Uncovering Her Secrets. Amalie Berlin
team pulled Mrs. Andrews’s table over, locked the wheels and got to work.
Preston handed the saw to his surgical tech, had his gown and gloves changed, and cut in, following the rod through so much shredded flesh.
As he got to work, the burning in his eye subsided. Maybe he was off the hook. Maybe work really would save him. He and Mr. Andrews would save each other.
“Talk to me,” Dasha called, though she needn’t have lifted her voice. Back to back, they weren’t close enough to touch but Preston could swear he felt her. The air vibrated between them. Or maybe they were touching somehow. Her gown? His? Just something else he needed to ignore.
“Liver pierced. Most of it shredded. There’s enough intact to salvage. Working on the bleeding now.” Of which there was a large amount. “Yours?”
“Working on the bleeding,” she echoed, but in her voice there was a sound he could still identify. She didn’t think Mrs. Andrews was going to make it. But if he knew nothing else about Dasha, he knew she didn’t like to lose.
“I need to know if they got hold of Nettle,” Dasha said, her words rushed, agitated.
But she wasn’t talking to him. Let her deal with the rest of department. His focus was in front of him.
How much worse would this morning have been if he and Dasha had had nothing to do but sit around and reminisce? Remember that time when we were dating, and you broke my heart and left me handcuffed to the bed while you stole my fellowship? How much trouble would his mouth have gotten him into then? It certainly would’ve taxed this new leaf he struggled to turn over.
His mouth had caused him years of trouble, and was the reason he had to work with the woman he’d spent the past decade quasi-stalking.
The best way to avoid Dasha? To know where she was. Know where she worked. Know what conferences she attended. Know where she lived, where she likely shopped, dined and visited. Avoidance of that level required intelligence.
It wasn’t really stalking. It was more like anti-stalking. In a stalker sort of way.
And now she stood behind him, no more than a yard away.
Another hour passed.
“How’s it going over there?” She asked for updates regularly but hadn’t made any more attempts to manipulate him by riling him. Something else he should put off thinking about until later when he was deciding whether to come back to St. Vincent’s.
“Closing,” Preston answered. “Transfused two pints of blood.” No doubt this wasn’t exactly what the board had in mind for supervised practice.
“Good. I need you.” To help with the surgery. She needed his assistance with the surgery. The words she’d chosen were bad, but they had no hidden meaning.
“How is she doing on blood?” he asked.
A surgical nurse helped him out of his gown and gloves and into a fresh set.
“Up to three, probably adding another...” She never looked away from her patient.
His first view inside the woman’s chest nearly robbed him of breath. “We could do with a cardiac surgeon.” Could they ever. But in the small cavity his hands joined hers, and they worked in tandem to repair damage that appeared irreversible.
“That’s who I’ve been asking for updates on,” she muttered, but she still worked. She wouldn’t give up. It was one thing he could give her credit for. Well, that and her skill. On a professional level Dasha was good. It was as a human being that she had failed.
His left eye twitched. He squinted. Sometimes taking charge of those muscles helped. Sometimes it didn’t. Working with Dasha might be a deal-breaker. He’d have to think about it.
Later.
When he relaxed the muscles around his eye, his sight sharpened and he saw it. There was a small cut on Mrs. Andrews’s heart, but it had not gone through. “Damn.”
“What is it?” Dasha stopped what she was doing long enough to look where his hands were.
“She needs to go on the pump,” Preston said. “Now.” That the heart wall had held this long was a miracle.
“Get the line in her. Go femoral, we don’t need any more holes north of the belt,” Dasha said, then went back to what she was doing. Already the techs were getting the heart-lung machine in place. They’d started moving the second he said the word pump. Preston could get used to that.
A cannula landed in his hand and he prodded around on the woman’s thigh to find the artery, swabbed with alcohol and threaded it in. By the time he was ready for the return line, the nurse was waiting for him.
He’d no more gotten it settled than a man pushed into the OR.
Nettle. Preston recognized him then. The name hadn’t rung any bells but he’d met this cardiac surgeon before. A golfing buddy of his father’s. Which was all Preston needed to know about him. He could jump to some conclusions on his own. Probably decent at his job, but arrogant, and proud of that arrogance.
“Dr. Hardin, step back, please,” Nettle said, allowing a nurse to help with the gloves.
“She’s got a laceration that isn’t through the muscle.” Preston gestured to the area where the rod had scuffed up Mrs. Andrews’s heart.
“I see it,” Nettle said.
Preston stayed put but lifted his hands free and out of the way, ready to go back in if needed. Yes, he wanted the cardiac surgeon to get there, but now he just felt uneasy and over the years he’d learned to trust that feeling. No way was he leaving without a fight, he just had to try and handle it...tactfully.
Dasha talked the surgeon through what had been done, her team continuing with the pump to get the blood cooling so they could stop her heart and repair it. She hit all the pertinent details, which should’ve made him feel better about the hand-off. But a report wasn’t the same as having seen where the rod had been.
“Thank you both. I’ve got it from here,” Nettle said.
“Don’t you need another set of—?” Preston almost got through his question.
“I have another set of hands. I brought them.” Just then the door swung open and a younger version of the man made his way to the table.
“I’d still like to stay and help.” Preston tried to keep his request in a moderate, reasonable tone. Surely the man couldn’t object to that. “I’ll stay out of the way unless you need me.”
“If she needs her appendix removed, you’ll be the first person we call,” Nettle said. His tone light, no aggression there, but it reeked of condescension.
Nettle had obviously not gotten Dasha’s memo on being nice to everyone.
Preston caught Dasha shaking her head almost imperceptibly at him. Not the time to fight. He knew that. Of course it wasn’t the time, but there was no other time to make a stand and stay with the patient. He couldn’t just leave now and ask later over drinks.
“She’s in good hands,” Dasha said diplomatically, and began trying to steer him toward the door.
“You can’t be all right with this,” he hissed in her ear.
“No,” she whispered back, “but it isn’t going to help Mrs. Andrews if we distract him.” She surreptitiously nodded to a camera above the table.
Preston pulled off his gloves and gown and headed for the door. As soon as she was through it, he grabbed her by the elbow. “Where is the monitor?”
“Next door.” Dasha fished her keys out of her pocket again, and before a minute passed they were crowded around a monitor, following the surgery.
“Is this recording?” Preston asked, looking the room over. “Can we zoom in or something?”