae, how are you? Any more trouble with shutting your finger in the car door?”

Rae’s high piping seven-year-old voice said, “I only shut my finger in once. It hurt. I won’t do it again.”

“Max needs to take her with him,” Kellen said.

“She’s fine,” Dr. Brundage assured her. “We’re good friends. Aren’t we, Rae?”

Kellen heard the sound of a stool scraping across the linoleum toward her.

“I like you except when you stick me with needles.” Rae’s voice got closer. She was the stool scraper. “Know what? I climbed the ladder all the way to the top, just like my mommy.”

In a normal voice, Dr. Brundage said to Kellen, “This is going to hurt a little,” and plunged a hypodermic needle about the size of a Craftsman screwdriver into her hip. In a return to that cajoling kid-talk voice, Dr. Brundage asked Rae, “Who’s your mommy?”

“She is!”

Kellen didn’t have to look to know Rae was pointing at the examining table.

Dr. Brundage’s voice changed to sharply inquisitive. “This is your mommy?”

“It’s a long story,” Kellen said. “Not interesting at all.”

“I beg to differ!” Kellen suspected Dr. Brundage always said what she thought.

Out in the corridor, they heard a scuffle: shouting and swearing. “What’s going on out there?” Dr. Brundage asked.

“Roderick Blake has arrived,” Kellen said.

“My mommy saved that man’s life,” Rae confided.

“Did she? Sounds like he didn’t appreciate it,” Dr. Brundage said.

Impatient voices murmured around Roderick’s wildly abusive language.

“We love getting those kinds of guys into Emergency.” Dr. Brundage looked closely at Kellen. “How’s your pain on a level from one to ten?”

“About eight. Seven. Six...” Kellen’s voice slurred as her grip on reality slipped. “What did you give me?”

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