Devil Wind (Sammy Greene Mysteries) by Deborah Shlian, Linda Reid Read Free Book Online Page B

seconds to go. No time to argue about the new, stringent privacy law that had hospitals running scared of violations. Sammy jotted down Reed’s cell number and promised to connect again. In fact, that connection would probably be very soon. It was just a fifteen-minute drive to Westwood from the studio. She could go after tonight’s show. With Reed as an entrée, she might wrangle information on the burn victim and Courtney Phillips.
    Jim’s finger pointed and Sammy rushed to click on her mic. “Welcome back, night owls. Sammy Greene on the L.A. Scene. The City of Angels is under fire. But this time, don’t head for the hills—⁠”
     
    “You okay?” Lou dumped another stack of charts in the doctor’s in-box and eyed Reed with concern.
    Reed forced a smile. “Just talking to an old friend.” He replaced the receiver on the cradle. “What do the Buddhists say about fate being like two rivers flowing together downstream?”
    Lou shrugged, heading for the door. “Dunno. I’m Catholic.”
    Reed smiled and picked up his microphone to finish the dictation on Prescott’s case. He hadn’t seen Sammy in over two years, since that last difficult weekend when she’d come up to see him in Boston. They’d both agreed it was time to move on. For good. And now, here she was. Next to him. Downstream.
    They had had a couple of great years together. Life since Sammy had become much more predictable, boring even. Reed had to admit that he missed the sense of excitement and adventure he’d felt being around her, though more than once her need to get at the truth had gotten her into major trouble.
    He thought back to how he’d rushed into the Nitshi Institute that day years ago to save her life, with that portly campus cop waving his pistol right behind. Pappa—? Reed sat up, startled. That’s where he’d seen that name before. Of course. Pappajohn. The burn victim whose papers he’d gathered had the same last name as the Ellsford University chief of campus police.
    Now that was a scary coincidence. Pappajohn didn’t seem to be a common name. Could this poor young woman be a relative? Reed hoped not. Chances of her making it were zero to none. And, after their partnership to rescue Sammy and catch her kidnappers, Reed had developed a soft spot for that grumpy old cop.
    Well, no matter. The police here would do their job and track down the girl’s next of kin. Reed had enough on his plate with Prescott, and Dr. Bishop would be arriving any minute.
    He clicked on the dictating machine, and, visualizing Sammy also at her mic, began, “inserted a 22-gauge catheter in the left femoral vein, period.”
     
    “You gonna keep going?” The nurse’s question sounded more like a suggestion.
    Flushed and sweating, Michelle’s forearms ached with the effort of closed chest massage. Despite the infusion of drugs and three jolts of electricity from the defibrillator, the chaotic, undulating blips on the EKG monitor had refused to respond. If only Reed were by her side.
    “Time?” she asked one of the bystanders.
    “Twenty-two minutes.”
    Michelle’s eyes welled with tears as she looked down at the young burn patient—Anastasia—and then at the half dozen nurses and techs crowded around the gurney. Their expressions reflected her own sense of sadness and defeat. Even Reed—heck even Dr. Bishop—couldn’t fight the fatal prognosis of third-degree burns over 80 percent of Anastasia’s body. From the moment she’d been wheeled into the ER, everyone knew she was facing a death sentence. Still, the used syringes, drug vials, and crumpled packaging on the floor confirmed how hard they’d all battled to beat the odds. Michelle fought back her tears. It was now her job to let Anastasia go.
    “Okay. Let’s call the code,” she said, reaching past the tangle of wires and IV tubing to shut off the cardiac monitor. Within seconds, the oscilloscope went black. She looked at the watch she’d pinned to her scrubs and, noting the