Day 8 – Friday evening
Ceilidh, Cooperative Hall, Loch Lonach
Caroline nudged Jim’s arm and pointed across the room with her chin. “Get a load of that.”
Jim turned to see what she was pointing at and raised an eyebrow. He hadn’t given Lisa an address or directions to the Cooperative Hall, but there she stood, just inside the door, looking around.
Jim turned his back on her and faced Caroline. “Maybe we should rethink the open-door policy.”
“She’s headed this direction. Oh, wait, Jean has intercepted her.” Jean Pollack was the Matron for the Loch Lonach Homestead and had, among her other responsibilities, the duty to greet outsiders.
“She’s pointing at you, Jim. Do you know her?”
Jim sighed. “I’m afraid so.” He put a noncommittal smile on his face and turned to greet the visitor, looking her over as she crossed the floor. She was wearing an aggressively cowgirl outfit complete with denim skirt, suede cowboy boots, and leather fringe, and she was not alone. She was accompanied by a younger woman, dressed in jeans, tee shirt, and sneakers, carrying a camera.
“Jim!” Lisa called and flashed him a dazzling smile. She strode across the room, oblivious to the dance patterns and was almost run down by a chase currently going on in the sets. She stepped aside, startled, then fixed her eyes on her quarry and plowed ahead.
“Jim!” She tried to hug him, but he managed to stick his hand out to forestall her. She took it and pressed it to her chest, obliging him to use a bit of force to retrieve it. “Well, you see I’m here.”
“I see that.”
Lisa turned and indicated her companion. “This is my sister, Mary Jo.” The younger woman smiled shyly up at Jim.
Lisa flashed him another dazzling smile, showing off excessively white teeth straight enough for a toothpaste commercial. “I hope you don’t mind. She’s majoring in photography at school and they’ve got an assignment coming up. I suggested this—” Lisa gestured at the room “—might make a good subject.”
Jim turned to Mary Jo and gave her a genuine smile, holding out his hand. “I agree, though, if you want to catch the flavor of the dances, I hope you brought a really fast camera.”
She blushed, then nodded.
“Caroline is an expert and I’m sure, if you asked her nicely, she would be glad to answer questions for you.”
“Of course. What would you like to know?” Caroline put an arm around Mary Jo and steered her toward the top of the room, leaving Jim to deal with Lisa.
“The website said the dancing started at seven.” Lisa looked around. “Is it always this crowded, and this noisy?”
Jim nodded. The band was playing a reel, using bodhran and pipes for emphasis, and the effect was rousing.
Lisa watched until the end of the dance, then turned back to Jim. “Do all the men wear skirts?”
“Kilts are normal clothes for the Scots. You’ll see them at the parties, at the Games, and on any formal occasion.”
She reached out and started to stroke the fur on the sporran Jim was wearing. “And what’s this?”
Jim caught her hand and put it back at her side. “It’s a form of pocket.”
Lisa stepped closer, looking up at him from under unnaturally thick lashes. “And is it true—?” She was interrupted by the approach of three woman, all running toward Jim, laughing and calling to him.
“Jim, Jim! My turn. You promised!”
Jim smiled at the approaching harem. “Ladies, this is Lisa. She’s new. Can you find her a partner?”
One of them smiled at Lisa and took her hand. “Sure! Come on. I’ll give you a crash course in what you need to know to dance with us.” She hauled Lisa onto the floor and could be seen showing her hand and foot positions.
Jim smiled at the remaining two women, allowing himself to be pulled onto the floor by one and promising the next dance to the other. For the next half hour he was caught up in his own lessons. He was behind the curve here as well as on the battlefield, but was rapidly catching up and was never without a willing teacher.
He was deep in the intricacies of strathspey footwork when he became aware of a mild exodus from the floor. There seemed to be something going on in the media room. Those who had been to see hurried back into the great hall to report. Jim looked up to see his grandfather beckoning to him. He excused himself from the dance and obeyed the summons.
“What’s up?”
“Come.” His grandfather led him into the media room and pointed to the big screen TV. Jim fell in at the back of the crowd, listening to the announcer.
“The bombs went off in the midst of a riot,” the man was saying. “We’re being told this demonstration has been in the works for months, with nurses coming in from all over the state. Both supporters and opponents of HB 1712 were throwing punches and the police were trying to break up the fight.” The image behind the reporter showed a domed building and the ribbon across the bottom identified it as the State Capital in Austin, Texas.
“As a result, it’s unclear whether either side was the target, or whether this was a repeat of the ambush on police we saw in Dallas a few years back, or whether it’s an act of terrorism. Over a hundred people have been dispatched to area hospitals with burns and shrapnel injuries. There are twenty confirmed dead, but that figure is likely to rise. We won’t show you, but the street is filled with body parts, so it’s not possible to get an accurate count at present.”
The image pulled back to show a darkened Austin street lurid with flames. There were several buildings on fire, emergency crews trying to put them out, police trying to clear the area, EMS trying to treat survivors. The voiceover continued.
“All area hospitals have activated mass casualty plans and crews are being flown in from San Antonio, Houston, and Dallas to help. Locals are asked to stay away. A hotline has been set up for families who may be trying to reach protest participants.”
Jim was no longer listening. He grabbed his phone out of his sporran and dialed Ginny’s number, telling himself there was no reason to think she was involved, other than she was a nurse and in Austin. That and the prickling sensation on the back of his neck.
When he got no answer, he took a breath, then tried again, leaving a message for her to call as soon as she could, then turned to his grandfather. “I have to call the hospital.”
“Aye, lad. Go.”
Jim grabbed his coat and headed for home, trying Ginny again as he went. He called Hillcrest and was able to get past the switchboard by using the number for Richard Lyons, who was coordinating the relief effort.
“I want to go,” Jim told him.
“You’re scheduled to work this weekend.”
“I’m on the Disaster Response Team and I want to go to Austin. Find someone to cover for me.”
“Okay. Get over here. The chopper leaves in forty minutes.”
Jim hung up the phone, pulled into a parking space at his apartment, and jumped out, calling his grandfather as he mounted the stairs, to let him know what was happening.
“I don’t know when I’ll be back.”
“It’s all right, lad. We’ll hold down the fort.”
Jim changed clothes, threw an overnight bag together, then hurried to the hospital. He made it with ten minutes to spare.
“Glad to have you aboard, doc.” The co-pilot helped him get strapped in, then settled into his own seat.
Jim had been in a medical evacuation helicopter before. He put the ear protectors on and made sure his harness was tight, then looked at the other team members, nodding a greeting to the physician, a burn specialist he knew slightly. The nurse also turned out to be from the burn unit.
Jim took a deep breath and tried not to think about what they would find when they got to Austin. He watched the night stream by the windows of the helicopter, the lights of Dallas fading, to be replaced by the lights of Waco, then Austin.
Hundreds, thousands, maybe, of nurses hurt. And her hotel was near the capital. And she wasn’t answering her phone.
He fought down panic. While he was waiting to hear from her, he would do what he was trained to do. At least he’d be on the scene. It would be easier to get word, to search for her, to deal with whatever he might find. But until the crisis was over, he could do nothing, except pray that none of the body parts mentioned on the news turned out to be Ginny’s.
* * *
Friday evening
Austin
Ginny hurried down to the car. Ten minutes had her in the hotel parking garage and another ten in the lobby, looking at the puzzled expressions on the faces of the people gathered there. The sirens had started. She could hear the wail as emergency vehicles began to arrive.
She went up to her room and threw her purse and coat down, then went back to the lobby. The video screens over the bar and in the lounge areas were all tuned to the news and reporters were trying to describe what they were seeing. Ginny joined the small knot of people in front of one of them and listened in.
“—at present. The fire department is attempting to bring in trucks, but the number of bodies in the street is making it hard to get close enough.” The curvaceous blonde in the trendy winter coat looked pale, but that might just have been the effect of the bright lights on her face. “I’m going to go see if I can find out what happened.” She turned in her high heels and tripped over something. When she looked down, the camera followed, showing a woman’s arm, still holding hands with a man, well, half a man, both body parts lying in a growing pool of blood. The reporter stumbled, then fell, then retched. The picture cut away to the studio.
Ginny heard a noise and turned around to see the doors of the hotel open and a woman stagger in. She was covered in blood, holding her arm, and looked to be in shock. As Ginny watched, another arrived, then another, then two coming in through the garage doors, then movement from the hotel staff, coming out from behind the counters, shouting orders, guiding the victims to chairs or sofas or window ledges.
Ginny moved toward the victim closest to her, taking in the injuries, assessing the likely complications, calling for towels and water and EMS. She was not alone. The nurses staying in the hotel were being told, notified by friends or asked by the management to help out. Housekeeping appeared with gloves for everyone. Becky Peel appeared from the dining room and got on her phone. In twenty minutes she had turned the lobby into a full-scale triage area.
The fourth victim Ginny saw turned out to be someone she knew.
“Grace?” Ginny sat down beside her coworker and tried to make contact. “Grace, are you hurt?”
The other woman turned slowly to look at Ginny, her eyes glazed, then slowly focusing.
“Are you hurt?”
It turned out the answer was, yes, but not seriously. Grace had numerous cuts, some of which would require stitching, but no evidence of major hemorrhage or internal bleeding. No chest pain, no collapsed lung, no head injury.
“Were you protesting?”
Grace nodded.
“Did you see anything?”
“Just the flash of light, then blood.” Her eyes grew wide. “So much blood!” She was rubbing her hands together, trying to get the blood off.
Ginny laid her gloved hands on Grace’s bloody ones, stilling the motion. “We’re going to take care of you,” she said. She attached the triage tag, finished the paperwork that would accompany Grace to the hospital, then handed her off to the EMS crew.
Ginny dealt with the walking wounded until past midnight. When the last of the victims had been sent to the hospital, she and the other nurses collapsed onto the sofas. The barman brought over a tray of ice water. Snacks followed. There was very little conversation.
The management went from group to group. “If you will leave your clothes for the staff to collect tomorrow, the hotel will be pleased to clean them and return them to you. No charge.”
Ginny nodded her thanks, then climbed to her feet. She wanted a bath and a stiff drink, and her bed. She went back to her room and got cleaned up, then reached for her phone. She had missed five calls from Jim and one from her mother. She called her mother first.
“I’m fine. We had casualties in the lobby and I was helping out. I’m sorry I couldn’t call sooner. No. I have no idea what happened. I’ll let you know when I do. I love you, too.”
Jim wasn’t answering his phone, but she was pretty sure she knew what he wanted. She tapped out a text message indicating she was fine and would try to reach him in the morning, then turned down the volume on the phone, shut off the light, and closed her eyes.
She was practically catatonic with fatigue. The only problem was, with her eyes closed, she couldn’t help seeing the image of that reporter, and the body parts, and the injured she’d cared for that evening.
Someone had overreacted. Surely no one in Texas would kill so many and so indiscriminately over a disputed bill in the state legislature. There had to be more to it than that.
She moved restlessly in the bed, trying to find a comfortable spot. Anyone was capable of violence, of course, even nurses, but if this was a nurse, he or she was deranged. The people who went into nursing did so because they wanted to help, not hurt. Nurses didn’t send shrapnel into crowds of unprotected protesters.
Besides, what nurse would set up shrapnel bombs knowing they would take out voters who were on their side? Kill the enemy, maybe, but not friends.
Ginny’s eyes drifted open. Grace had said she and Phyllis were political enemies. Grace. Calm, cool, elegant. Except once. On that occasion she had managed to break an IV pole and that took some doing. They were made of steel and bolted together, intended for heavy use and heavy loads.
Ginny sat up and rubbed her face with both hands. It wasn’t Grace. Violent she could be, true, but that outburst had been sudden and the result of severe stress and over as suddenly as it had started. A strangling required stealth. Like a bomb. Stealth and patience and the ability to hide in plain sight.
Ginny fell back into the pillows. It was a good thing she wasn’t really a detective. She was starting to see murderers everywhere she looked. She closed her eyes and tried to count sheep. She had gotten to sixteen before she realized the sheep were all wearing scrubs. At twenty they also had stethoscopes around their necks. Red ones. At twenty-five, the stethoscopes had become red wires, dripping blood. She was sure that meant something. Something important. She should write it down, before it got away.
She rolled over and saw no more sheep that night.
* * *
Friday evening
Austin
It took Jim just over an hour of flying time in the helicopter to go from Dallas to Austin. With the take-off and landing, that put them on the roof of the big county hospital in Austin around nine-thirty. He was swept into the ER, his bag stashed in a locker, and an isolation gown thrown over his scrubs in fifteen minutes flat. The nurse assigned to help him also got him into shoe covers and a face shield before he could ask. He saw why as soon as he walked into the first patient room.
It was midnight before Jim could get away to take a bathroom break and grab a cup of coffee. There didn’t seem to be any end to the patients still lining up to be seen. He tried Ginny again, still without success. He tossed back the coffee and went back to work.
By four a.m. the flood of patients had dwindled to a trickle and Jim was released to one of the call rooms to get some sleep. He checked his phone again and this time found Ginny’s text message. He breathed a heavy sigh of relief, set the phone down on the table, and closed his eyes. The next thing he knew, he was being shaken awake.
“Dr. Mackenzie, there’s a call for you.”
Jim climbed groggily back to consciousness, reaching for his phone.
“Not that one. It’s the house phone.” The nurse picked up the receiver on the hospital line and handed it to him.
Jim rubbed a hand over his face. “Lo?”
“Jim, it’s Richard Lyons. Sorry to wake you, but I need an update.”
Jim glanced at his watch. Seven-thirty. Three hours of sleep. Just like residency.
He took a breath, then gave his boss a run down on what they’d found; the types of injuries, casualty numbers (last he’d heard), and projected timeline.
“Sounds like you’ve got that under control.”
“As far as the emergency care is concerned, yes.”
“Good. Here’s why I’m calling. DeSoto found out you were in Austin and asked me to ask you to do something for him.”
Jim groaned under his breath. All he wanted to do at the moment was go back to sleep. “What does he need?”
“He wants you to talk to one of the docs at County. Here’s his name and contact information.”
Jim wrote it down on his hand. “What about?”
“Fake fentanyl patches.”
* * *