“Sit down,” Mateo says, pointing to a chair. “I’ll take care of it.”
“No,” I say, getting pissed off. “This is an emergency. She needs help.”
The receptionist picks up the phone and speaks to a nurse who must work in the back, and then she puts the phone down and says, “Have a seat.”
I take a deep breath. I remember how long it took me to be seen when I came here for my ear and there’s no way I’m going to sit quietly for an hour. “I’m not having a seat. I’ll stand here all fucking night if I have to. I’m not having a seat. Get someone now.”
“Ma’am,” another receptionist says. “You’re not the only emergency here.”
“Goddammit,” Mateo says to me. To me! “Go sit down and I’ll handle it.”
I don’t sit down, but I walk away and watch as Mateo flashes some kind of ID at the lady. She nods and then calls the nurse again. He walks over to me and says, “They’re coming right now.”
“You just didn’t want me to see that, right?” I seethe. “You didn’t want me to know that you work for the police, right?”
He just stares at me. “Later, Shannon. Not here. Not now.”
A nurse calls my name and I hurry over to the door where she’s waiting. “What’s the problem?” she asks, ushering me into the triage area and waving me into a room.
“I don’t know, but she’s sleeping and she won’t wake up.”
The nurse takes Olivia out of my hands and lays her down on the exam table. Olivia’s head rolls to the side and her arms and legs are slack and motionless. I’d think she was dead if I couldn’t see her chest rising and falling. But it’s very slow. Too slow. Even I know this.
The nurse lifts one of Olivia’s eyelids and shines a light in Olivia’s eye. Then she places a tiny device on Olivia’s big toe. A machine struts beeping nearby and I watch the lights dance on the display.
“What did she take?”
“What?” I ask, looking back at the nurse.
“Drugs. What kind of drugs did she get into?”
“She didn’t take any drugs.” But my stomach sinks.
“If she knows,” the nurse says, looking at Mateo now, “she needs to tell me. It will save a lot of time and maybe the baby’s life.”
“Shannon, what did you give her?”
“Me?” He did not just say that. “I didn’t give her anything.”
“It looks like opiate overdose. Pinpoint pupils, depressed respiration, and no response to stimuli.”
“What?” Oh, my God. Jill’s death is flashing back to me. “No,” I say, shaking my head. “That’s not possible. That can’t happen.”
She pushes a button and an alarm starts. “You’re going to have to wait outside,” she says, pushing me out of the room while people rush in with a crash cart. “Take her to the triage waiting area,” she tells Mateo.
“Come on, Shannon,” Mateo says, leading me by the arm again.
“Will she be OK?” I call. But no one answers me.
We end up down the hall and through a doorway, where there’s a small waiting area with a few people looking just as distraught and worried as me. I sit down where Mateo places me, and then he gets a call, checks his phone, and leaves me sitting there.
What the hell is happening? Everything is wrong. Everything is bad.
I sit there in silence for a few minutes, trying to find something—anything—that will help me make sense of my life right now.
I can’t come up with a single thing.
“Shannon?” Mateo says, sitting down in the chair next to me.
“I don’t even want to talk to you right now.”
He lets out a low laugh. “Well, you’re gonna need to. I have a lot of questions.”
“Me too,” I say, looking up at him. “But I don’t have time for you right now, Mateo. I can’t hear any more lies.”
“Lies?”
I huff out a long breath. “You busted Jason tonight? And Phil? Some drug bust, right? Those cops at Danny’s house said you guys got what you needed. You wanna tell me what that was?”
“You can’t possibly be sticking up for them. Tell I’m hearing you wrong.” He stares at me like I’m a stranger.
“Did you bust them?”
“We did. They deserved it. You’re better off, Shannon. It’s for your own good.”
“What?” I ask. “What did you just say?” Danny’s remark about what Mateo said to him when they carted his mother off comes back to me.
“He was hitting you, right? Jason? And regardless of how highly you think of Danny Alexander, Phil Alexander is a whole other story. He was responsible for seven deaths back when we were friends, Shannon. Sold a shitload of coke cut with fentanyl. I bet Danny Alexander didn’t tell you that, did he?”