Free Winds of Fortune by Radclyffe

entrance. As quickly as her damaged ankle would allow, she hurried up the sidewalk. A small group of people congregated just inside the reception area—Gladys Martin, the middle-aged dispatcher who’d been with the department longer than Tory had lived in Provincetown, and several uniformed officers, one of whom was Allie Tremont.
    “Excuse me. Excuse me, let me through please. It’s Dr. King.”
    Miraculously, the crowd parted, and she pushed through the waist-high gate into the main section of the station house. Bri, her face bloodless, rocked on her heels a few feet from the epicenter of activity. Caroline pressed close against her side with one arm encircling Bri’s waist. Closer now, Tory could make out Nelson on the floor between the conference table and a desk, being administered to by two paramedics. Reese squatted nearby amidst torn IV tubing packages, discarded syringe caps, and empty IV bags. Her face was still and hard as stone, but her eyes blazed with what looked like fury. Tory wanted to go to her, but she couldn’t. Not yet.
    “Hi Luther,” Tory said, bending down close to the paramedic’s shoulder. She knew all of the medical personnel for fifty miles. Hers was the only major clinic between Provincetown and the hospital at Hyannis. All the units brought their non-life-threatening, and sometimes even their dire, emergencies to her. “It’s Tory King. What do you have?”
    “Hey Doc,” the gruff, ex-army medic said without looking up. “MI—his anterior ST segments are flipped. He was friggin’ flatlined when we got here but we jumpstarted him with intracardiac epi. His blood pressure’s for shit still. Amy is talking to the ER at Hyannis.”
    Tory nodded briefly to the small redhead who sorted drugs from the emergency box as she talked on the phone, presumably getting instructions from someone at the hospital. “Amy, tell them I’ll take over until we get him there.”
    With a grateful look, the redhead relayed the message and disconnected. “Sure rather have you running the show, Tor.”
    “Thanks. How’s his rhythm?”
    “Jumping around—a lot of PVCs,” Luther said.
    “Lidocaine drip going?”
    “Just started it,” Amy replied.
    Tory nodded with satisfaction. “Okay then, then let’s run MI protocol and get him ready to transport. Morphine, O2, Nitro.”
    “You want us to start tPA?”
    “How much time are we down?” Tory asked, faced with a critical decision and not nearly enough information. The ideal treatment for someone with a heart attack was to open the blocked vessels as quickly as possible and insert thin plastic stents to keep the arteries open. However, irreversible cardiac damage would occur quickly if this treatment was delayed for even an hour or two. If they lost too much more time on the trip to Hyannis, Nelson might have a better chance if she started intravenous drugs that would dissolve any clots blocking his coronary arteries and hopefully allow more blood to flow to his heart. But tPA, as it was called, was a less reliable treatment than stenting and could have significant side effects.
    Everyone looked at Reese.
    “Eighteen minutes.”
    “Amy,” Tory snapped, “call Hyannis and tell them to get the cath lab ready—we’re bringing in an emergency angioplasty. Let’s get him loaded guys, and make sure he’s strapped in tight. I’ll ride with you.”
    “I’ll take point,” Reese said, “and clear the way.”
    “Good,” Tory said softly and squeezed Reese’s hand before hurrying after the paramedics.
    Reese watched Tory leave, then pivoted to Bri. “You’ll ride with me.” Her eyes flickered from Bri’s pale, stunned face to Caroline. From the looks of Caroline, she wasn’t about to let Bri out of her sight. “Both of you.”
    “I’ll call in the evening shift to cover, okay, Sheriff?” Allie asked.
    “Yes. And Tremont,” Reese said as she grabbed her hat and keys, “run the shift change and get these other guys home as soon as