Page 33 of Legacy of Danger
Thirty minutes later, a booming male voice echoed down the hall. "We need some help in here—now!"
Mariah leapt from her seat in the work area and ran down the hall. Before she registered that it was Vaughn who had called out, she was in Eric Patterson's room.
She froze.
Eric was awake. Despite the dark purple bruises and cuts covering most of his face, he appeared exceptionally lucid as he gestured toward a motionless Shelby, who was slumped forward, half out of her wheelchair and half lying on the hospital bed.
Garrison and Vaughn sported wide-eyed expressions of disbelief. But something about the way they stared at each other didn't seem right at all. What the heck?
No time to figure them out. A nurse and a respiratory tech ran into the room.
"Get more help," Mariah said, circling the bed and easing Shelby's slack body back into the wheelchair, keeping her neck in line and protecting the airway. Vaughn rushed to help. "She's breathing." With pressure of her fingers on Shelby's carotid, Mariah held her breath for six seconds, counted, and multiplied by ten. "Heart rate one hundred." Glancing up at the respiratory tech, she asked, "Could you put a pulse ox on her? And get a set of vitals."
Damn it, she needed to figure out why Shelby had suddenly gone unconscious, several days after the initial injury.
She froze.
Only one medical condition she knew of could cause this pattern: subdural hematoma. Mariah's pulse thundered in her ears. The timing didn't fit, but she had no other explanation. And if a brain bleed had occurred, time was slipping away for Shelby. After a window of lucidity, a patient with a subdural would become unconscious again, followed quickly by death. If it was a subdural. If.
Sweat broke out on her upper lip.
"Call radiology and clear the CT scanner,stat," she called out to the ward clerk standing at the door. "We're taking Ms. Taggart down for a head scan now."
"Shelby?" Eric called in a hoarse, dry voice. He reached out, his face contorted into a rictus of pain and horror that chilled Mariah's blood.
"What happened?" she asked.
The three men in the room looked at each other. Silence. Shrugs. Not exactly guilty, but they knewsomething.
Staff wheeled a gurney into the room, and they eased Shelby onto it. Vaughn stepped back next to Garrison at the edge of the room. As Mariah followed the bed down the hall, she heard the rise of angry male voices flowing out of Eric's room.
No time now. She'd sort that mess out and re-evaluate Eric in a few minutes.
As the bed rolled, she asked, "Are her oxygen levels okay?" The respiratory tech nodded. "Good enough. Can you grab portable oxygen and meet us in radiology?" He ran off to get the supplies.
As Mariah took over pushing the bed while a nurse pulled at the foot of the bed. To maneuver a corner, Mariah yanked on the heavy, unwieldy gurney, leaning against the handles to turn the piece of equipment. The sudden presence of a warm body behind her made her jump. Vaughn covered her hands with his big ones.
"Let me. It's my sister. I can help." Gone was the pissy giant from half an hour ago. In his place, this serious rock of a man exuded competence.
And judging by his posture, God help anyone who got in his way.
At this point, she'd take any reasonable assistance, even from a guy whose behavior whiplashed between flirty and hostile. She ducked out from under his arms.
Dashing to the elevator, she held the door while he and the nurse maneuvered the bed through the doors. Squeezing in next to him, she pushed the down button. Vaughn's hip pressed against hers in the cramped space between bed railing and elevator wall. The guy took up an impressive amount of space. The ride down one floor took an eternity.
Fifteen agonizing minutes later, and she had the answer: normal head CT. No subdural hematoma.
Made no sense.
In the radiology work area, Mariah covered the mouthpiece of the phone and asked the nurse and radiology tech to take Shelby back to her room.
Slouching in the office chair in front of the monitors, she clutched the phone to her ear. Had she misunderstood the radiologist on the other end of the line? Maybe he had read the wrong scan. She asked again.
Normal.
She sat there, boneless, staring at the screen.
So if the loss of consciousness didn't come from the subdural, what caused it? Infection? There was no fever. Normal white count.
Once again, she called the neurologist in Casper. He had no other ideas or explanations for the change. No evidence of increased intracranial pressure on exam or on CT findings. Give it time, he said.
Damn it, Mariah was fed up with giving it time. She needed to get some answers from the people who were present when Shelby lost consciousness.
Shoving on the arms of the chair to stand, she slammed down the phone's hand piece and sped into the hall.
And ran smack dab into a rock-solid wall of heated male.
