Code Triage

  Praise for Candace Calvert

  “If you need an infusion of hospital drama, Code Triage is just the prescription!”

  +++Irene Hannon, best-selling author of the Heroes of Quantico series

  “Talk about fiction first aid! Nobody writes a prescription for heart-pounding medical drama/romance like Candace Calvert. A gritty glimpse into the heart and soul of Mercy ER and its men and women in the trenches, Code Triage is an adrenaline high with professional realism ripped from today’s headlines and enough romantic tension to spike your pulse. An ER (exciting read!) experience you will never forget. . . . I loved it!”

  +++Julie Lessman, award-winning author of the Daughters of Boston series

  “In Code Triage . . . Candace Calvert paints medical scenes that ring with authenticity and drama, while giving us a glimpse into the lives and hearts of the people behind the stethoscope. This is great writing that’s full of faith and hope.”

  +++Richard L. Mabry, MD, author of Code Blue

  “Candace Calvert has proven she knows her stuff on the ER stage. Excellent writing, appealing characters, and an honest portrayal of human emotions—this book is a great read, and I predict a huge readership for the author.”

  +++Hannah Alexander, author of A Killing Frost and the Hideaway series

  “Disaster Status grabs the reader from its opening pages to its riveting end. Compelling characters keep you turning the pages to see what happens next.”

  +++Margaret Daley, author of Forsaken Canyon and Together for the Holidays

  “Candace Calvert succeeded in thrilling me, chilling me, and filling me with awe and respect for ER trauma.”

  +++DiAnn Mills, author of Breach of Trust and Sworn to Protect

  “The story flows well and keeps the reader’s attention. . . . Characters find not only psychological healing, but also spiritual renewal.”

  +++Christian Retailing

  “This is such an action-packed, heartfelt, really gripping story. I just couldn’t put it down.”

  +++Nora St. Laurent, Novel Reviews

  “Good-bye, ER. Hello, Critical Care! Candace Calvert delivers a wonderful medical romance that peeks inside the doors of an ER to discover a cast of real-life characters who learn to love and live and discover God’s truths, all in the high-stress world of medicine.”

  +++Susan May Warren, award-winning author of Happily Ever After and Nothing but Trouble

  “I’ve always said if I weren’t an author, I’d be in the medical field, so it’s no wonder I ate up Candace Calvert’s Critical Care. I lived and breathed the problems and struggles in the ER along with the characters. Terrific story and terrific writing.”

  +++Colleen Coble, author of Cry in the Night and Lonestar Secrets

  “Finally, a reason to turn off ER and Grey’s Anatomy. Here is a realistic medical drama with heart. Candace Calvert gets it right with page-turning prose, a heartwarming love story, and hope.”

  +++Harry Kraus, MD, best-selling author of Salty Like Blood and Could I Have This Dance?

  Visit Tyndale’s exciting Web site at www.tyndale.com.

  Visit Candace Calvert’s Web site at www.candacecalvert.com.

  TYNDALE and Tyndale’s quill logo are registered trademarks of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

  Code Triage

  Copyright © 2010 by Candace Calvert. All rights reserved.

  Cover photo of woman copyright © by Zsolt Nyulaszi/iStockphoto. All rights reserved.

  Cover photo of man copyright © by BlueMoon Images/Photolibrary. All rights reserved.

  Author photo copyright © 2008 by Frankeen Price at Foto by Frankeen. All rights reserved.

  Designed by Mark Anthony Lane II

  Edited by Sarah Mason

  Published in association with the literary agency of Natasha Kern Literary Agency, Inc., P.O. Box 1069, White Salmon, WA 98672.

  Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version,® NIV.® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc.TM Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Calvert, Candace, date.

  Code triage / Candace Calvert.

  p. cm. — (Mercy hospital ; no. 3)

  ISBN 978-1-4143-2545-3 (pbk.)

  1. Women physicians--Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3603.A4463C63 2010

  813’.6—dc22 2010004052

  For Andy,

  my real-life hero and husband—

  you made me believe in happily ever after.

  Acknowledgments

  Heartfelt appreciation to:

  Literary agent Natasha Kern, for all that you do and for who you are—a blessing, truly.

  The incredible Tyndale House publishing team, including editors Karen Watson, Jan Stob, Stephanie Broene, and especially Sarah Mason—your suggestions were invaluable.

  Critique partner Nancy Herriman—talented and loyal first reader, dear friend.

  Kendall County Sheriff Roger Duncan and Lieutenant Louis R. Martinez—for graciously answering general questions regarding law enforcement procedures.

  Daughter-in-law Wendy MacKinnon, DVM, and Abigail Dimock, DVM, for reading equine scenes—your generous help was much appreciated. Any inaccuracies are mine.

  Fellow nursing, medical, fire, rescue, law enforcement, and chaplaincy personnel—this story means to honor you.

  St. Helena’s Church, Community of Hope, and Bible study sisters—you’re great!

  My family, especially sister-in-law Jean Bramble—for your encouragement and for inspiring hero Nick Stathos’s Greek lemon soup.

  And in memory of a bay mare named Winter Winds—you gallop on in my heart. Forever.

  Give thanks to the God of heaven.

  His love endures forever.

  —Psalm 136:26

  Chapter One

  Don’t drop that baby; don’t—

  Heart pounding, Officer Nick Stathos slammed the door of his car and sprinted toward the police perimeter, gaze riveted on the panicky young mother at the window of the second-story apartment. She clutched her infant against her baggy navy scrubs and leaned farther out to stare at the scene below: police officers, neighbors in pajamas and robes, patrol cars, a fire truck and ambulance. Lights sliced red-white-blue through the grayness of the late September morning. She craned her head backward, and her eyes, mascara-streaked and desperate, followed the San Francisco PD helicopter hovering above the shabby, converted pink Victorian. Nick hoped that methamphetamines, once Kristi Johnson’s drug of choice, weren’t at the root of today’s drama. She’d been allowed to keep her kids after a previous skirmish, and he knew how rare the mercy of a second chance was. He’d been praying for one in his marriage for the better part of a year.

  He jogged forward through a gathering crowd of reporters, flashed his badge at the first in a line of officers, then slowed to a walk. The mother lifted the baby to her shoulder and disappeared from view, then returned to lean over the windowsill again. The baby’s legs dangled limply as she fought with the tattered curtain, and Nick winced at a childhood memory of eggs dropped from a highway overpass. A baby’s skull wouldn’t have a chance against concrete. Dispatch had to be wrong—Kristi wouldn’t neglect her kids. Could never harm them. He knew the girl; he’d patrolled her Mission District neighborhood for nearly five years.

  “Stathos, don’t waste your time.” A uniformed officer, a paunchy vetera
n he recognized from the Tenderloin station, stepped forward, raising his voice over the dull thwoop-thwoop of chopper blades. He exhaled around a toothpick clenched between his teeth, breath reeking of coffee, cigarettes, and bacon. “SWAT’s on the way.” He glanced up at the window and shook his head. “911 call from a four-year-old, and now Mom—one Kristina Marie Johnson, twenty-two years old—is refusing to let us do a welfare check. Landlord informed us she has a gun in there. Says the boyfriend deals meth.”

  “Gun?” Nick growled low in his throat. “Let me guess: same landlord who’s been trying to evict her? Think he could have a reason to lie?” He watched the window. “There’s no gun. The boyfriend’s under a restraining order and long gone. I’ll talk to her.”

  “She’s not talking; that’s the trouble.” The officer crossed his arms. “Her kid told dispatch she and the baby were left alone all night. That they were ‘real sick.’ You should hear the tape; it’ll rip your heart out. Said she’d been ‘singing to Jesus’ all night to keep from being scared. Begged for someone to find her mommy. Then Mom shows up a few minutes before we get here and won’t let us in. Child Crisis is on the way. The medics need to check those kids.”

  “So I’ll talk to her.” Nick pushed past him.

  “You can’t fix this one, Stathos. Give it up.”

  Nick looked back over his shoulder. “You don’t know me very well. I don’t give up.” His jaw tensed. “Ever.”

  The officer shook his head, eyes skimming over Nick’s jeans and hooded USF sweatshirt. “Think you’d come up with a better way to spend a free Friday, but go ahead and knock yourself out. Colton’s in charge. Fill him in, and—”

  They both looked up as Kristi Johnson shouted.

  “Officer Nick! Don’t let them take my babies! Tell them I’m clean now. You know I am. Tell them I would never . . .” She shut her eyes and groaned. “This is all a mistake. My girlfriend sleeps over while I work nights at the nursing home. She comes over after her swing shift. Always gets here fifteen minutes after I leave.” Her brows drew together. “They’re only alone for fifteen minutes; that’s all, I swear. I had them tucked into bed, but I guess she didn’t show up last night. I didn’t know!” She shifted the baby in her arms and his legs swung again, floppy as a home-sewn doll’s.

  Nick stepped forward and cupped his hands around his mouth. “All they want is to make sure your kids are okay, Kristi.”

  “They are. Abby got scared. It gave her a headache and a sick tummy. That’s all. She’s okay.” She glanced over her shoulder. “She’s my little trouper. Aren’t you, sweetheart?” She stared down at Nick, her eyes pleading. “Can’t you tell them to go away? I’m here now. This won’t happen again. Please don’t let them put my kids in foster care.”

  Foster care. His gut twisted. “How about we let the medics have a look?”

  Kristi glanced out toward the street. “Is one of those social workers down there? from Child Crisis?”

  “No,” he hedged, hoping they’d hold off a few more minutes—and praying it wasn’t Samantha Gordon who’d been dispatched. Not today. The farther he stayed from her, the better. The clock was ticking, and if he had any hope of saving his marriage, he couldn’t risk having Sam in the picture. Even professionally. He shoved the thought—and an all-too-familiar stab of guilt—aside. “Let the medics have a look, okay?”

  “No.” Kristi’s eyes darted back and forth. “You. You come up. Only you. I know I can trust you.”

  He turned to Colton, answered murmured questions and agreed to orders, then took the offered radio. He glanced back up at the window. “I gave these officers my word you don’t have a gun.”

  “I swear on my baby’s life. You know me. I’m just trying to keep my kids, hold on to a job, pay the bills . . . save my family.” A tear slid down her face. “Please . . .”

  “Okay.” Nick nodded. “I’m coming up.”

  He took the creaky stairs two at time, feeling the bulk of his off-duty weapon in the holster at his waist and breathing in the familiar smell of the old building. All of them the same: cooking oils, garbage, cat urine, mildewed carpet, soggy newsprint. The cloying stink of poverty, struggle, and hopelessness. He’d breathed it and worked in it—fought against it—from the day he was sworn in. For a large part of his life, in truth; he’d be thirty-nine next month and was no stranger to hard knocks. He had no idea if he’d ever really change things for these people. But just as he’d said a few minutes ago, he wasn’t giving up. He knew what it was like to grow up without parents, a real home. If there was any way to keep Kristi Johnson from losing her kids, he was going to give it a try.

  He reached the second-floor landing and saw her peeking through the barely cracked door.

  “Nick, are you . . . ?”

  “Alone,” he confirmed, hearing what sounded like retching in the apartment beyond. “What’s going on in there?”

  “It’s Abby.” Kristi stuck her head out and peered up and down the hallway before she opened the door. “She’s throwing up again. A flu bug, I guess. I wanted to give her some 7UP, but with all those people down there, hassling me . . .”

  Nick stepped in, glancing first into Kristi’s red-rimmed eyes—pupils look normal, not dilated—then scanning the room: portable crib, sofa bed heaped with toys and a piled-high laundry basket, a flashlight on the pillow next to a stuffed pony and a storybook. The little girl sat in a beanbag chair on the floor, hair in pigtails, eyes closed, face flushed pink . . . and lips so cherry red that he wondered if she’d been playing with her mother’s makeup. She wore a fleece robe and a knit cap and had already dozed off, still holding a vomit-splattered saucepan in her lap. The baby lay quietly in the crib.

  Cold in here. Nick shivered, despite his sweatshirt. The room couldn’t be more than fifty degrees. He glanced around again. No lights. No TV. “Your power’s off?”

  Kristi hugged her arms around herself. “Yes, but only for a couple of days. I got my first check from the care home last night, and I’m planning to go down there and pay my bill, get the electricity turned back on. The rent had to be first. My pain-in-the-neck landlord doesn’t cut me any slack.” She moved toward the window, gazing down. “Things have been tight since I broke it off with Kurt, but I’m making it work. I told Abby we just have to pretend we’re camping. That it’s an adventure.” She tried to smile. “Bundle up in extra clothes, play shadow puppet shows with the flashlight, sing songs, sit close to our little stove, and—” She turned to look at Nick, her eyes wide. “I see her. That social worker, the blonde. Miss Gordon.”

  Sam. Nick’s stomach sank.

  “She’s the one from before. She wanted to take the kids then, because of Kurt.” Kristi plucked at his sleeve, her eyes pleading. “Don’t tell her about the power, please. I’ll have it on by noon. Like it never happened. I promise.” She jumped as Nick’s radio crackled.

  He turned his back to her and lowered his voice. “I’m in,” he told Colton. “So far, so good. Give me a few minutes.” He turned back as Abby began to cry.

  “My head hurts, Mommy.” She moaned, then retched, her shoulders shaking. Kristi hurried to hold the saucepan, crouching in the narrow space between the beanbag chair, the porta crib, and . . . Nick’s gaze fell on the round metal object on floor beside them. A sickening sense of dread washed over him. Did Kristi say stove? Camp stove? His mind flashed to the image of her at the window holding the baby, his little legs dangling limp as a doll’s.

  “Wait,” he said, crossing toward her. “Have you been running a camp stove in here? Is that propane?”

  “Mm-hmm.” She nodded, stroking her daughter’ cheek. “Kurt left it behind. It was his father’s. But don’t worry; Abby knows it gets hot, don’t you, honey? She’s real careful not to touch it.”

  “Turn it off!” Nick ordered. “And pull Abby up; get her over here in the fresh air while I . . .”

  He dropped the radio on the bed and scooped up the baby, his anxiety increasing as the infant’s arms a
nd legs drooped, flaccid and still. Please, Lord, don’t let . . . Cradling the boy in the crook of his arm, he moved toward the open window and popped open the chest snaps on the fleece sleep suit. He watched the baby’s chest for movement, searched for signs of respirations while holding his own breath for an endless moment. Cherry red lips like his sister’s . . . Carbon monoxide? Nick slid a sleeve away and felt for a brachial pulse—it was there. But the breathing was too slow, weak.

  Kristi tugged at the sleeve of his sweatshirt. “What are you doing? What’s wrong with Finn?”

  “Pick up my radio, Kristi.” He kept his voice steady as an aimed weapon. “Hold the button down. Tell them to send up the medics. Don’t argue with me.” He held her terrified gaze for an instant longer, insisting she trust him one last time. “Do it. Now.” He exhaled. “Tell them your baby’s barely breathing.”

  “Oh no—”

  “Do it,” Nick ordered again, pointing toward the radio.

  He raised the baby in the crook of his elbow, bent low, and covered the tiny nose and lips with his mouth, his brain scrambling to recall CPR protocols. Short breaths. Puff your cheeks; careful, careful . . . Twenty times per minute. He gently filled the fragile lungs, saw the small chest rise. He did it again and then over again. He’d do it until the medics got there, and then he’d keep at it as long as they needed him to. He’d do it; he had to. Inhale; exhale; raise the little chest, one breath at a time, over and over. Hang on, Finn. I won’t give up on you.

  +++

  Dr. Leigh Stathos brushed back a strand of dark hair and nodded to the nurse readying the gastric lavage tube—rigid, transparent plastic, thick as a snake. She looked down at her patient. “We’re going to wash out your stomach. Remove what’s left of the pills and then inject a charcoal slurry to absorb the rest.”