Code Blue Read online

  Marie didn’t think she had ever been so happy in her life. Troy held her in his arms, dancing around the living room to the sound of the crickets outside; the window slightly cracked open.

  It was a surprisingly cold night for summer, which she thought as she closed the window, securing the latch. She looked at Troy, tall and handsome, as he beamed at her, sitting on the second couch they’d bought at Habitat for Humanity. She sat next to him, her fingers intertwined with his when he held his hand out and offered it to her. She put her head on his shoulder, sighing happily.

  “We need to tell my mom,” she said. “Do you think she will be disappointed?”

  He shook his head. “No,” he replied. “Of course not. Your mom wants you to be happy.”

  “Yeah, but I think she also wanted a wedding.”

  “In twenty years, when we are flush with cash, we are going to do a vow renewal,” he said, kissing the top of her head. “And when we do, you’re going to wear a beautiful white dress with one of those poufy skirts and our kids are going to be part of the wedding party and your mom will be right there, to see it all. You are going to give her a wedding. You’re just not there yet.”

  She looked up at him, her eyes suddenly filled with tears. “You’re right. I just wish we got to see all of them. I feel like it’s been so long, I miss them.”

  “I miss them too,” he replied, simply. “Don’t worry. It won’t be for long.”

  He wiped the tears away from her eyes, and before she could ask what he meant, he was kissing her sweetly, deeply, until she had forgotten what they were talking about in the first place.

  LANDON

  The clinic looked good.

  Not great. Not yet. The paint hadn’t finished drying, and he could already see chips and cracks where he hadn’t noticed them before. He had known that the challenge of taking an old building and making it a new clinic was going to be difficult, but buying newer facilities was cost prohibitive. The town was getting bigger. And with it, property was getting more and more expensive. Five years before, a newer house might’ve been sold for just north of $100,000. But the newer houses and the newer buildings were going for at least $300,000; money he didn’t have, money he had to put into the clinic. So, he had decided to buy an old house, on the outskirts of town, owned by a notoriously reclusive woman the children who lived around town used to call The Witch. An unkind name for a sickly woman, though he had undoubtedly participated in it when he was young. The property had almost been condemned, but through weeks and weeks of hard work, he had brought it up to snuff.

  He had been sore in places of his body that he had never used before, from painting and sanding and getting things ready. But there was the words Silver Garden Clinic on a sign above the door, in blue and black. He couldn’t help but feel pride at the sight of it, though he was aware that he still had a lot of work left to do.

  He didn’t know how long it would take, and he didn’t know how long it would take him to really get the clinic established. He had an amazing team of doctors and nurses, and a very experienced administrative staff that he had hand-picked himself, but still, if patients didn’t choose the clinic, they were all shit out of luck. He stepped into the clinic, looking around at all the tarp that had still been left, and began laboriously taking it down. It was a lot of work, more than he expected, and the fact was that the AC still didn’t work, made it hotter than he would have wanted.

  He had only gone to check on it, but like usual, he ended up doing work. He couldn’t just stand there, staring idly at his dream, waiting for it to just happen. If there is one thing Landon knew for sure, it was that he had to put work into it.

  By the time he was done taking down the tarp, his fingers were dirty and he was incredibly thirsty, probably from the heat. There was a little café next door in the strip mall that had been developed a few years before. The one that had tried to buy The Witch’s house. A useful place for Landon to stop by for a drink, considering that he didn’t want to hop into his car and get it dirty with construction dust.

  He walked around to the café, ready to wash his hands in the bathroom, but before he did, he looked outside at the sign and his breath caught in his throat.

  He remembered being there with Marie Parker. It was one of the few times they had run into each other after he had started working on the clinic. She had been on a horrible date with a guy she didn’t like at all, and she had smiled at him, grabbed his arm, and pretended that they were old friends.

  He bailed her out. Bought her a coffee, smiled at her, laughed at her jokes until the man she was supposed to be with finally left.

  “Thank you,” she had said, quietly, after a little while. She was sipping on her coffee, slowly. “My friend set me up, and I didn’t want to be rude, but he just…”

  Landon waited.

  “He was insistent,” she continued, waving her hand in front of her face. “Some men just don’t like to hear the word no.”

  “I’m sorry. If I had known,” he said. “I would’ve come over here earlier.”

  She shook her head. “No, it is not your responsibility. I could’ve hopped in my car and gone home, but I didn’t want him to know where I lived.”

  Landon laughed. “If he lives in town, he probably already knows where you live.”

  “Cold comfort,” she said. “Anyway, why are you out here so late?”

  “Do you remember that old house? The one that all the kids were afraid of when we were growing up?”

  She thought about it for a second, her brow furrowed, then shook her head. “No,” she said. “That doesn’t ring a bell.”

  “Maybe you’re a bit young for it. I think the woman who lived in it died when I was, I don’t know, fourteen?”

  “Ha,” Marie said. “I really don’t remember that.”

  “But you remember her house, right? The one with the creepy purple paint?”

  Marie nodded, her eyes widening. “Oh my gosh,” she said, a smile on her face. “Is that where you’re putting your clinic? Because, if it is, I think it might be haunted.”

  “It’s not haunted,” he replied, shaking his head, also smiling. “Ghost aren’t real.”

  She gazed into his eyes, a smile on her face, before she answered. “And what makes you believe that I think it’s ghosts? Other things, other creatures, can certainly haunt you,” she said. “Including witches.”

  “I don’t think she was a witch,” he said, shaking his head, finishing his own cappuccino. “I think she was probably just in a lot of pain all the time, which made people think that she was a weird recluse. I think people underestimate how difficult it is to be part of a community when you’re chronically ill, especially when you’re elderly.”

  “Okay,” she said, nodding her head. “I hear that, but counterpoint, if she’s a witch, she’s going to eat your patients’ souls.”

  He laughed. “Even if she was, which I don’t think so, I don’t think that’s how a witch actually works.”

  She narrowed her eyes, still looking right at him. “Are you trying to tell me something, Dr. Cross?”

  “I’m trying to tell you that buying her house was really, really cheap,” he said.

  “Because it’s haunted.”

  “Because it’s in disrepair,” he said.

  She raised her eyebrows. “So, you admit, you don’t know if it’s haunted.”

  “No,” he said, smiling at her, smiling at the way her eyes lit up, and it didn’t come from the electric light overhead, and the way her hair bounced every time she did something or said something that made her move a little bit, and at the fact that she never seem to stop having that smirk on her face. “I don’t know if it’s haunted, but I’m going to make an educated guess that it’s not.”

  “And how would you know that?” she asked, leaning back on the chair.

  “This might come as a surprise to you,” he said, leaning forward and dropping his voice before he spoke. “But I am a doctor.”

&nbsp
; She laughed. He liked her laugh, it was unabashed, a little silly. She got serious, again, for a second. “Thank you,” she said. “For bailing me out. I really appreciate it.”

  “No worries. That guy seemed like a jerk,” he said. “Hopefully your next date isn’t such a disaster.”

  “Yeah,” she said, nodding. “Hopefully.”

  He sighed a little when he caught a fraction of his reflection on the large café window. He looked different that night, with a five o’clock stubble and wild hair. But when he looked at his reflection right then, he looked surprisingly put together, though he didn’t feel particularly well.

  He had heard from Dr. Turner, and Marie Parker wasn’t showing signs of getting better. After a surgery like the one she’d had, there were a ton of complications which could happen. Complications that, as a doctor and a man with an anxious disposition, it was hard not to think about.

  Still, it was hardly any of Landon’s business, he told himself, as he forced himself to scroll past Dr. Turner’s contact card. If there was anything to know, he was certain he would’ve heard it by then.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  MARIE

  “Can you stop that?” Marie asked her toddler, who was clinging to her legs as she held the receiver away from her face. “No, Mr. Alvarez, I wasn’t talking to you. My kid. Sorry about that. Yes, I’ll have that project ready by Monday. I definitely don’t need an extension. Thank you again for this chance.”

  He hung up before she thanked him, which was probably for the best. She had thanked him far too many times, but all her hopes of a promotion depended entirely on his opinion, and she was determined to impress him, no matter how strange it seemed.

  She signaled at Troy, who finally picked up her desperate eyebrow wagging, and he scooped her up. “Dani,” he said. “I told you to leave Mommy alone for her big meeting.”

  The little girl clapped her hands, laughing. “Meeting!” she said back to her father.

  As Marie watched them, she melted a little. She wished she could stay there, but she had to get to work. There was no time to treasure her little family if she wasn’t going to be able to help provide, and with Troy in and out of work, she needed to be the one bringing home the bacon. She didn’t mind—she liked her job and hadn’t exactly enjoyed being home when Daniela was a newborn; though, when she thought about it, it was mostly a blur. She could probably chalk it up to a lack of sleep, but she hadn’t documented her daughter’s early months as much as she wanted, and now everything had become a blur.

  “I’ll take her,” Troy said, kissing Marie on the cheek. “You go and work on your project. Do all that spreadsheet stuff you need to do. Dani and I, we are going on a critter-watching adventure in the backyard.”

  She nodded and walked over to the kitchen. She needed some water before she started. She was parched.

  LANDON

  Landon stared at Kristen, the assistant he had hired for Silver Garden. She did a spectacular job, considering how underpaid she was, especially when taking her experience into account. But she was a godsend and he was going to keep employing her for as long as he could.

  “Do you want me to go through that again, Dr. Cross?” she said, a smirk on her face. With pin-straight, white hair that went all the way to her shoulders and cat-eye make-up, she always looked quite severe, even when it was clear that she was amused.

  “No,” he said. “I got it. So, we have three beds left to fill?”

  “Two,” she said. “As per your instructions, we are trying to keep a few open for patients who might not be here long.”

  He smiled at her. “Thank you,” he said, then leaned back on the reception desk. He was tired, and it was only eleven o’clock in the morning. His second cup of coffee for the day felt like it was far away. He needed to imbibe after lunch, because if he did so before, he knew he was going to feel like shit for the rest of the day. “I appreciate all you do, Kristen.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “You better,” she said. “When I came in, a few months ago, this place was…”

  She let her words hang in the air.

  “We’ve had growing pains,” he replied, feeling a bit stung by her words. He pointedly looked at her. “But now that it seems like we’re going in the right direction, I chalk most of my success up to my administrative staff.”

  “Flattery will get you nowhere, Dr. Cross,” she said.

  He smirked. Flattery seemed to be working just fine.

  She rolled her eyes. “What do you need?”

  “I was hoping you would help me go through the filing system. I know you came up with it, and I think it’s brilliant, but I’m having a hard time with a few of the details.”

  “Of course,” she replied. “I would be happy to walk you through that, but you don’t need a favor for me to do that. So, what do you actually need?”

  He shook his head. Nothing got past her, it was annoying. “I want you to call the Port Smith Hospital, and I want you to ask about a particular patient.”

  “I didn’t see anyone from Port Smith on the admittance list.”

  “She isn’t,” he said. “She’s a long-term care, and she still hasn’t come out of her coma. She’s not somebody I have a personal relationship with, not really, but she’s a patient whose case I am interested in. I believe we could help her; however, I don’t want to put the clinic up for it myself in case she does come out of it. I feel like it would appear self-interested.”

  “But you’re a doctor,” she replied, her eyes wide. “As self-interested as you might be, all you want to do is help her.”

  “That’s true. I just worry that my interest is going to appear as more than academic. As you know, getting Silver Garden established is one of my main goals. I want us to be respectable, especially in the eyes of other medical professionals.”

  “I will give them a call,” she said. “But for what it’s worth, Dr. Cross, I think your interest is very laudable.”

  He shook his head. “The outcome for people who have been in a coma for several months, not to mention years, is usually not favorable,” he said. “She suffered some brain trauma and had to undergo brain surgery. The neurologist thought she was going to wake up within a few days, but she never did. In truth, I don’t expect her to wake up. I just want to be able to provide her specialized care if she does.”

  “Should I advise billing?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m going to assume this is a patient whose care you won’t necessarily want to bill,” she said, and Landon instantly smiled. He really had made the best decision when he had hired her. “Since her care is so specialized, but also, being able to help her would be a boon to the clinic and its reputation.”

  “Yeah,” he said, looking up at the analog clock on the wall. “Please advise billing. I need to go, but once again, thank you for everything. You’re the best.”

  “Remember that when it comes time for my yearly evaluation,” she yelled after him, laughter in her voice.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  MARIE

  She was in bed, and she felt weak and cold. The blanket on top of her, though it was woolen and thick, barely seemed to be doing anything. She looked up at the lightbulb, though it felt like it took a lot of effort for her to move her gaze. Even just opening her eyelids felt like a monumental task, something she would’ve never struggled with when she was young. But she wasn’t young anymore, and as her family surrounded her bed, each one of them holding her hand, telling her how much they loved her, calling her different terms of endearment, she knew that her death was a good one.

  She was afraid, because she didn’t know what was going to happen next, but her last few years had been lonely. Without Troy, everything was different. She missed how he used to whistle when he gardened. She missed the way his ice-cold lips felt on her face every time he kissed her. When she would ask him why he was so cold, he would just laugh, throwing his head back, his graying hair moving with him.

  But he had not
been around for a long time, and the home they’d shared when they were young parents was too big for her, so she had landed at a fancy retirement home with all the comforts it could bring her.

  It was nice. It was exactly what she needed as an old lady. But there was little time to reflect on that now. All she could think about was the small hands of her youngest grandchild, a nine-year-old, as he gripped her own.

  She tried to smile at them, but she didn’t have enough strength. All she could feel was the pull of a comforting darkness, the desire to fall asleep without anything or anyone bothering her.

  It had been a good life. And it was time to give into the darkness and let it envelope her; love surrounding her from every corner.

  And then there was nothing.

  LANDON

  “Dr. Cross,” Kristen said as he was leaving for the day. He was already in his street clothes, having showered and put his scrubs in his bag. Kristen look like she had something urgent to say, even though it was almost ten o’clock at night, and Landon wasn’t technically on shift anymore. “You have a phone call. It’s important.”

  “I’m about to go home,” he said, a little simply. “Can you get Jade to handle it?”

  “I’m afraid not. This is about your patient, the one at Port Smith.”

  “No…” All the blood had drained from his face. He didn’t even realize he was going to say anything until he heard the words come out of his mouth. “Did she pass away?”

  “No,” Kristen replied. “Seems like she’s awake. Actually, quite alert, from what the person on the phone tells me. All things considered.”

  “There is no neurological damage?" As soon as he said it, he realized it was a stupid question. There would be no way to know, not until there were several more valuations on her well-being.

  “I don’t know,” Kristen said. “The person on the phone is a nurse. They told me that they paged Dr. Turner, they also told me that there was a note from the family to get in touch with you if something did happen.”