Private Affair(79)
“Stay back,” Marge cautioned. “Give him air.”
The ambulance pulled up, and two paramedics jumped out, a man and a woman. They rolled a stretcher toward Max and got him onto the horizontal surface.
“He was cut in a knife fight,” Olivia told them.
The man tended to his arm. The woman took his vital signs, then started an IV drip of clear liquid.
“What hospital are we going to?”
“Memorial,” the woman answered.
“And I can go with him?”
“Yes.”
While they got Max into the ambulance, she called the Rockfort men. “We’re going to Memorial Hospital.”
“Okay. We’ll be there as soon as we can.”
She climbed into the vehicle after the woman medic and sat down on one of the benches, reaching for Max’s hand as they sped off toward the hospital. He lay with his eyes closed, and she knew he was barely conscious.
“Cold,” he whispered.
“Because you’ve lost a lot of blood. But you’re going to be all right,” she told him, praying it was true, because the alternative gave her cold chills.
The ride with the siren blaring couldn’t have been long, but seemed to take forever. Finally, the ambulance pulled up at the emergency room door, and the medics wheeled Max inside.
“They’ve taken him right back because his condition is serious, but we need you to fill out some paperwork,” the woman at the desk told Olivia.
“Like what?”
“The usual.” She pushed a form toward Olivia, and she stared at the questions. She’d filled out many similar forms for herself, but never for anyone else. And as she read the boxes, she felt lost. She knew Max’s name. She knew his occupation. And that was it. She didn’t know his date of birth, his social security number, his medical insurance, or any of the other things this form wanted her to provide.
“Sorry,” she told the receptionist, hating her ignorance on the subject of Max Lyon. “I don’t know him well enough. You have to wait until his partners arrive.”
The woman nodded. “Okay.”
Olivia was too restless to sit down, and she was still pacing back and forth in the waiting room when Shane barreled through the door, spotted her, and hurried over. He gave her a quick hug, and she clung to him for a moment, then stepped away.
“How is he?” he asked.
“They haven’t told me anything. He was cut, and he was pretty weak when they brought him in.”
Shane waited while an elderly man in a wheelchair was checked in, then stepped up to the counter. “I want to know how Max Lyon is doing,” he said.
“After you give us the insurance and personal information on him.”
Olivia knew Shane was about to yell at the woman and put a hand on his arm.
He glanced at her, then sighed, and she saw him making an effort to get control of himself. “Okay.”
Jack Brandt came in, and the two men worked on the form together, then turned it in.
Olivia didn’t know what Shane said to the woman, but a few minutes later, a nurse came out to speak to them.
“He’s doing much better,” she said. “But we’re keeping him for a few days. He’s being transferred to the third floor in a while.”
“Can we see him now?” Jack asked.
“Only two of you at a time.”
“You of course,” Shane said to Olivia.
“Thank you.”
The two men glanced at each other.
“You go in,” Jack said to his partner.
“Are you sure?” Shane asked.
“Go on. I’ll have my turn later,” Jack answered.
The nurse ushered her and Shane through the door to the working part of the emergency facility, where some patients were lying on beds in the wide hallway. On the far side of the nurses’ station, Max was in a brightly lit treatment room.
Next to his bed was an IV stand with liquid running into his right arm, only now the bag held blood instead of a clear liquid. And his left arm was bandaged where he’d been cut. The lower half of his body was covered by a sheet and blanket, but Olivia saw he was wearing one of those hospital gowns that opened in the back.
He looked up and smiled when he saw them, and she considered that a good sign.
“Looks like I’m going to make it,” Max said.
Olivia crossed to him, bent down, and pressed her cheek against his. He moved his left arm, gripping her elbow, but she could tell it took a big effort.
“How do you feel?” she asked.
“Not too bad, considering.”
“You get better,” she murmured. “Jack’s here too. But only two of us could come in.”
He nodded.
“Davidson attacked you?” Shane asked.
“Yeah. And he got away, unfortunately.”