Wrongful Death
Wrongful Death
Drake Cody Suspense-Thrillers, Volume 3
TOM COMBS
Published by Evoke Publishing, 2018.
This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
WRONGFUL DEATH
First edition. June 28, 2018.
Copyright © 2018 TOM COMBS.
ISBN: 978-0990336075
Written by TOM COMBS.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
As with book one, NERVE DAMAGE, and book two, HARD TO BREATHE, this book is dedicated to the special people who are committed to helping others when needed most.
Chapter 1
Memorial Hospital, ER
Fear radiated from the boy like heat from glowing coals.
“It’s getting worse.” The teenager leaned forward on the edge of the Emergency Room bed. “This morning I told my friend. He said I needed to shut up. When I told him it was real, he got mad.” His words came halting and soft. He had dark hair, long eyelashes and looked younger than the sixteen years noted on the chart. “Tonight I told my parents.” He kept his eyes down as he twisted the distinctive ring he wore. “They brought me here.”
The ER chart resting on Dr. Drake Cody’s lap identified the reason for the ER visit as “parents concerned about drug use.” The boy’s name was Bryce.
“What did you tell them?” Drake said. The teenager’s anguish assured the answer would not be good.
He shook his head, and continued to twist his ring.
“It’s okay, Bryce,” Drake said. “You can tell me. I want to help.”
The boy swallowed, pursed his lips, then spoke so softly Drake had to strain to hear.
“My room is downstairs, so at first I tried to believe it was noises from the air ducts. At school I pretended it was just other kids’ voices.” He looked up. “It’s not.” His lip trembled. “I don’t know what’s happening.”
The air left the room. The noise of the ER outside the door disappeared.
“The voices are real, and they won’t stop.” His voice cracked. “My parents think I’m taking drugs. I thought about trying some to see if it would stop what was happening.” He looked at Drake with eyes that were pools of desperation and pain. “Can you please make them stop?”
Drake’s stomach dropped. Dread gripped his heart.
He wished the boy had been taking drugs. He wished there was an explanation other than what he sensed with grim certainty. He’d look under every stone, but he knew he wouldn’t find anything to alter what the voices meant. This young man was descending into the nightmare of mental illness. This evening, at this very moment, the grip of schizophrenia was tightening around him.
Why this boy? Why anyone?
The boy’s realization that what he’d been experiencing was horribly, terrifyingly wrong would disappear. This polite young man—this innocent victim—was losing his ability to distinguish delusion from reality. The disease meant nothing would ever be the same for him or for those who loved him.
“I know something bad is happening—” The boy stopped and cocked his head as if listening. He bent forward and gripped his hands over his ears. “No!”
Drake sat next to Bryce, putting an arm around him. The boy’s shoulders quaked as tears darkened the faded blue of his jeans.
Drake’s insides fell away.
***
Drake exited the minor trauma room, brushing plaster dust off his scrubs. He’d just applied a splint to a child’s broken wrist. Overhead pages, chattering printers, beeping phones, and the voices of patients, families, and caregivers hummed. The smell of disinfectant and the stink of an earlier GI bleed hung in the air. Memorial Hospital ER, the biggest and busiest in the Twin Cities, was packed.
“Dr. Cody.” The mental health worker who’d been making calls and helping the parents of the disturbed boy held a clipboard. “Adolescent Psyche at Abbott hospital could have a bed for Bryce as soon as an hour or two, but if not, they’ll have one for sure in the morning.”
“Good work. Fingers crossed,” Drake said. There were never enough in-patient beds to take care of mental health patients—especially adolescents. Waits of more than twenty-four hours were common. “Can you let him and his parents know?”
“I will,” she said. “Can you sign the transfer?” She held out the clipboard.
He felt the hollowness of having so little to offer the boy and his family. Bryce was the same age as Drake’s brother had been when he died. The boy triggered some of the same feelings—that Drake hadn’t done enough.
He had multiple other sick and hurting patients, a stream of incoming ambulances, and a packed waiting room. The best he could do for Bryce was to transfer him to the care of psychiatric specialists.
“Dr. Cody?” the mental health worker remained holding the clipboard and pen outstretched.
“Sorry.” He signed. “Thanks so much for your help.”
“Sure thing. If—”
An electronic alarm shrilled overhead, causing the worker to flinch and Drake to scramble toward the radio room.
The signal meant an ambulance with a critically ill patient was hurtling with lights and siren toward the ER. The paramedics needed a doctor immediately.
Someone in the worst kind
of trouble was racing Drake’s way.
Chapter 2
Drake slapped the switch, silencing the overhead alarm with one hand as he pressed the transmit key of the radio with the other. “Dr. Cody here.”
“Ambulance 724. Three minutes out with a twenties-year-old black female, narcotic overdose, status post Narcan.” Drake knew this paramedic. The veteran’s voice sounded tight. “She was down, looked dead, zero respirations. She snapped to after the Narcan and is now out of control.” Drake heard shrieking in the background. “She’s got a little belly bump—could be early pregnancy. She’s too wild to assess, but I think something bad besides the OD is going on. She needs the Crash Room. ETA two minutes.”
“10-4.” Drake pivoted toward the Crash Room.
The station secretary stood across the corridor with headset on and hand poised over her console.
“Please call a Med Team Stat to Crash Room three,” Drake said.
The secretary's hospital-wide page sounded overhead as Drake entered the Crash Room. His mind flashed through the likeliest of the life-threatening conditions that might be headed his way. He reflexively linked each possibility to the critical interventions that might be needed.
Nurses, EMTs, and the rest of the resuscitation team scrambled into the room and made ready. The Life Clock above bay three had been triggered, and large red numerals flashed the seconds and minutes since the radio call. For patients needing the Crash Room, every second mattered.
Drake moved to the head of the bed and flicked on the high-intensity lights, illuminating the white linens, monitors, and wall-mounted array of glistening chrome instruments. The team looked his way. He spoke as he ripped open packaging and pulled on a sterile gown and gloves.
“Ambulance 724 is a minute out with a twenties-year-old, female overdose patient found near-dead. She’s awake and screaming after Narcan. Unknown history. The medics think she could be pregnant and something bad beyond the OD is happening.” Drake scanned the area making sure the airway equipment and other instruments he might need were at hand.
“Let’s roll the ultrasound over here in case I need to check for pregnancy. If she’s pregnant, let’s remember that good care of the mother is always what’s best for the ba—”
The doors exploded open as 724 rammed the gurney into the Crash Room. A wiry, young female paramedic pushed from the rear while her large male partner entered backpedaling while bent over the cart. His mass blocked the patient from view. As they reached the bedside, Drake saw beyond the big man.
My God!
An ultrasound exam to check for pregnancy would not be needed.
The blood-covered legs, buttocks, and abdomen of a tiny male infant protruded from the woman’s birth canal. The protruding parts and a short section of umbilical cord were supported in one of the paramedic’s gloved hands. The yet-to-be-born, clearly premature infant’s head, shoulders, upper chest, and arms were still within the mother’s body.
Rivulets of sweat ran down the medic’s face. He held one hand cupped beneath the tiny infant and the other gloved, bloody hand alongside the infant and pressed against the birth canal.
“Her water burst and he popped out to here a minute ago but he’s hung up. He’s moving his feet some, and his color looks okay as long as my finger keeps the cord from being squished. It’s all I can do.”
The female paramedic nodded toward the mother. “She quieted in the last minute, vitals okay but not great. She might need more Narcan soon, but we figured as long as she’s breathing we’d hold off.”
“Good call,” Drake said. Right now the mother’s drugged state was in everyone’s best interest. He turned to one of the nurses. “Please give neonatal intensive care a heads-up.”
The patient moaned but didn’t move or open her eyes. The sickly, grayish cast to her dark skin showed her to be on the edge of shock. Her gaunt body and small belly did not suggest good health or a normal pregnancy. For an instant Drake imagined the life this addicted woman must have. His gut went hollow.
Nurses called out the blood pressure and respirations. The mother’s pulse showed on the monitor.
Drake checked the airway, then listened to the patient’s lungs as the team supplied oxygen, checked the IVs, and drew blood.
“Full labs including type and cross for two units,” Drake said. “Give a liter of fluids wide open.”
Patients who OD on narcotics die because they quit breathing. This patient’s airway was clear, her breathing currently adequate, and her blood pressure okay. She was not dying this instant.
He turned to the tiny infant struggling to be born.
This baby weighed no more than four pounds. One of the doll-sized feet claimed his gaze as he grasped the umbilical cord and counted the heart rate he felt pulsing there. A rate of sixty. Desperately low...
A heart rate this slow promised imminent death or disaster.
Drake’s throat clenched and his mind raced to thoughts of his brother Kevin and the childbirth-related cerebral palsy that had made his every movement a challenge. That or worse could be happening to the infant right now.
Was the baby’s distress due to the mother’s overdose, the pinched umbilical cord, or one of dozens other possibilities?
In the immediacy of the Crash Room, there was no time to “prove” exactly what was happening. Tests were a luxury that the ticking of the Life Clock and the baby’s pulse made impossible. The imperative was to do what needed to be done despite the unknowns. Inaction assured tragedy.
He needed to do the right thing and do it now.
“I need to get in there.” Drake wedged shoulder-to-shoulder with the medic. The smell of sweat mingled with the raw odors of blood and birth tissue.
The medic shifted. Drake advanced his gloved finger along the baby’s trunk and into the jammed birth canal. The infant’s arms were trapped in a hands-above-head position. The width of the infant’s shoulders, arms, and head had him lodged like a cork in a bottle. There was no chance he could pass.
“Pulse is fifty, Dr. Cody,” the nurse said.
“He’s not moving anymore, Doc,” the paramedic said, his voice strained. “His color’s bad.”
No time. Don’t let this baby die!
Drake forced his index finger further into the birth canal along the infant’s chest. He felt the tiny collarbone that supported the nearer shoulder like a strut. He knew what he needed to do but had never done it before. A small thing compared to much of what his job demanded, but inside he recoiled. He grit his teeth as he drove the tip of his finger against the infant’s bone, forcing it to flex like a green twig. He pushed harder, then harder still.
Crack!
The snapping of the collarbone sounded impossibly loud. Members of the resuscitation team groaned. The baby’s body shifted slightly. Drake extended his finger further, finding the infant’s chin and the tiny opening of the mouth.
“I need to take him now,” Drake said as he pressed forward. The medic slid back, completing the hand-off as Drake slipped his free hand under and around the little one’s protruding body.
Using his fingertip as a hook in the baby’s mouth, Drake moved the babe’s chin down, flexing the neck. He rotated the infant’s trunk and pulled. Nothing! Lodged tight.
Drake ratcheted up his strength and pulled, primarily using his grasp of the trunk and body so as to avoid dislocating the baby’s jaw. The ends of the broken collarbone telescoped over one another, allowing the shoulder to collapse inward. Drake continually increased the power with which he pulled, knowing that the babe would die if he could not be freed.
Drake braced his legs, and his arms were cables pulling so strongly that he feared he would tear the little person apart. Lord, no. Please!
The doll-sized body shifted a fraction, then broke free, sluicing out in a rush of blood and fluids.
Drake held the limp, dusky babe in one hand, supporting the head and neck with his fingers. A nurse held oxygen tubing near his mouth. Breathe, little guy!
/> Drake suctioned the babe’s mouth and airway clear. He laid the tiny infant on the warm blanket, gently shook, and then briskly rubbed the tiny feet as the medic kept the oxygen tubing near the face. Breathe, baby, breathe!
No response. No time.
Drake bent and put his mouth over the mouth and nose of the infant and delivered a measured breath to the delicate premature lungs—the tiny chest expanded.
The baby remained limp. Nothing. Dead weight in his hand. No!
He delivered another rescue breath.
Lifeless, nothing—wait! Did he feel a stirring? Had there been movement?
As Drake prepared for a third breath, the little chest expanded and then a shrill, jittery cry sounded. A surge like an electric current passed through Drake. The birdlike chest continued to pump and the infant’s limbs moved.
“Hell, yeah.” The paramedic whose work had kept the little one alive squeezed Drake’s shoulder. Team members cheered or gasped.
“How’s the mom?” Drake asked as he put his stethoscope on the little one, the bell covering the entire chest.
“Her breathing is adequate. Pressure 90,” said one of the nurses.
“Have we heard from the neonatal intensive care unit?” Drake said. “We’ve got a little friend for them.”
At that moment, two nurses with miniature stethoscopes around their necks wheeled a warmer through the Crash Room doors.
“Great timing,” Drake said. The nearer nurse came to his side. Drake put the babe and blanket into her hands. “Watch the cord—I’ll cut it in a minute.”
He glanced at the mother as he picked up a clamp and scalpel.
“We don’t know much,” Drake said to the NICU nurses. “A narcotic-overdosed mother. Premature babe with a feet-first presentation, prolapsed cord, heart rate to fifties. Had to break his collarbone. We have no other history.”
Drake cut and clamped the cord, leaving adequate length for IV lines as the nurses expertly tended to the little one in the warmer.
“As you know, he’ll need respiratory support and maybe a tube,” Drake said. This new one’s battles were just beginning.
“The neonatologist is waiting in the unit,” the nearer nurse said. “We’ll race him straight up there.”