Radclyffe - Passion's Bright Fury Read online

  Jude definitely did not want to spend any time at all considering what Sinclair would be like in bed. She had to work around her for days at a time for the foreseeable future, and she needed to concentrate on work while they were together, nothing else. "Well, good luck finding out."

  "Is she available, do you know?"

  "No idea." Come to think of it, she didn't know much about her at all. I really need to get her in an interview.

  "Should I give you a detailed report?" Melissa teased.

  "No thanks," Jude responded more sharply then she intended. She hoped the photographer didn't notice.

  Before Melissa could comment on Jude's reply, Deb and Aaron walked in together. "Hey," they both said in way of greeting.

  "Evening," Jude answered, disappointed to see that Sinclair was not with them. "What's happening?"

  Deb joined them as Aaron began restocking the crash cart with drugs after unlocking the multi-drawered rolling cart with his key. "Nothing at the moment," the trauma fellow replied. "Sinclair told me to tell you she's arranging an on-call room for you. Maintenance is putting a couple of beds and a desk in a small office down the hall where you can sleep and set up some of your equipment if you need to." She handed Jude several keys. "You might as well try to get some sleep while you're hanging around with us if nothing's happening at night."

  "I don't want to miss anything," Jude said uncertainly.

  "I'll bang on your door if anything comes in," Deb assured her. "We always have some warning when a trauma is on the way, because either the EMTs radio us or the chopper calls ahead."

  "Sounds fine then," the filmmaker agreed. "If it gets to be late and it's still quiet, I'll definitely take you up on it."

  "I'll second that," Melissa added. She considered briefly that it might be handy in the coming months to have a room nearby with a bed available. She'd learned from experience the a little romantic diversion on an extended shoot could help pass the time quite nicely, and from what she'd seen so far, there was more than one possibility she wouldn't mind exploring.

  *****

  2:29 AM

  It felt like Jude had barely closed her eyes when a sharp rap on the door brought her upright in the narrow bed. Across the tiny space from her, Mel turned over with a mumble and buried her head under the pillow. Heart pounding, it took Jude a few moments to realize where she was and that someone was at the door. Crossing quickly to open it, she inquired, "Yes?"

  Sinclair stood in the empty hallway looking wide-awake. "Five minutes, Ms. Castle. We have three coming by ambulance from a pileup on the bridge. There could be more--I don't know yet."

  "Right, thanks."

  Sax was already moving off down the hall towards the trauma admitting area as Jude called over her shoulder, "Let's go, Mel. We're on."

  The next five minutes passed in what felt like seconds. By the time Jude and Melissa reached the trauma bay, Aaron and two other nurses she didn't recognize were already waiting, garbed in protective gowns and gloves and pulling out instrument packs from tall steel cabinets. Sinclair and Deb were in scrubs, also pulling on latex gloves. On the long counter lay the remnants of someone's late dinner, scattered sections of the daily newspaper, and a chessboard, clearly abandoned in mid-game. Jude averted her eyes, but not before she had instantaneously absorbed the position of the pieces. White was about to be checkmated.

  From across the room where she leaned against the edge of one of the treatment tables, Sax watched the filmmaker and her photographer prepare. In their own way, they were very much like her own team, working together with practiced efficiency, almost wordlessly. Castle was speaking rapidly into her dictaphone, apparently noting the date, time, and specific circumstances of the upcoming shoot. Melissa Cooper was shrugging into a body harness that was clearly meant to support the heavy handheld video camera. As she helped to secure the DVCam, Jude affixed the microphone to it for simultaneous sound and video synchronization. Once that was accomplished, Melissa took up a position where she could record the entrance and the arrival of the patients and checked the angle of view on the built in monitor. Jude stood just behind her, where, Sax presumed, she could direct her photographer to concentrate on whatever aspects of the upcoming resuscitation interested her. Smooth. Impressive.

  Jude glanced over at Sinclair. "Are we okay here?"

  "I think so. Go for what you want-if you get in the way, I'll let you know."

  "Sounds good," Jude said with a grin. She didn't doubt for second that even in the midst of fury, Sinclair would have no problem making her wishes known. Her last act before the doors slid open and the first of three stretchers careened into the room was to wonder if the surgeon ever relinquished control to anyone - ever.

  *****

  Warning:

  Chapter Eight contains a graphic trauma scene that might conceivably be distressing to read. If you would prefer to skip that section, scroll down to the Heading July 3- 6:29 a.m. and read from there.

  Chapter eight

  It started out as a fairly routine trauma situation, or so Jude surmised. EMTs and paramedics from two separate divisions had responded to a multi-vehicle crash, and the first victims to arrive were a family of three.

  "Try to get something on all of them, but concentrate on Deb and the little girl," Jude directed Melissa as medical personnel converged on the gurneys.

  Efficiently, team members moved each patient to a treatment table with the effortless choreography of long practice. As far as Jude could tell, all three family members were conscious, although both the mother and father were strapped to backboards with restraining cervical collars around their necks. A blond child who appeared to be about five lay on the third stretcher, looking small and vulnerable surrounded by the monitors clustered around her. A large laceration extended from her scalp onto her forehead, and from where she was standing, Jude could make out the stark gleaming surface of white bone. Miraculously, the child appeared comfortable and not particularly frightened--she didn't even seem to be crying, although there were tear tracks smudged on her smooth flawless cheeks.

  From beside her, Jude heard Sinclair directing the activity even as the surgeon began assessing the male member of the trio.

  "Fisher, check the mother. Stein, get the girl." She bent over the man, automatically performing the standard initial evaluation to confirm that he was breathing properly and that his pulse and blood pressure were adequate. "What was the status in the field? Extrication times? Any hemodynamic instability or loss of consciousness?" she asked of the paramedics who had lingered to watch the resuscitation.

  It sounded to Jude like the handful of emergency personnel answered at once, and she couldn't fathom how the trauma chief could possibly sort out the plethora of facts and numbers bombarding her.

  Sax never took her eyes off the patient, her face intent as her hands rapidly moved over his body. "Were they restrained?"

  "Yep. Seatbelts and car seat," one of the paramedics standing by the door finishing his paperwork called out.

  Sax straightened and glanced to her right where Keith Fisher, an upper-level surgery resident, was performing the exact same maneuvers she had just completed on the mother. "Dr. Fisher," she said, not loudly, but with a degree of authority that got his attention immediately. His hands stopped moving as he looked at her expectantly. "This patient is complaining of abdominal pain and he's got guarding in the lower abdomen. What do you recommend we do?"

  The young man, clearly charged with excitement by the tense atmosphere, answered with a note of hope in his voice, "Open peritoneal lavage?"

  Jude watched Saxon Sinclair. She couldn't seem not to. Of all the figures in the room, the dark-haired surgeon seemed to be the epicenter, the focal point. Despite the air of controlled pandemonium permeating the room, Sinclair's expression was calm and her attitude collected. Her movements were precise and economical, and in just the few moments that Jude had been observing her, she had clearly appraised the condition of each patient and given di
rectives to orchestrate their care. As Jude listened to the young surgeon-in-training suggest what she presumed was some sort of operation, for a fleeting second, she thought she saw Sinclair grin. She made a note in the log she was quietly dictating to ask her why.

  "I'd agree with you," Sax said as she moved to the woman Fisher was examining, "if he were hemodynamically unstable and I suspected a major intra-abdominal bleed. But his pulse and blood pressure are normal so we have time to get a non-invasive test before we resort to a surgical procedure." Glancing over her shoulder, she ordered, "Aaron, get him down for a CT of the chest and abdomen. Tell them he's a possible seatbelt injury and to check his spleen and retroperitoneum carefully."

  Surprisingly, Sax stopped at the foot of the stretcher where the female patient lay and turned to Jude. As if she had all the time in the world, she said conversationally, "It's not uncommon to sustain an internal injury in high-speed decelerations when a person is restrained by a seatbelt. Internal organs, particularly those that are very vascular or fragile, can rupture and bleed. We could make a small incision in his abdomen right now and look, but I think a CT scan is a better choice for him."

  "Thanks," Jude said quietly but Sinclair had already turned her back and was leaning over the wife. She heard the surgeon introduce herself and ask the woman if she were having any pain. She couldn't hear the woman's faint reply, but she could hear the anxiety in her tone.

  "We haven't finished examining the three of you yet," Sax said calmly, "but everyone seems stable. Your husband will need some tests and I'll let you know about your little girl in a few seconds. Now, I want to take care of you."

  There was something familiar in the surgeon's compassionate tone that struck a chord in Jude, and as she struggled with the half-memory, her pulse accelerated and her ears buzzed faintly. God, not now! She forced her attention back to the scene before her and, thankfully, her head cleared.

  "Pull back a little bit to catch both the mother and daughter," Jude instructed Melissa hoarsely. She just needed to focus on the work and she'd be fine.

  The photographer, who had been moving back and forth between the three stretchers trying to record the various stages of treatment, grunted her assent. Just as Jude spoke, the little girl called for her mother and mother and child each reached out a hand, joining their fingers across the narrow space between the two beds.

  "Are you getting this?" Jude whispered excitedly, practically climbing onto Mel's shoulder to check her angle of view.

  "Yeah, yeah, I've got it. Don't worry," Melissa said distractedly while trying to keep one eye on the scene at large so as not to miss some developing event, and at the same time concentrating on the intimate details that made the proceedings so very human. "You could give me an inch or two to move, Jude," she muttered as she followed behind Deb, working to keep the heavy camera steady against her chest. Even with the body rig to help support the weight, her arms would be shaking before too much longer.

  Next to them, Sax gave one of the nurses detailed instructions about lab tests and x-rays for the mother and finally joined Deb beside the little girl. Both Jude and Melissa moved in close behind her, but she seemed not to notice them.

  "Anything?" Sax asked, studying the small patient.

  "Neurologic exam is intact. No evidence of airway or hemodynamic instability. She has the obvious laceration but I can't palpate a skull fracture. No bruising on the chest or abdomen to suggest blunt trauma, and she's moving all four extremities to command. She'll need a head CT to rule out a fracture or any associated intracranial injury, and then she's going to need that laceration repaired."

  As Deb reported, Sax bent close and murmured something that Jude couldn't quite make out, but she hoped the mic on the camera would pick it up. Then, Sax began her own assessment--listening to the little girl's heart and lungs, probing her abdomen, running her hands over each extremity. She checked the child's pupils and ears, nodded agreement with Deb's evaluation, and murmured, "Nothing to suggest evidence of bleeding or increased intracranial pressure. Looks like her only significant injury is that fairly straightforward soft tissue injury on the scalp. Do you want to repair it yourself after the CT or call plastics?"

  "It looks pretty routine," Deb remarked. "As long as nothing else is going on, I might as well do it."

  Sax appeared about to answer when a heavyset policeman, flushed and breathing heavily, barged into the trauma admitting area. He skidded to a halt and stared at Sax, struggling to get his words out.

  "There's an ambulance pulling in right now with a guy who crashed his motorcycle in the pile up. He was underneath one of the cars and we just found him." He held out a large black trash bag, which he had secured under one arm. "This...this is...his."

  Jude wasn't certain what she was watching but she tapped Mel on the shoulder and said urgently, "Get this."

  "Put it down on this," Sax said, rolling a steel cart forward. As the policeman deposited his package, she looked at Jude and Melissa pointedly. "This may be... difficult."

  "It's okay," Jude said, trying to ignore the escalating roaring in her head. The shape of the package gave her a pretty good idea of what was inside, but she was certain she must be wrong. Her heart was hammering as she continued, "Go ahead."

  Sax peeled back the edges of the black plastic.

  "Oh fuck," Melissa Cooper murmured, struggling to hold the camera steady, and it wasn't because her arms were tired.

  Jude put her hand on Mel's shoulder and fought a dizzying wave of nausea.

  "Stein," Sax said curtly as she surveyed the perfectly preserved leg lying in the bag surrounded by ice. It had been severed at the hip and a portion of the pelvic bone was visible, still attached to the cut end. The rest of it looked perfectly normal, including the lower leg and foot. "Call the OR and tell them we have a level one coming up. Notify vascular surgery and orthopedics that we have a possible limb replantation."

  Even as she was speaking, the doors slid open yet again and four paramedics came crashing through with the owner of the severed limb. For the next few moments it seemed to Jude that Sinclair was everywhere at once. Nurses and residents descended upon the motorcyclist, cutting off clothes, inserting tubes into his nose and into his arms and down his throat. Sax and Stein removed a large pressure bandage that covered his lower body, at which point Jude commanded hoarsely, "Stop the camera, Mel."

  Melissa was about to protest, and then she got a clear look at the gaping wound and realized that it was far too personal and private a thing to reveal to anyone. "Yeah."

  *****

  July 3

  6:29 a.m.

  "Do you want to look at the dailies now?" Melissa Cooper asked, trying valiantly to hide her weariness. She hadn't thought anything could bother her anymore. She'd filmed children starving in African nations so impoverished it was impossible to believe such conditions existed in the modern world, and she'd documented the last moments of young men and women dying of AIDS in the most technologically advanced society ever known. She'd witnessed the gamut of human emotions from grief and horror to joyous celebration, and with the filter of her camera between her and the event, she'd been able to maintain her psychological equilibrium. Tonight, she'd almost lost it.

  "Let's do it tomorrow," Jude said dully, glancing at the round, institutional-appearing clock, amazed at how much time she had lost. Four hours had passed in a blur of noise and motion and blood. She glanced around at the littered floor, the aftermath of battle strewn everywhere-wads of gauze soaked with blood and other fluids, discarded surgical gloves, clear plastic wrappers that had encased sterile tubing and intravenous catheters-a portion of a pair of denim pants. "God."

  "We're not going to be able to show much of that," Melissa commented hoarsely. Her throat was so dry it almost hurt to speak. She methodically stowed her equipment without looking at Jude, needing to restore order and sanity by repeating familiar tasks. "Are we?"

  Jude twisted in the swivel chair in front of the counter and star
ed at the chessboard. Miraculously, it had remained undisrupted throughout what felt to her now like a tornado of barely contained chaos. Absently, she replayed Black's last six moves. Nicely done.

  "We can't show him ," she said at last. "The network censors would never let it pass. Besides, I don't want this to be about satisfying morbid curiosity. We've got great shots of Deb and Sinclair, though. There's still a lot there."

  She pressed her fingers to her aching temples. "Go home, Mel."

  She didn't need to review the videotape to know what she wanted to use from what they had just witnessed. Her heart was still racing with the aftermath of tension, but what left her nerve endings so raw that her skin felt hot were her memories of Saxon Sinclair.

  *****

  9:54 a.m.

  Sax walked into the trauma admitting area and stared in surprise at Jude Castle. "What are you still doing here? I saw your photographer leaving just before I started making rounds a couple of hours ago."

  "I sent her home," Jude replied quietly. "I think she earned her salary last night."

  "So did you," Sax observed, pulling out a chair and sitting down opposite the filmmaker. She had expected Jude to want to get away for a while after the previous night's events. An injury like that was tough on all of them, even the most seasoned trauma veteran, but it must be nearly incomprehensible for a civilian to assimilate. She had to work at not thinking too much about it herself. It hadn't escaped her notice that the redhead had looked like she was about to faint when the severed leg had been uncovered, not that she could blame her. She had a feeling, though, that it wasn't because Jude was squeamish. Jude's reaction had looked very much like the one she'd had when she'd first walked into the trauma admitting area-a purely involuntary, autonomic response to a stressful event. Or the memory of one. The director still looked pale and shaky. "Are you okay? It was a long night."

  Jude flushed, embarrassed, wishing that the surgeon wasn't quite so astute. "Yes, thanks." She knew where the unwelcome physical reactions were coming from, and she knew that she actually was fine, but it was troubling nonetheless. It was uncomfortable and disconcerting and damned inconvenient to be suddenly awash with terror - no, the memory of terror, when she least expected it. She shook her head, because thinking about it only made it more of an issue. "How is…the boy. God, I don't even know his name. I don't even remember what his face looks like. I don't think I ever looked at him. "