Searching for Cate Read online

  The logical answer was that someone had to be in there.

  “I need a shoulder here,” she called out.

  Santiago came up behind her and moved her aside. “If I dislocate this, you’re picking up the excess medical tab,” he warned.

  Bracing himself, the heavyset man applied his full weight against the door. It gave easily, the rusted hinges separating from the wall on the other end like so much cardboard. They opened the door on the side of the defunct hinges. Santiago moved it out of the way just as Lydia came up behind Cate.

  Inside the bathroom, chained to the pipes and slumped on the floor, was a crumpled figure. A girl. There was a pool of blood all around her. She was no more than fourteen, if that much.

  “Son of a bitch, they killed her,” Lydia cried.

  Cate was on her knees beside the body, her fingers pressed against the girl’s neck. The girl’s blood began to soak into her skirt.

  “I got a pulse!” she cried. “It’s faint, but there’s a definite beat.”

  Lydia was already on her cell phone, calling for an ambulance. “I need a wagon here, now! We’ve got a live one, but just barely.” She rattled off the location and then snapped the phone shut.

  For just a second, the girl’s eyes fluttered open. Terror came into them less than a second later. She looked as if she was trying to shrink into herself, whimpering. Cate heard Santiago curse behind her.

  “Hang on, honey, we’re the good guys,” Cate told the girl.

  The girl’s head jerked in her direction. The next moment, the girl had slipped out of consciousness again.

  Chapter 14

  Once a week, Christian put in a four-hour stint in the E.R.—from 7:00 a.m. until eleven. He felt it kept him on his toes as far as emergency medicine was concerned, something that proved very handy while working at the clinic on the reservation.

  He usually pulled duty on Wednesday mornings. Wednesday was his short day, barring an unexpected delivery. He only had afternoon hours, going into his office after one.

  E.R. duty varied. Some days, he couldn’t draw two breaths in succession, other days went so slowly they felt like a week. This morning had been in the latter category. Other than a down-on-his-luck house painter who came in with a bad case of the shingles and one small boy who had tried to break some kind of record for the amount of berries he’d pushed up his nose, the E.R. had seen no activity.

  Christian had treated the painter, then given him the name of one of his friends who was looking to paint the outside of his house. The painter had been extraordinarily grateful as he left. As to his other patient, Christian spent more time calming down the little boy’s mother than he did separating the boy from the berries.

  Given a choice as to the type of day he would have picked, Christian preferred working under the gun to marking time. After the minutes moved by like molasses in an ice cube tray, his shift was finally over.

  “You’ve got empty beds, Jerry,” he told the physician who came on to take his place. “If it was any slower, we’d have to be giving patients back.”

  The moment he uttered the words, the rear electronic doors leading into the E.R. burst open.

  “Looks like things are about to change,” the other physician commented.

  Christian raised his hands, as if to ward off any involvement. “All yours. I have a date with a ham-and-cheese sandwich in the cafeteria.”

  He had every intention of keeping that date as he turned toward the side exit. The back elevators were just around the corner. There was nothing unusual about paramedics bringing in patients. It happened all the time. Paramedics routinely brought in emergency cases if they occurred within the fifteen-mile radius of Blair Memorial’s jurisdiction.

  Reflecting on it later, he couldn’t have said if it was instinct, curiosity or something else that made him look over his shoulder toward the parking lot. His mother would have said it was fate, but he didn’t subscribe to all of his mother’s beliefs.

  Whatever caused it, he looked. And found himself surprised by what he saw.

  Doubly so.

  His sister-in-law Lydia was rushing alongside the gurney that the two paramedics were guiding in through the doors. He remembered Lukas telling him that the first time he’d met her, Lydia had just burst into the E.R. and was running alongside a gurney. Back then, it had been a suspected terrorist strapped to the moving bed. This time, a battered young woman whose dark brown hair looked to be matted with blood lay on the gurney.

  That caught his attention.

  What really nailed him, however, was that on the other side of the gurney, moving right beside the shorter of the two paramedics, was the woman he’d met in Joan Cunningham’s room last week.

  Cate something, he recalled. At the time, he’d wanted to ask her if she knew Lydia but had discarded the impulse the moment it came to him. Just because they were both special agents for the bureau didn’t mean they knew each other. It was like having someone from the East Coast assume that since he came from Southern California, he knew Tom Cruise.

  And yet, Cate obviously did know Lydia.

  And they both looked agitated.

  “I’ve got this one, Jerry,” he announced, waving the young physician back.

  “But you’re not on duty anymore, remember?” Jerry protested, although not too vehemently.

  “Clock me back in,” Christian instructed the nurse behind the central desk.

  By then, the gurney was almost on top of him. He quickly nodded at Lydia, then at Cate, but his main attention was on the unconscious young girl he now saw was little more than a child.

  “What have you got?” he asked.

  The paramedic in charge quickly rattled off the girl’s condition when he’d come on the scene, then added her vital signs. They hardly met the criteria for sustaining life.

  Lydia didn’t seem surprised to see him there. More like relieved. “Christian, you’ve got to keep this kid alive,” she cried.

  “That’s the name of the game.” He’d never seen his sister-in-law in action before and wondered if she was so personally involved in all her cases, or if the girl’s age was responsible for the extreme agitation he saw on her face. “Put her in that room,” he ordered the paramedics, pointing to the first empty room rather than just a vacant bed used to treat the more common complaints.

  “She stopped breathing!” Cate cried.

  Instantly, nurses seemed to swarm in on either side of the gurney as Christian began applying CPR. A young Hispanic nurse hurried in with the crash cart. Seconds ticked by as paddles were charged and then quickly applied.

  It took two efforts, with the jules being raised to six hundred before the girl’s heart finally responded and began beating again.

  To Cate, it seemed the level of activity never decreased. The moment the crash cart was moved aside, a caravan of machines were brought into the room. Each direction she turned, she found herself getting in the way. Machines were hooked up to monitor the girl’s blood pressure and newly revived heart as well as to keep track of a host of other body rhythms.

  Though she wanted to remain in the thick of it, watching, absorbing everything that was going on, Cate found herself forced to step back or be the unintended target of swiftly ebbing and flowing hospital personnel. She joined Lydia, who watched her brother-in-law’s every move with rapt attention.

  Cate couldn’t shake the impression that Lydia was willing the girl to hang on.

  A noise had Christian glancing up, his eyes meeting Lydia’s. The orderly had almost crashed into his sister-in-law.

  “Lydia, you’re going to have to move out of the way,” Christian instructed, then glanced toward Cate. “You, too.”

  Cate began to step back, but Lydia remained where she was, unwilling to leave the tight circle around the gurney. “Will she be all right?” Lydia’s concern was audible.

  You would have thought that Lydia was the girl’s mother instead of the special agent who had brought her in, Cate thought. Wa
s there some kind of special connection between her partner and the girl? Or was it just the sight in general of young flesh being peddled that got to Lydia? Cate made a mental note to ask the first opportune moment that presented itself.

  Christian made no answer at first. He concentrated on getting a tube down the girl’s throat, intubating her until she could breathe better on her own. It was only when he was finished that he looked up again. His answer was honest. Lydia wasn’t the girl’s relative, so there was no need to phrase things in order to soften the blow.

  “I don’t know yet.”

  Cate stared at the end of the lengthy tube that had gone down the girl’s throat. If she woke up and had something to tell them, there was no way she was going to be able to.

  “How long does that thing have to stay in?” Cate asked.

  Christian turned and looked at her a moment longer than he should have. Every second still counted. The next beat, he was back fighting to stabilize the girl’s vitals. Her pulse jumped all around and he was afraid that she might start having seizures.

  But the tube did the trick. The regular flow of air allowed her breathing to become steady.

  One problem down, a myriad to go, he thought. The girl would have to go to X-ray as soon as possible. It wasn’t a stretch to assume that there was internal damage. The real question was, how much and where was it? There was no way for him to know without films.

  “Until she’s breathing better,” he finally answered Cate.

  “We’ve got to question her as soon as possible,” Lydia told him. “There could be a lot of other lives at stake.”

  That had to be her bureau voice, he thought. He’d never heard her this serious, this official before. “She has to be conscious for you to question her,” he pointed out. And then he nodded over toward Cate. “Best thing you can do for her right now is to get back there with your friend.”

  Lydia opened her mouth to protest, both the order and Christian’s assumption. But then she realized that in the short time she and the other woman had been working together, she’d found herself getting close to Cate. She supposed that qualified the latter for the term “friend.” In any event, female friendship didn’t happen to her very often. For the most part, because of her relationship with her father and the career she’d chosen, Lydia had always had an easier time getting closer to men than to women. Cate Kowalski was proving to be the exception.

  As for his instruction, she knew Christian was right. She was just in the way here and had to step back to let the others do their jobs. She couldn’t always control every situation. Lydia blew out a breath, and did what she was told.

  A tense smile quirked her lips as she glanced at Cate. “He likes to give orders, like his brother.”

  Not a hundred percent sure she followed her, Cate looked at Lydia, confusion creasing her brow. “Who’s his brother?”

  “My husband, Lukas.” She nodded toward the center of the activity. “That’s his brother, Christian.” Please, Christian, don’t lose her. Her eyes never left her brother-in-law’s hands. “The baby of the family, if you don’t count John.”

  Knowing that they both needed to keep their minds occupied for the moment, Cate played along. “Who’s John and why shouldn’t he be counted?”

  “Because he’s not strictly a blood relative. John’s an orphan Juanita took in. Juanita’s their mother.” This time her smile was genuine, if distracted. “One hell of a woman, let me tell you. First woman who had me shaking in my shoes.”

  Lydia didn’t realize that her remark had carried over the din. Christian never looked up, but nonetheless he had heard her.

  “She’ll be happy to hear that,” he called out. “She always thinks of herself as a pushover,” he added.

  There was no way Lydia was about to believe that. The woman could probably instill fear in a mountain lion with just one look. “Yeah, right. She’s the original matriarch.”

  Cate would have been tempted to picture the typical “mother-in-law from hell” except that there was a note of fondness in Lydia’s voice as she spoke about the other woman.

  Because it was noisy and she had no desire to shout, Cate lowered her head, bringing her lips next to Lydia’s ear. “I take it you two get along.”

  “Yes. Now.” Lydia lowered her own voice because this part she definitely didn’t want Christian to overhear. She needn’t have worried. The noise volume began to increase as more monitors were brought in. “Once she realized that I loved Lukas and wasn’t there just to amuse myself with a Native American lover.”

  She paused for a moment as she studied Cate. She knew the other woman’s mother had died recently, which put her at emotional loose ends. She knew how she’d felt when her father had been killed. It wasn’t so much a matter of substitution as in finding a way to help fill a void, even temporarily.

  “I’d like you to meet her sometime. She’s the school principal on the reservation. Got a heart as big as all outdoors. She took in John when his parents were killed in a car accident. His parents were friends of hers. She’s that kind of woman,” Lydia added with a pride that could only come from feeling as if she was a member of the family. Cate envied her, missing that feeling. Missed feeling as if she was part of something instead of just being adrift, part of nothing. Barred from everything. “She raised two terrific sons,” Lydia concluded, still watching Christian’s every move intently.

  Christian stripped off his gloves and stepped back. For the moment, according to the monitors, the girl was stable enough to be taken to the X-ray department. He looked at the tall orderly who had brought in the last monitor.

  “Take her up to X-ray. Tell them I said she gets first priority. I want chest, pelvis, spleen—the works. She looks like she attended one hell of a party. Tell them to put a rush on it and get the films back to me as soon as possible.”

  The orderly nodded, kicking back the brakes from the gurney’s back wheels. A nurse fell into place, doing the same to the wheels in the front of the gurney. A minute later, the gurney was being guided out the door again.

  Lydia stepped back as the gurney passed. “You’re staying?” she asked Christian.

  He had some time before his first patient. And if the X-ray results took longer, he’d make adjustments.

  Lydia seemed invested in this girl’s survival. The least he could do was his part.

  “Until I know what’s up, yes. My patients are used to having my schedule reshuffled.” He thought of all the women who had gone into labor during his office hours. “Babies don’t punch clocks, either.”

  Babies. Lydia suppressed a sigh, but it escaped, anyway. She’d been meaning to call her brother-in-law this past week, but she hadn’t gotten around to it. There was something she needed to ask.

  She realized that Christian was looking at Cate. Was that interest or just curiosity? “Sorry, Christian, this is my new partner, Special Agent Cate Kowalski. Cate, this is my brother-in-law, Dr. Christian Graywolf.”

  Both Cate and Christian said “We’ve already met” at the same time.

  So it wasn’t curiosity she’d seen on Christian’s face, Lydia thought. That meant it was interest. Despite what was weighing heavily on her mind, the thought intrigued her.

  Chapter 15

  Any other time, Lydia would have attempted to explore the possibilities that might be present. She dearly loved her brother-in-law and knew all about the tragedy he’d endured. It had happened just after she and Lukas had gotten married. But right now, she had other things on her mind.

  She looked down the hallway as the gurney disappeared around the corner. “How long before the films come back?” she asked.

  “They haven’t even gotten her into X-ray yet,” he said. “Half hour, maybe more.” Was it his imagination, or was Lydia distracted? He couldn’t shake the feeling that she just didn’t seem to be herself. “Why?”

  She moved a little closer to him, cutting out Cate. “Can I see you, Christian? Privately?” she added. “In your of
fice.”

  Now he knew something was up, and she sounded unsure of herself. This definitely wasn’t the Lydia he knew. Ordinarily his sister-in-law came on like gangbusters and he’d often thought, wistfully, that his brother had more than met his match in the vibrant woman.

  Christian nodded. “Sure, let’s go.”

  Lydia looked back at her partner, suddenly remembering she was there. “Cate, can you wait here for me?”

  Cate had already gotten the message that whatever Lydia wanted to talk to her brother-in-law about, it wasn’t for general knowledge. There was a chair in the hallway and Cate suddenly realized that she felt wired and drained at the same time. It wouldn’t hurt to sit down for a little while.

  “Sure, I’m not going anywhere.”

  Lydia flashed a smile of gratitude at her partner. “This won’t take long,” she promised.

  “What won’t take long?” Christian asked when they were safely inside the elevator car.

  Lydia let out a nervous breath. “Why don’t we wait until we get into your office?”

  A small shrug of his shoulder told her that was fine with him. And then he looked at her.

  “You’re being awfully mysterious about this, Lydia.” A smile softened his features. “I thought we were supposed to be the ones who had a lock on that.”

  For the first time since this morning, Lydia relaxed a little. “Maybe being married to ‘one of you’ has rubbed off,” she teased.

  Something was definitely wrong, Christian thought. She just wasn’t herself. Even her smile looked tight. He tried to distract her. “So, how long have you had this new partner?”

  “Three weeks.” She decided to lay a little groundwork to get her mind off her dilemma. “I didn’t think I’d like working with a woman,” she admitted, “but Cate’s different.”

  He’d been the quiet one in the family, developing just as keen an eye in his way as his mother had. “You mean she reminds you of you.”