“What have we got?” Janine raced to the stretcher as she asked. Her eyes roved over the injured man.
“Looks like he went through a meat packer,” the paramedic said wryly.
She glanced over the patient more critically this time. To her, it looked like he’d managed to step a little too close to a bomb. But the meat packer thought also worked.
The paramedic said, “Car accident out on Route 81. Hit a guard rail and went over.”
Frowning, she assessed his wounds again. They certainly didn’t look like car accident wounds. She had seen enough combat wounds, bombing ones in particular, to doubt that verdict. Maybe he was in a car when they found him, but these injuries weren’t synonymous with those of an auto accident.
She read his identity tag and the name Michael Lamont, but when she looked the man in the face, she made a startling discovery. Michael Lamont looked like an older, male version of a familiar face. KC Gilmore Morrison’s face, to be exact. His face was covered in blood and in need of stitches, but still the man looked like a Gilmore.
“Are you sure of this identification?” Janine stared the paramedic down.
“The only thing we’re sure about is that we’re not sure of anything, Dr. Morris,” he answered laconically, and Janine suppressed the urge to roll her eyes.
She ignored their antics and instead went to work on the man. After a thorough assessment of his injuries, she determined he should have died from his wounds. She didn’t know many people who could sustain the extensive injuries he sported and still live.
Her eyes floated back to his face. The man still reminded her strongly of KC. Especially since she cleaned some of the blood off and had a better view now. Since the tour of Kuwait she had shared with KC, she had seen her friend’s face often enough to know a Gilmore when she saw one.
Glancing up as a nurse entered the room, Janine made a request. “Melissa, please see if you can locate Dr. KC Morrison at Gilmore Products and have her come here. She’s a surgeon who fills in for us in emergencies.” Janine tacked on at the last, hoping to alleviate suspicions among the staff.
They hopefully wouldn’t put the two faces together, because KC’s would be glowing from love and marriage and motherhood. She suspected it would also be clean. While this man’s, Michael Lamont’s, probably had never glowed even if it wasn’t covered in blood and muck from the “accident”. But KC could also confirm her suspicions as to the nature of Michael Lamont’s injuries. If this man was Michael Lamont.
She began repairing the worst of his injuries. She hoped she could repair all of them, but even she was dubious. During one of her tours of Kuwait, she’d operated on an unfortunate Marine who triggered an IED (improvised explosive device). She had assessed his chances of survival as better than this man’s. It had depressed and saddened her when she lost that patient. Unfortunately, it hadn’t surprised her.
“Janine, I came as soon as I received your message,” KC said, as she raced through the door. She had scrubbed up and held her hands in such a way Janine knew she was also sterile and therefore ready for work.
“Thanks for coming, KC. My first question,” Janine started but darted a look around the room. She couldn’t figure out why she didn’t want anyone to overhear her conversation with KC, but she did. “Carol, could you please go assist Dr. Kassing? Now that Dr. Morrison is here, we can manage.”
“Certainly, Doctor,” the bemused nurse said, but she willingly left the room.
Turning, Janine saw her friend’s eyebrow had all but disappeared, so high was it raised. “Sorry, KC but take a look at this man. Take a look at his wounds. Recognize them?”
KC stared at her for another moment, before she turned and stared at the man. She frowned before looking the injuries over more thoroughly. “Janine, he looks like he got in the way of an IED or a land mine.” Like Janine, KC kept her voice down.
“That’s what I thought. But we’d have heard if there was a bomb explosion in Hershey,” she said as KC lifted confused eyes to her. Janine continued, feeling KC’s confusion. “The paramedics said he was involved in a car accident out on Route 81, but he wasn’t injured in a car accident.”
“Well, he could have been, but I’d bet he was bleeding long before he had an accident.” KC glanced casually at his face.
Janine saw her eyes widen before KC turned stricken eyes back to her.
“Why ... how?” KC sounded as dazed as she looked. She moved robotically forward and stared down at the man on the stretcher.
“Do you know this man, KC?” Janine kept her voice quiet, but judging from KC’s reaction, she had to believe the man whose identification read Michael Lamont was not, indeed, Michael Lamont.
“Janine,” KC whispered, “this is Greg, my brother.” Janine heard the anguish in her friend’s voice and closed her eyes for a moment.
Suspicions confirmed. “I’m sorry, KC.”
KC moved to his side and ran her gloved hand over his face. “Greg,” she whispered, smoothing back his hair. Which was a light shade of brown, several colors removed from KC’s very blonde hair. Still, their facial structure and even body structure were similar.
The man’s eyes popped open and Janine gasped soundlessly. Blue eyes identical to KC’s stared straight into KC’s. She was at the wrong angle, but she thought, for the extent of his injuries, that his gaze was intense. Something passed between the pair, something Janine couldn’t read, or didn’t understand.
KC turned to Janine. “This man isn’t my brother.”
Janine felt one of her own eyebrows disappear at that whopper. This man and woman were so like siblings, they could have been twins. KC didn’t appear to notice her reaction, but her friend shook her head when she repeated that she didn’t know the patient.
A patient who shouldn’t have regained consciousness in the first place. Who was this man? Besides KC’s brother, despite the woman’s insistence he wasn’t. He had done something before lapsing back into unconsciousness to make KC lie to her.
Janine figured she’d pull little information from him, even if he was conscious. His sister might prove easier, even though KC’s mouth now formed a grim line. Since Janine had witnessed that exact same stubborn expression in the past, she knew better than to press her luck right at the moment.
Briskly, she fell back onto something she knew. Doctoring. If KC and this man didn’t want to claim each other, fine. She believed them as much as she believed a rooster had mammary glands, but whatever.
Right now her top priority was to patch him up where she could. Taking him into the operating room was a must; at least for her to remove the shrapnel she believed was imbedded in his flesh. Where had he encountered the shrapnel and what was this man doing in Hershey, Pennsylvania?
Why was he in her hospital?
“When you take him into the O.R., tell the others that the car exploded, and that’s why you’re removing what looks like shrapnel, Janine.”
“It’ll take a while before we can get him into the O.R. There was a pile-up on Route 83 that’s backed up everything.”
A stricken expression filled KC’s eyes. Janine wasn’t certain if she meant to, but KC still smoothed a hand down the man’s face. The wounded look in her eyes was replaced by pure love. So much for this man not being her brother. But why wouldn’t he want his sister to acknowledge him?
“He was in a car accident, Dr. Morrison,” Janine said for the benefit of the other medical staff who now entered the room.
“Yes, looks like the car exploded or something. You’ll be yanking stuff out of him for ages. Of course,” KC said with a jaunty wink that Janine knew wasn’t real, “you’ve got experience with removing pieces of metal. Luckily, this was only a car accident.”
“I can manage,” Janine answered dryly, keeping up her side of the conversation as they stripped off their bloody gloves and sterile garb. Janine walked KC to the door. She had intended to stop there, but KC appeared so torn and shaken, she thought she better make certain her friend actually found her car.
When she and KC reached the vehicle, Janine could tell KC was leaning close to shock.
“Janine, what was that all about? What’s Greg doing here?”
“I thought that wasn’t Greg? You said you didn’t know that man.”
“I didn’t know him. My brother is an artist. That man is not an artist. He looks exactly like Greg, but he isn’t my brother. At least not the man I know.”
“Why wasn’t he like your brother?”
“Greg is the most unreliable, scatterbrained man alive. That man lying on your operating table isn’t unreliable or scatterbrained. Who is he, Janine?”
A rhetorical question from a terrified sister and Janine couldn’t say anything.
She shook her head. KC had no idea that she probably could answer that question. Wondering how much to tell KC, as her friend was retired Navy, so she could be trusted with secrets, Janine still hesitated. At this point, Janine felt maybe her not knowing would be more dangerous than her knowing.
“Unless I missed the signs, I’d say someone shot him up pretty well, with a nasty little bomb. Only a man in excellent physical condition and with skills beyond normal military training has kept him alive.”
“You think Greg is part of a Special Forces team? How? He’s never been in the military.”
“Just because you’ve never heard he’s been in the military doesn’t mean he isn’t. And that man’s name is Michael Lamont, not Greg Gilmore.”
“So much for him being reliable.”
Janine heard the pain in KC’s voice behind the wryness. “He couldn’t be to his family,” she answered calmly.
“What do you mean?”
“Think about it, KC. I don’t know this for certain, of course, but I suspect he’s tried to protect you over the years. Provided that man is your brother.”
“Greg protected me all our growing up years, but I’ve lost contact with him over the years. We drifted apart. Except when he gave Ryan to me. Then he played the unencumbered artist role to perfection.”
“Exactly. I suspect he’s worked hard to protect you and Ryan.”
“Do you think he pretended to be unreliable to cover his tracks?” KC sounded aghast.
“Yes.” Ben’s voice answered. Both women spun around to confront him. Janine pressed a hand against her rapidly beating heart as he continued. “Definitely. If Greg’s duties are what I suspect, he would have done that. Greg would have made every effort to distance himself from you.”
“When did you get home?” Janine kept her hand to her heart. He shouldn’t have been able to surprise her. All her training...
“I just arrived. But I don’t like what I’ve already overheard. KC’s brother is dying on one of your tables and no one knew he had a secret life?”
KC shook her head. “Is...is his life a secret?”
“I’ve met up with a man who looks like him, and I can tell you one thing, KC, the man on the table in there is one of the most dangerous men I’ve ever encountered.” Ben’s voice sounded grim.
“Is he the same man?” Janine butted in. The more information she could glean, the better she could make her next decision.
“I don’t know for sure. He wasn’t bloody and he was coherent when I met him. My team was paired with him on an assignment. All I’ll say is I’m awfully grateful he was on my side,” Ben reached out and ran a hand down KC’s arm.
“What if that man is my brother?” KC’s voice shook.
“He’ll do whatever he must to keep you all safe.” His voice was implacable. KC began to cry. Janine hauled her into sympathetic arms.
“I was so hurt when Greg dumped Ryan on my doorstep and then didn’t come around.”
“He wouldn’t have been able to come around, KC. The men after him wouldn’t have asked questions. They’d have just left bodies. But remember, that man in there could just be a regular citizen.” Janine doubted Ben believed that. She doubted it. Regular citizens didn’t come into the emergency room with shrapnel in their bodies.
Janine felt KC shudder so she tightened her arms. “He wasn’t unreliable. He was doing his usual – protecting me and Ryan.”
Ben nodded. “That would be my guess.”
KC turned grief-stricken eyes on her. Janine shook her head. “Don’t you feel guilty, girl. You felt exactly the way he wanted you to feel about him. He cultivated that impression.”
Her friend didn’t look entirely convinced, but KC seemed calmer, more sure of herself.
“KC, don’t tell anyone about this, not even Max. I know you’ll want to tell him everything, but that could be dangerous. I’ll make some phone calls.” Ben’s tone was firm.
Alarm spiraled through Janine’s nervous system. “Ben, do not make phone calls. Let this rest.”
He turned dark, fathomless eyes on her. “While I don’t know much about this situation, I do have some contacts...” Ben stopped talking when Janine kept shaking her head. KC stepped out of her arms but kept a hand on her.
“You don’t know anything about this situation, and the less you know, the safer you’ll be right now. Don’t make phone calls.” She could feel KC gaping at her, but she maintained eye contact with Ben.
“I don’t want to know what you know, or how, but I’m assuming you’re intending to make phone calls instead?” Ben’s voice was mild. She appreciated that.
“The more you know, the more dangerous this situation could be for everyone involved. Right now, I need to get back to my patient.”
“Take good care of him, Janine,” KC whispered. Her eyes were large pools of anxiety.
Squeezing her friend’s hand seemed inadequate, but Janine did so nonetheless. “I’ll take care of him like he was mine, KC.”