Free Urgent Care by C. J. Lyons Page B

buggers to track down. Since the ER already has it set up, I guess we can go ahead with the CT. Write up the orders for her IV and some Zofran, and I’ll take it from there.”
    “Don’t you want to exam her?”
    He beamed down at her. “I’m on the match committee for the pediatrics residency program, Ms. Mason. I’ve seen your application to match here in pediatrics. Excellent recommendations. You’ve garnered some high praise from the attendings you’ve worked under. I think I can trust your exam. Dictate the history and physical and the admission note and I’ll sign them.”
    Lucas appeared from the direction of the nurses’ station. “Dr. Frantz?”
    Amanda was surprised at the deferential tone in Lucas’s voice. Lucas was the youngest attending in neurology, but usually that didn’t stop him from being a stubborn and sometimes loudly intense patient advocate—one of the reasons she’d fallen in love with him.
    Dr. Frantz turned his attention to Lucas as if he were granting Lucas a royal audience. “Stone. Good to see you again. How’d the LP on my little guy look?”
    “Normal opening pressure, fluid was clear. I’m waiting for labs, but I didn’t find any signs of meningitis on exam.”
    “Good, good. Harold’s mother will be pleased to hear that.”
    “I’ll dictate a note, page you if anything shows up on the gram stain.”
    “You’ll go look yourself?” Dr. Frantz made it sound like a statement rather than a question.
    Lucas glanced at his watch. “Sure, no problem.”
    “Very good.” Dr. Frantz turned to leave, then stopped, including both of them in his beaming gaze. “By the way, I understand congratulations are in order. I wish you the best of luck and hope Ms. Mason is able to continue working here at Angels. It would be such a pity if things went awry and she didn’t match here, had to leave us.”
    Amanda watched him walk away, then turned to Lucas. “Why do I feel like I’ve just been threatened?”

SIX
    Thursday, 12:17 P.M.
    NORA ABANDONED HER PAPER SHUFFLING AND walked down to OR 13. The police had placed a large X of crime-scene tape across the double doors, like on TV. The yellow tape looked bizarre, surrealistic. But what had happened behind those doors was all too real.
    She shook herself and looked down the hall. OR 13 was in the back of the ER, at the end of a short corridor. The only other rooms down here were the locker rooms and clean holding. Then was the intersection with one of the main ER corridors: turn left and there was security, the trauma rooms, nursing station, and at the end, the ambulance bay. Turn right and you’d hit the corridor leading to administration, the conference rooms, cafeteria, atrium, and auditorium. Or you could loop back around into the ER.
    The place was a maze. Whoever had stolen the rape kit had to have been someone who knew the ER, could move around without anyone noticing. She sighed, tugging her fingers through her hair, using the pain to focus. If Karen had been in one of the ER’s resuscitation rooms, everything would have been caught on tape—they all had cameras, for teaching purposes. But there was no camera in Room 13.
    She and Seth had only been gone maybe ten minutes at most. And Miguel had been there the whole time. Or had he? She stared at her reflection in the dark glass of the OR doors, trying to visualize the frenzied moments after Karen’s death.
    Miguel had had his trash cart with him when she’d run into him. He would have needed to go back down the hall and around the corner to the janitor’s closet in order to get his mop and bucket. Trying to walk at the same pace as Miguel pushing his cart, Nora went down the hall and turned the corner. It took less than a minute.
    The door to the janitor’s closet was open, cleaning supplies scattered on the hallway floor. The police obviously had had the same thought and searched here already. No crime-scene tape, so she was guessing they didn’t find anything.
    Okay.