Love On Call

“It’s necrotizing fasciitis, and she needs to go to the OR, right now. I should call Williams, but Flann’s upstairs—”

“God, don’t call Williams. If you do, she’ll be sitting down here until after he’s had his morning coffee.”

“You did good calling me.”

“I knew you’d come. You always do.”

Of course she did, what else would she be doing. She scribbled an order for an antibiotic cocktail and called up to the OR. Dave Pearson, an OR tech, answered. “Hey, Dave, it’s Glenn. Can you patch me into Flann’s room?”

“Sure, hold on. You got something?”

“Yeah—do you have another team?”

“We can put something together if it can’t wait until Flann is done.”

“Let’s see what she says.”

A second later the line buzzed and a woman answered. “OR seven.”

“Fay, it’s Glenn Archer. Can Flann talk?”

“Hold on a second…Flann, it’s Glenn. Can you talk?”

“Glenn?” Flann said. “What are you doing? I thought you’d moved on to greener pastures.”

“Not until seven a.m. I’m down in the ER. Cindy called me. There’s a thirty-five-year-old woman here with necrotizing fasciitis of her left lower extremity. Right now it’s in the midcalf, but the wound is less than twenty-four hours old, and she looks toxic. She needs to come up.”

“Damn it,” Flann muttered. “We’ve got another half an hour before we can test the shunt. Pete can close after that. If they can set up another room, you can get started.”

“Dave says they can. I’ll get her upstairs.”

“You started her on bug killers?”

“As we speak.”

“Let me know as soon as she’s asleep, and I’ll put my head in if I’m not free yet.”

“Okay, no problem.”

Husband and wife fixed Glenn with anxious gazes as soon as she stepped through the curtain. “You’ve got an infection in your leg, you know that. The X-rays show air inside your tissues where it shouldn’t be. That indicates a certain kind of infection from strains of bacteria that can be harder to treat than the ordinary kind. It’s probably caused by whatever was on the old wire that you got tangled up in.”

“But you can treat it, right? With the antibiotics?” Todd’s voice was an octave higher than it had been and his face had gone from ruddy to gray. He swayed just a little.

“Sit down right there, Mr. Purcell, and I’ll finish telling you what we’re going to do.” Glenn pointed to the plastic chair next to the bed and Todd Purcell dropped into it with a thud.

Todd repeated, “You can treat it—”

“Todd,” Naomi said with gentle firmness, “let the doctor talk.”

Glenn didn’t bother correcting them. Almost everyone she took care of in the ER called her Doc. Everyone in Iraq had too. “We are going to treat you with antibiotics, and Cindy, the nurse you met earlier, will be starting them any minute. But that’s not going to be enough. We need to take you up to the operating room—”

Naomi’s husband gave a little groan. Glenn walked closer to the bed and gripped his shoulder, her gaze still fixed on Naomi, who held hers unwaveringly.

“You’re not going to have to amputate my leg, are you?” Naomi Purcell asked.

“No. We’re going to make an incision and wash out the deeper tissues to help stop the spread of infection. We might have to make several four- or five-inch incisions, but they’ll heal. You’ll have some scars, but it’s early yet, and chances are good your leg will be fine except for that.”

“All right,” Naomi said instantly. “When?”

“Right now. As soon as we can get the antibiotic started, we’ll take you upstairs to the OR.”

“Are you sure you have to do this?” her husband asked, looking like a frightened deer trapped in a thicket of briars.

“I’m sure. I talked to Dr. Rivers about it, and she—”

“Harper Rivers?”

“No, Flannery.”

“Harper takes care of our kids,” he said, some of the color coming back to his face. “Her sister—that’s the surgeon, right?”

“That’s right. She’ll be in charge upstairs.”

“But you’ll be with her, right?” Naomi said.

“Yeah, I will be,” Glenn said, thinking this would probably be her last case with Flannery Rivers.

Chapter Two

Mari had never lived anywhere without bus service. She’d never lived anywhere without malls and movie theaters and takeout. When she was thirteen, she’d gone to one of the big agricultural centers in LA County on a school-sponsored trip, but the miles and miles of row after row of green things had seemed foreign and boring at the time. Looking back, it had probably only been a few hundred acres of lettuce, but she’d been happy to get back to the concrete and city smells she’d grown up with. No buses meant driving, which she could do but had rarely needed to undertake back home when everything was a stop away on the subway, light rail, or bus. Who would drive in the insanity if they didn’t need to?