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  “We’ll find it,” Sloane promised, slipping an arm around her shoulders as she attempted to sit up. “Easy now. Let me do most of it.”

  “We’ve got a wheelchair here,” Harper offered. “Thanks, Jerry,” she added, acknowledging the maintenance man who’d run to grab it. She pushed the chair closer. “Let me get these brakes locked.”

  “No wheelchair,” the girl said, standing now. She stared, eyes wide, at the gathering of curious onlookers. “I’m fine. No problem.”

  “Here’s her hat.” Micah Prescott held out the dusty newsboy cap to Sloane. The man’s usual smooth smile had been replaced by an expression of concern. Sloane wouldn’t bet money, but it almost looked genuine. His voice was deep, calm. “You’re taking her to the ER?”

  “Yes.”

  “No,” the girl insisted, claiming the cap from Sloane. “I’m fine. I’ll go now.”

  “Hey! Hold on a minute.” One of the reporters, a suntanned blond with curly hair and a long-lens camera in his hands, pushed forward like he intended to become the second man in ten minutes to accost this kid. “You knew that guy?”

  “No.” The girl’s brows pinched. “He just offered me a ride and . . . um . . .”

  ”What exactly happened?” the reporter pressed. “And what’s your name? Why did he bring you—?”

  “Back off!” Sloane glared at the man, then turned to Micah to include him in the warning. “Tell them to go away. All of them. No cameras, no questions.”

  The girl took a step, grimaced with observable pain. “Aagh.”

  Sloane steadied her. “Your knee?”

  “Hip, I think. Scraped maybe. No big deal.” The girl lifted her chin. “I’m good.”

  Tough girl. Sloane knew that defense.

  “I’m Sloane,” she said, offering a small smile. “And you’re . . . ?”

  “I’m . . .” The girl looked around. The onlookers were leaving. Harper hung back a discreet distance. The girl’s gaze dropped to Sloane’s hospital ID badge. It was turned backward, something Sloane always did if she went outside the hospital. One more small stab at safety.

  “I’m a nurse,” Sloane assured, seeing the girl’s wariness. She turned her ID badge around and tapped it. “Sloane from the ER.”

  “I’m Zoey,” the girl said finally. “Zoey . . . Jones.”

  Jones. Right. And I’m a Ferrell.

  “All right then, Zoey,” Sloane told her. “How about if we go inside, make sure you’re not hurt. Maybe find you some food?”

  Zoey’s pierced brow rose a fraction. “I could eat something, I guess.”

  “Good.”

  “No wheelchair.”

  “Got it.” Sloane waved Harper on, then turned back to her unexpected patient. “It’s not far to the ER. Lean on me if you need to.”

  “You’ll never learn, Coop.” Micah shook his head at the reporter’s smirk. And his pitiful beard. Cooper Vance’s effort to grow one wasn’t going well; it looked like a patchy lawn subjected to years of California drought. Micah had seen the guy through more than a few attempts to make himself appear older, professionally seasoned. None more successful than this. He still looked like the weekend surf bum he was. They were both thirty-two and had met at UCLA, back when they had matching fires in their bellies for journalism. Coop was still chasing the dream—and still letting Micah spring for meal tabs. “You’ll never get the story by getting in someone’s face. One of these days I’ll read you’ve been knocked flat by Justin Bieber . . . or a royal nanny.”

  “Nanny?” Cooper laughed against the lid of his Starbucks cup. “First, I’m no paparazzo—too much competition, no glory. I’m a serious journalist. Keeping our community informed about treadmill safety, low-water landscaping . . .”

  Coop had finally landed a much-anticipated position at the Times, but it was somewhere down the staff list. And in the Lifestyle section. So far down the list, Coop liked to complain, that if he actually had an office, it would echo like the bottom of a well. Bylines were scarce. None of it fit with his plan to climb the ranks toward becoming a renowned journalist. He envisioned himself reporting via Skype on prime-time TV from hot spots around the globe. And had been jealous to the core when, several years back, Micah was given the opportunity to work with an embedded news team in Afghanistan. Coop had finally stopped asking why he wouldn’t talk about it. Their friendship wasn’t close enough for real confidences, but then again, Micah didn’t talk to anyone about that time.

  “Nope, probably don’t need to worry I’m going to get myself into a brawl chasing a hot story. Although . . .” Coop peered down the hospital walkway toward the parking lot curb. “That was a close call out there. With your nurse.”

  My nurse?

  The fact was, Micah had never had a conversation with Sloane Ferrell until today. If “Here’s her hat” qualified as conversation. He’d spent a fair amount of time in and around the emergency department since the Face of Hope campaign started—had been pretty much forced to—but this nurse always managed to avoid him. It didn’t seem accidental. She was like an apparition, hustling, efficient . . . an ever-dynamic gyroscope in scrubs. She disappeared whenever he came near. Out there in the parking lot was the nearest Micah had ever been to Sloane. Up close, within arm’s reach. He’d have to admit it was worth the wait.

  “Hard to imagine,” Coop added, with a spreading smile, “that frosty-blue eyes can shoot fire. I think I got scorched.”

  Micah shook his head, pretending he hadn’t been remembering those eyes himself. “You were interfering with patient care. No good nurse is going to let that happen.”

  “That kid wasn’t a patient. Not yet. She was a victim. Maybe even an attempted kidnap victim. That’s legitimate news.” Coop lifted his phone from his pocket, checked the screen. “No news yet on a BOLO for the perp’s car. PD will probably want to review hospital security footage.” He tossed his coffee cup in the trash and looked at the ER doors. “They should be here anytime to interview that girl. And the witnesses. I’ll wait. There’s a story here somewhere. I smell it.”

  Micah was thinking of a story too. But more along the lines of “LA Hope Nurse Saves Kidnap Victim.” Sloane Ferrell couldn’t be more than a few inches over five feet tall, maybe 110 pounds, but she’d launched herself like a drone missile into that hostile situation. She hadn’t hesitated to put herself in harm’s way to protect a stranger. Very few people did that, ran toward danger instead of away. It was heroic. And it should be recognized. That it could boost—help repair—the public image of Los Angeles Hope hospital during a major fund-raising campaign would be a bonus. And might even score Micah some points. The director of PR and marketing, his boss, was on a few weeks’ leave after the birth of his first child. It was effectively Micah’s chance to shine or flame out. That he was still ambivalent about this job didn’t matter; he needed it.

  “Your PIO will give a statement?” Cooper asked, glancing at his phone once more. “After the girl is examined and questioned by law enforcement?”

  “It could happen.” Micah had already sent her a message. “May take a while though.”

  “No problem. I could run over to North Alvarado and catch the Taco Zone truck,” the reporter said, referencing a hipster-choice mobile eatery. “Grab some of that suadero and salsa verde you like.”

  That I like?

  Micah recognized the gambit and tried to shake off a prickle of irritation he felt more and more these days. Cooper Vance helped pay for his grandmother’s costly assisted-living apartment. And stopped by faithfully to clean up after her three cats, one of which consistently chose fake potted plants over the litter box. Micah could spring for Mexican.

  “Don’t forget our chips,” he said as he reached for his wallet. “Wait for a fresh batch—it’s worth it.”

  “For sure.”

  He watched Cooper head back across the parking lot, then checked his own phone. No update from Fiona, the hospital’s public information officer. She was good about keeping
him in the loop. The uniformed officers were likely still looking for the assailant’s car. Coop was undoubtedly right: because it had seemed like an attempted abduction, detectives would be here to do interviews. If Micah was going to speak with Sloane Ferrell, it would have to be soon. He recalled what his friend said about eyes that could shoot fire. Probably true. But this was about the hospital’s image. And his own career. He’d have to risk it.

  “Sorry. Almost finished.” Sloane lifted the stainless-steel forceps away from Zoey’s cheek. The girl lay on the exam table, still wearing her baggy jeans and scuffed ankle boots; she’d agreed to a patient gown but refused an examination of her hip, saying it was fine now. She wouldn’t let the doctor inject Xylocaine around the abrasions on her face, either—didn’t like needles. Unfortunately, the alternative numbing gel proved to be less effective than Sloane had hoped. But Zoey had been stoic, barely a wince.

  “I know it stings, but there’s less chance of scarring if we get these clean,” Sloane explained. “The scrape at your hairline is superficial, but this spot over your cheekbone is deeper than it looked and had some specks from the asphalt.”

  “It’s fine—no big deal.”

  Not fooling me, kiddo.

  It was anything but fine. Not the abrasions; those would heal. But everything about this child—she couldn’t possibly be the nineteen years she’d claimed—whispered today’s scary incident was simply one more in a long line of troubles. Sloane wasn’t going to flatter herself that Zoey’s lying on this gurney was a credit to her own bedside manner. It had everything to do with a bag of barbecue chips and a turkey sandwich—two turkey sandwiches. If the girl hadn’t been so hungry, she’d be on the interstate thumbing another ride.

  “Thank you.” Zoey’s whisper was barely audible over the noise outside the exam room door. The usual emergency department racket and a new series of overhead pages for respiratory therapy. She blinked up at Sloane as a trickle of numbing gel slid like a snail trail into her dyed-pink hairline. “You didn’t have to come out there and help me. It wasn’t like it’s part of your job.”

  “No . . . not really.” Sloane dropped the forceps onto a small tray of surgical instruments and stripped off her sterile gloves. “Let’s just say I’ve been in a few tight spots myself. If I can help somebody out, I’m gonna do that.”

  “Yeah . . .” Zoey’s lips tugged toward a smile for the first time. “Then you took on that dude with the camera. Seems like you’ve done that before too.”

  Sloane shrugged. “Not a fan of folks who invade people’s privacy.”

  “For sure. But that taller guy with the sunglasses, the one who found my hat—he wasn’t half-bad to look at. For a reporter.”

  Sloane shook her head. “Not a reporter. He’s the hospital’s marketing guy.”

  “Same difference. Snoopy and pushy.”

  “Yep,” Sloane agreed.

  Zoey’s gaze lingered on Sloane’s ID badge. “Ferrell . . . Irish, right?”

  “Uh . . . somewhere back there, I guess.” Did anyone ever consider the heritage aspect of a fake name? “Okay then,” Sloane said, changing the subject. “We’re pretty much finished here.”

  Zoey let Sloane help her to a sitting position, then glanced toward the exam room door as if to assess their privacy. “There isn’t any more to say about what happened,” she said, lowering her voice some. “I was on my way to Bakersfield to stay with a friend for a while. My ride backed out at the last minute and I don’t have a car.”

  “You hitched a ride.”

  “Yeah, so?” She crossed her arms. “I’m not stupid. I know girls end up in Dumpsters. I’m careful, okay?” Zoey hesitated, then continued. “That guy seemed all right. For maybe fifty miles. And then his grubby hand was crawling up my leg.”

  Sloane’s stomach twisted.

  “I saw the hospital sign. So I faked belly pains. I told him I had a serious ‘female problem’ and I needed to get to an ER. I figured he’d drop me off and I’d go in one door and out the other.” Zoey shook her head. “I had to go and mouth off at the last minute. Tell him what I thought of creeps like him.”

  “And he tried to pull you back into the car.”

  “Could have, maybe. If you hadn’t come running like a bat out of—”

  “Sloane!” Harper’s face appeared at the door. “Code 3 trauma pulling up. Two stabbing victims. One under CPR.”

  “On my way.” Sloane turned to Zoey. “Hang out for a few. We still need to dress those wounds.”

  “Save the world. I’m good here.”

  3

  “NOTHING. NO PALPABLE PULSES, carotid or femoral,” Sloane reported as the physician studied the deceiving display on the trauma room cardiac monitor: marching electric complexes that looked like viable heart activity. And should have been, if most of this young man’s blood weren’t congealing in a garbage-strewn alley somewhere. His face was the same shade of gray as his hooded sweatshirt, shredded by a paramedic’s trauma scissors. Only a trickle of blood oozed from the deep wound beneath his left nipple. A scant trickle but still red in color since aggressive fluid resuscitation was contraindicated in a penetrating wound of the heart. As was flogging the organ with repeated doses of adrenaline. Even cardiac compressions could be viewed as controversial. . . .

  A penetrating wound to the heart. It had to have been a horrible scene.

  Sloane could imagine the frustration of the medics. Their patient dying before their eyes and so many of their lifesaving protocols ineffective. A trauma like this was load and go, lights and sirens, praying all the way—for people who did that sort of thing. She glanced at the gold chain around the young man’s neck. A crucifix lay against his pale shoulder, glued to a skull tattoo by dried blood.

  “Start compressions?” the tech asked.

  “Hang on.” The physician’s gaze moved past the ultrasound equipment to an open and ready emergency thoracotomy tray. He turned to the paramedic who’d attended the patient on scene. “No signs of life in the field? During transport? Give me a reason to crack this kid’s chest.”

  “No pulse,” the medic confirmed, repeating his initial report, “no respiratory effort. Unknown down time. Pale, warm. No response to compressions and respiratory support. Monitor showed PEA throughout. Pupils like they are now. There were no eyewitnesses except for the other victim.” The assailant, reportedly a rival gang member, was the ER’s other patient—less seriously injured and unwilling to give any details.

  “Seventeen minutes,” the paramedic added, checking the trauma room clock, “since we arrived on scene. Maybe fourteen since we tubed him.”

  An endotracheal tube down the young man’s throat and past his vocal cords. At least they’d been able to secure an airway.

  “Seventeen minutes . . . ,” the physician muttered, checking the monitor again.

  A few seconds of silence accentuated the whoosh of oxygen as a respiratory therapist squeezed the football-shaped Ambu bag delivering oxygen to the victim’s lungs.

  “Okay then.” The physician pressed his fingers deep against his patient’s femoral artery as he watched the monitor complexes one more time. A wide, utterly useless and slowing pattern on a field of black, too much like a fading comet in the night sky. “Any family?”

  “None yet,” Harper answered, sadness in her expression. “The crisis responders were called. They’ll be involved with notifications.”

  “Stop bagging,” the physician ordered, nodding to the respiratory therapist. “We’re done here.” He shook his head, mumbled something about useless pride, waste . . . and no respect for the value of life. “Time of death: 14:47.”

  Micah scrolled down the text one more time: a request from LAPD for community crisis responders to assist after a violent crime. They would provide support to any family of victims after this gang-related stabbing incident. Maybe they’d be doing a death notification; he’d just seen one of the victims rushed to the ER under CPR. From what he’d already heard, it didn’t sound
good. He felt for the families—and for the crisis team, trained volunteers who put themselves out there to offer help in the aftermath of life-altering tragedy. He’d heard the term “emotional paramedics” used more than once. Micah had to agree with that.

  He knew how tough it was and how valuable a service the crisis volunteers provided, because for a minimum of twenty hours a month, it was exactly what he did. After his regular work hours at the hospital and on his days off. Lately, any opportunity he got. Unsure as he was about the marketing job, Micah was as certain crisis work was where he belonged. He’d gone through the training with California Crisis Care several years back. After Afghanistan. It had come at a time when finding something that satisfied his soul became all-important, maybe even his own lifeline of hope. He’d made the decision and then wasn’t certain he’d survive the training; it picked at every scab he thought he’d healed. But it had been worth it. And now he was extending a lifeline to others every time he pulled on that crisis volunteer jacket and showed up to support a grieving elderly spouse, a mother who lost her baby to SIDS, the family of a suicide victim or homicide victim . . . It was the most important work he’d ever done. But it was his day job that paid the bills; it was high time he proved himself there, too.

  Right now that meant checking in with that frosty-fiery nurse, Sloane Ferrell. There were a few things he needed to talk over with her.

  “I’m glad it’s you, not me, dealing with that other gangster,” Sloane told Harper. “I’m not sure I could act all ‘poor baby’ over a minor flesh wound after pulling the ET tube and zipping his victim into a body bag.”

  Harper connected with Sloane’s gaze. “If anyone could do it, you could—angel of the misunderstood and downtrodden.”