Chapter 4: Code Black
Whitmore General Hospital was a fortress under siege. News vans clogged the ambulance bays. Protestors, mostly nurses and former patients, were gathering on the sidewalks with makeshift signs.
I watched it all on the motel TV. Maya's article was a masterpiece. It detailed the Cayman Island accounts, quoted the anonymous audio recordings (James the janitor had been safely relocated by the FBI), and exposed Harold Finch’s legal blackmail operation.
But a wounded animal is the most dangerous kind. And Richard Hale was backed into a corner.
At 2:00 p.m., my phone buzzed. It was an unknown number. I answered it cautiously.
"Diane." It was Hale. His voice didn't have the smooth, arrogant cadence it usually carried. It was strained. Raspy. Dangerous.
"Dr. Hale. Are you enjoying the morning news?"
"You think you've won?" he spat. "I built Whitmore. The board won't fire me. They'll bury you. They're already drafting a statement calling you a disgruntled employee who stole drugs to feed her daughter's addiction. Who do you think the public will believe? A decorated surgeon, or a pill-popping nurse and her pregnant, unstable kid?"
"The FBI believes the bank records, Richard."
"Let's see if you make it to a courtroom," he whispered, and the line went dead.
A cold dread washed over me. I turned to look at Emily. She was pale, clutching her stomach. "Mom," she gasped. "Something's wrong."
I rushed to her side. There was a dark, wet stain spreading across her gray sweatpants. Blood.
"Emily, look at me," I commanded, shifting instantly from mother to head nurse. I checked her pulse—fast, thready. She was only 34 weeks pregnant. The stress, the terror, the running—it had triggered placental abruption.
"We need a hospital," I said, grabbing my keys.
"Not Whitmore," she cried out, tears streaming down her face. "Please, Mom, not Whitmore!"
"The county hospital is twenty miles away, Emily. We won't make it in time. You're losing too much blood." I grabbed her face gently. "I am the Head Nurse of Whitmore. That is my hospital. Not his. I will burn the building to the ground before I let him near you. We are going to Whitmore."
I drove like a demon. We pulled into the ER bay, bypassing the news vans. I screamed for a gurney. The triage nurses—my nurses—saw me and immediately sprang into action.
"Diane! What happened?" Sarah, an ER charge nurse, yelled as we loaded Emily onto the stretcher.
"Placental abruption. Thirty-four weeks. Fetal heart rate is dropping. Page Obstetrics, Code Crimson!" I barked.
We burst through the double doors into the trauma bay. The monitors were screaming. Emily was crying out in pain. And then, the doors swung open again.
Standing there, in his dark blue scrubs, a surgical mask pulled down around his neck, was Dr. Richard Hale. Two massive hospital security guards flanked him.
"Step away from the patient, Ms. Keller," Hale said loudly, playing to the room of stunned nurses and doctors. "You are trespassing. You've been terminated. Guards, remove her."
"She is my daughter!" I screamed, placing my body between Hale and Emily's gurney.
"She is a patient in critical condition, and I am the Chief of Surgery," Hale countered smoothly, stepping forward. "Dr. Evans in OB is delayed. I am taking over this case. Prep OR 3 for an emergency C-section."
He was going to kill her on the table. He was going to claim it was a tragic surgical complication. No one would be able to prove otherwise.
"If you touch her, I will kill you," I hissed, grabbing a surgical scalpel from a nearby tray. I didn't care about my license. I didn't care about prison. I was a mother protecting her child.
May you like
Hale smiled, a cruel, secret smile just for me. "Arrest her," he ordered the guards.
The guards stepped forward, but before they could lay a hand on me, the ER doors blasted open.
