This being a Monday, the manager came out to greet her and invite her to come to his regularly scheduled rum punch party. She did not answer him but merely shook her head, so as to discourage communication. After that, for a few minutes, perhaps even an hour, she felt more at peace than she had since New Year’s Eve. Reluctantly, she walked the rest of the way up Camerhogne Park Road to her rooms at the Marquis Complex, put on her shoes and lab coat, and saw her first patient of the day.
Within minutes, she was absorbed in the work.
The telephone rang as she was leaving.
“Peta? Frik.”
For one misguided moment, Peta thought Frik might have called to see how she was doing. He soon disillusioned her. Wasting no time on pleasantries, he told her that Terris McKendry had been severely injured in a battle to save one of Oilstar’s tankers.
“He was shot and burned. He’s in bad shape.”
“Where is he?”
“He was medevac’d here, to Mount Hope Medical Center. Unless Arthur’s plane is fueled and ready, I’ll send my jet to get you and have a car waiting for you at this end.”
My plane now, Peta thought, since the reading of his will.
Because she was Arthur’s student in his lifesaving burn techniques, it stood to reason that Frik would turn to her for help, Peta thought. Still, a “Would you mind coming?” might have been nice.
“Mount Hope’s a good place,” she said. “I’ll call and let them know I’m on my way.”
Pleased with herself for having made the arrangements she had with the locum, Peta called him in from his day off. She had left her Honda at the clinic, so getting home to pack a small bag would be no problem. Nor would getting to the airport be a problem, even with a stop first at the closest Barclays Bank for some cash to see her through.
Standing in line at the bank, she fiddled with the pendant around her neck. When she reached the counter, on a whim, she took off the necklace, sealed it in an envelope, and asked to be escorted to her safe-deposit box.
Frik’s jet beat her to the airport; his car was waiting for her upon her arrival at Piarco International. She was pleased to see Saaliim behind the wheel and not Frik. He got out and opened the back door.
“You’re not my chauffeur, Saaliim. I’ll sit in the front with you, if that’s all right.”
He grinned and she smiled back. She had always liked the Honduran, and the feeling was clearly mutual. “Mr. McKendry in bad shape,” he said when she was settled beside him.
“I assume Frik’s with him.”
Saaliim shook his head. “He with Mr. Brousseau out at Dragon’s Mouth.”
“Simon? He’s not diving, is he?”
“Yes. As we speak.”
“Assholes,” Peta muttered. Simon had no business diving in his condition, and Frik had less business encouraging him. She’d have a few things to say to the two of them later. Right now, her focus had to be Terris McKendry.
Twenty minutes later, Saaliim swerved off the Uriah Butler Highway and into Mount Hope Medical Center’s parking lot. “You want me to come inside, Miss Peta? Or maybe wait outside?”
Peta thought for a moment. In all likelihood she’d be fully occupied with McKendry for the rest of the day and, by the sound of it, for several days beyond that.
“You go to come back,” she said, using the Grenadian colloquialism. “I know my way around this hospital all too well. Tell Frik I’ll call him later with a report.”
The charge nurse, to whom she had spoken several times en route, ushered Peta into McKendry’s private room in the hospital’s small intensive-care section. The last time she’d seen him, not that long ago at Arthur’s apartment, he’d looked fit and well. Now he looked as if he probably wouldn’t make it through the night. He was barely conscious. According to his chart, he had presented in shock, a mess of mud and oil and blood. Her initial cursory examination confirmed that he had been hit by two rifle bullets and that he had sustained some surface burns.
The burns might leave some scarring but were not enough to be life-threatening. The bullet wounds were a more complex problem. Where a hollow point or frangible round would have pureed the contents of his chest cavity, he had every chance of surviving these wounds.
The flesh wound along the right flank would heal, even without medical attention. The second shot was less simple: a full-metal-jacketed slug had made a through-and-through penetration of his lower right chest. Fortunately for McKendry, the bullet had not hit a major artery on the way through or a rib on the way out. The former would have exsanguinated him in minutes: the latter would have deflected the bullet, causing major, possibly catastrophic, collateral damage. The through-and-through FMJ chest wound had collapsed the lung, but some bright medic or ED doc along the way had inserted a chest tube and hooked it up to suction; that no doubt had saved McKendry’s life until the local thoracic surgeon got to him and closed the entry and exit wounds.
Peta discovered further evidence of McKendry’s dumb luck when she examined the exit wound and found it just low enough to miss ripping up his posterior shoulder girdle. An inch higher and he’d be looking at permanent disability. Talk about charmed lives.
Telling the nurse to set up a bed for her in one of the little rooms adjacent to intensive care, she washed up and put in a call to Frik.
“It’ll be a while before his next escapade, but with good care and exquisite attention to antisepsis, he’ll make it. His lung’s not reinflating as quickly as I’d like, so I’m going to stay here with him for a few days.”
Frik sounded relieved. “Thanks, Peta. I’ll be in to see you later this evening. I can’t leave the office right now.”
“I heard about Simon. Is he all right?”
“Why wouldn’t he be?”
“I warned you both that he shouldn’t be diving, Frik.”
“Well for your information, he’s fine. He had to come up because he used up most of his tank clearing debris from his entry point. I wish I had half his energy. He’s down in Port of Spain now, pretending to be some TV star, but he’s going back to San Gabriel tomorrow to complete the dive.”
“Alone? No dive buddy?”
“He seems to prefer it that way.”
Idiot! Peta thought. She was fed up with all this macho bullshit. When she had stabilized McKendry, she would hitch a ride to San Gabriel. If Manny was in the area, he would take her there; if not, she’d use one of Frik’s speedboats. Not that she particularly wanted to delay her return to Grenada, but in all good conscience she had to take one more shot at warning Simon that his heart probably couldn’t take another dive. If she couldn’t convince him to stop, she would insist on going along. Barring unforeseen setbacks, she should be able to leave McKendry in the hands of the hospital staff in three days, four tops. She would mention it to Frik when he came to see McKendry.
Ifhe came to see him.
22
Thus far, Frik had called several times, but he had not yet made an appearance. Peta was hardly impressed by his lack of compassion and admitted to herself yet one more time that the Oilstar chief was not among her favorite people.
Two days later, by which time McKendry’s condition had been stabilized, Frikkie showed up at the hospital. He was not a pretty sight. His one eye hadn’t yet fully healed from the explosion that had killed Paul Trujold, and his hand looked as if it had a long way to go before it was good for more than gross manipulation. His visit was short, their conversation brief and more about Simon than Terris; in neither case were his emotions involved.