A.W. Hartoin - Mercy Watts 04 - Drop Dead Red by A.W. Hartoin Page A

 
    I didn’t ask why. Philippa was great and Chuck was obviously an idiot.  
    He let go of my arm and I headed for the PICU doors. I could feel him watching me walk away. Maybe Philippa was lucky after all.  

    I pressed the button next to the PICU doors, identified myself, and was buzzed in. The PICU was just as cheerful as the rest of Children’s, but it was very quiet. I walked down to the desk and saw Clementine Collier going through a stack of charts with her back to me. Her waist-length steel-grey dreadlocks were held back by a purple bandana and she wore a pair of black cat ears and a tail. That was so Clementine. I met her when I was fourteen when my friend, Ashton, fell off the top of our cheerleading pyramid, shattering her pelvis and puncturing her lung. Clementine made a huge impression on me and was the reason I started thinking about a career in nursing. Dad blamed her for keeping me from my true vocation which was, of course, law enforcement. But I was never going to be a cop, even if Ashton had better balance. The smell of Dad when he came home from the morgue, when Mom didn’t catch him before he got into the house, cinched it for me. I didn’t want to shower in the basement or smell like that on a regular basis.  
    “Hey Clem,” I said.  
    She spun around, and her hair beat a drum solo on the cabinetry. “Ah, shit. Are you on the schedule? I can’t remember a damn thing.”  
    “I’m here about the Berry kids. It’s a friend thing.”  
    Clem leaned on the desk and cocked an ear at me. “You can tell me. I won’t tell any complete strangers. The entire staff will have to know, my husband, Channel 5, CNN, just my regulars. Why are you really here? Big investigation, huh? Case of the decade. Your hotty cousin was just here. He was up to no good, but that’s normal for Chuck. You know, he’s dated half my staff. Looking for love in all the wrong places, if you know what I mean.”  
    “How much coffee have you had?” I asked.
    “The shift’s barely begun. One pot…maybe two.”  
    I was grinning like an idiot. “You’re going to give yourself an ulcer.”  
    “Got it covered. It’s been a rough month.” Clem came around the desk and hugged me so hard she realigned my spine, then hooked her arm through mine. “Let me introduce you to my crew.”  
    Our first stop was Payton Stills, a thirteen-year-old burn victim. I was touted as a nurse/detective and forced to tell the story about how I once captured a bigamist with the help of a giant black poodle. I must’ve told it well, because I made Payton laugh. Next was leukemia patient James Laird. Clem told him how I was once clobbered at a funeral home and stuffed in a red casket. I was never stuffed in a casket, but James declared that it was awesome. There were three more patients in the PICU and I was trotted out for all of them, me and my various mishaps. By the time we got to the Berry kids’ rooms, I wasn’t tired anymore. Not a bit. You forget how easy your life is until you meet Clem’s crew.  
    Clem stopped in front of Abrielle Berry’s room. The curtain was drawn across the glass panel, so I couldn’t see who was in there. She reached for the door handle, but I touched her shoulder. “Wait.”  
    “I knew it,” said Clem. “This isn’t a social call.”  
    “I know Joey Ameche, the uncle, but you’re right as always. My dad wants me to look into the medical stuff as a favor to Ameche to help his sister.”  
    “I figured it was something like that.”  
    “What exactly do they have?” I asked.  
    “Exactly? We don’t know. It’s a form of bacterial meningitis, listeriosis. Unbelievably bad. Colton coded in the ER. They got him back, but it was tight. Keep in mind that this was one hour and forty-two minutes after the first signs that the kids were ill. Freaking crazy. They were both in a coma for over a day.”  
    “Will they recover fully?” I asked.
    “They’re coming around. Abrielle’s