Code Triage by Candace Calvert Read Free Book Online Page A

newsletter, an employee picnic. A fuzzy black-and-white shot of her playing beach volleyball: wavy blonde hair, big sunglasses, square jaw, compact body, muscular calves . . . nothing memorable. Except that she’d taken Nick. That was unforgettable. And left Leigh slogging through a depression as dark, thick, and visceral as a gastric bleed before it threw her into a lethal backdraft of searing anger that frightened her soul-deep. Made her stop praying, stuff her clothes in a suitcase, load her horse in a trailer, and run. But now, nine months later, she was better; she could handle it. “Uncomfortable” or not.
    Leigh crossed the last few yards of parking lot and pushed the coded buttons to open the ambulance bay doors, stepping back as they whooshed open, and walked into her ER. She heard the familiar beeps and whirs of monitoring equipment, the far-off whine of a cast cutter, smelled the scents of iodine and surgical soap and someone’s breakfast of day-old pizza. The same, always.
    She was a physician who’d taken an oath to heal, and there were patients to see and medical decisions to be made. She was a seasoned professional who had handled plenty of tough things before. Difficult people. This was her turf, same as Nick’s Mission District neighborhoods were his. She breathed in through her nose, exhaled slowly, and forced a smile as she passed Cappy Thomas in the hallway. Nothing different about today.
    Except that in a hospital where she’d saved dozens of lives, she was about to face the one person that she’d killed over and over in her nightmares.

Chapter Four
    Sam pulled a sheaf of papers from her briefcase, scanned the top few pages, and then glanced up at Kristi Johnson. “I see that you’ve been busy since we last met. You’ve been working, attended Narcotics Anonymous support meetings, taken some church-sponsored parenting classes?”
    “Everything I promised. All of it. You can ask Officer Nick if you don’t believe me.” Kristi peered over the top of her sleeping daughter’s head. She lifted her chin and tightened her arms protectively around her child.
    Sam wasn’t surprised by the look in the young mother’s eyes; she’d seen it with parents countless times before—defensive, frightened, hostile sometimes. It came with the territory. In her years with Child Crisis, she’d received threatening phone calls, had her county car vandalized, and been called every vile name in the book. Didn’t matter. Didn’t scare her. Sam’s job was to protect children, the way she wished someone had protected her when she was Abby Johnson’s age. Bottom line: she did whatever she had to do to get results. At everything. Professional and personal.
    “I did talk with Officer Stathos.” Sam thought of him, his fierce determination to protect his city, his “people,” so much like SFPD’s motto: Gold in peace, iron in war . Nick Stathos, same as Sam, had seen too much war in his life; he deserved some golden peace. So did she.
    “You certainly have an advocate in him, Kristi.” She met the mother’s gaze. “And in me, too. Please believe that. It’s my intention to keep children with their parents. As long as it’s a safe and loving environment. I understand how difficult it is to raise a child alone. I’m a single mother too.” She reached into a side pocket of her briefcase and produced a snapshot, brushing her fingertip across its surface. The worn image of a chubby two-year-old wearing her uncle’s police hat. “This is my Elisa.”
    She handed it to Kristi, the same way she’d done with countless other mothers before. Except that these days, these past months since Toby’s death, she thought of Nick whenever she did that. Of Nick taking Elisa from her arms at the funeral when Sam’s knees gave way and she sank down beside Toby’s flag-draped casket, her sobs mixing with the sad drone of bagpipes. And those other times, in the painful gray aftermath, when she sat, numb, in her