The Blue Zone

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

They rushed there as fast as they could, throwing on sweatpants and pullovers, catching a taxi up to the Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx, about thirty minutes away.

The whole way up, Greg squeezed her hand. Over the Triborough Bridge and onto the Bronx River Parkway. It didn’t make sense. How could Tina have been shot? Kate had just left her. Her father said she was in the OR now. Pull through, Kate kept repeating to herself, trying to control her nerves. C’mon, Tina, you’ve got to make it through.

The cab pulled into the emergency entrance. Greg knew precisely where to go. They ran up the stairs to the Trauma Center ER on the fourth floor.

Kate spotted Tom and Ellen O’Hearn, Tina’s parents, huddled on a bench outside the operating room. They jumped up as soon as they saw her and hugged her. She introduced Greg. The O’Hearns’ anxious faces reflected the same deep-set worry that Kate knew was on her own.

“How is she?” Kate asked.

Tina was still in surgery. She had been shot in the back of the head. Just outside the lab, as she was leaving. Right on the street. Things didn’t look so good. She’d lost a lot of blood, but she was holding on.

“It’s bad, Kate.” Tina’s father just shook his head. “She’s fighting. There’s been a lot of tissue damage. The doctors say they just don’t know.”

Greg squeezed Tom’s arm and said he would try to get an update from someone inside.

“Who could have done this?” Kate asked numbly, taking a seat next to Ellen on the bench. “How did this happen?”

“Apparently it was just as she left the lab.” Tom shrugged, helpless. “Right out on the street. On Morris Avenue. The police were here earlier. Some people spotted the person running away. They think it might be gang-related.”

“Gang-related?” Kate’s eyes went wide. “What the hell does Tina have to do with gangs?”

“Some kind of initiation rite, they said. These animals supposedly prove themselves by doing some random killing. They said it was like he was waiting for someone on the street as she came out of the lab. She had just called us, Kate. A few minutes before. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Kate reached over and hugged him. But what started out as only a throbbing in the pit of her stomach grew into something far more fearsome.

Right on the street. Outside the lab. Kate understood exactly what that meant.

“How long has she been in there?” she asked.

“Going on two hours now. They said it was a small-caliber gun. Fired from behind. That’s the only reason she’s still alive.”

“Tina’s strong.” Kate squeezed Tom’s hand and gave Tina’s mother’s arm a tug. “She’ll pull through.”

Please pull through.

Greg came back out a while later and said they were still in surgery. All they could do was wait. And that’s what they did. For over two hours. Kate sat on the floor with her back pressed against the wall. The fast-forming truth was really starting to scare her. It was she who should have been there on that street. She gripped Greg’s hand.

Finally, after 1:00 A.M., the surgeon came out.

“She’s alive,” he said, taking off his surgical cap. “That’s the good news. The bullet entered through the occipital lobe and lodged in the right frontal. We’re not able to get to it yet. There’s been a lot of swelling. I’m afraid she’s lost a lot of blood. It’s a very tricky procedure. I wish I could tell you more right now, but we just don’t know.”

Ellen clung to her husband. “Oh, Tom…”

“She’s fighting,” the doctor said. “Her life signs are stable. We have her on a respirator. We’re going to treat her as best we can for now and see how the swelling goes down. All I can honestly tell you now is, it’s touch and go.”

“Oh, Jesus, God,” Ellen O’Hearn gasped, placing her head against her husband’s chest.

Tom stroked his wife’s hair. “So all we can do is wait? How long?”

“Twenty-four hours, forty-eight. I wish I could give you more. The best I can tell you is, she’s alive.”

Kate held on to Greg. Tina’s mother started to sob.

Tom nodded. “Assuming she pulls through”-he swallowed tightly-“she’ll be all right, won’t she?” The meaning on his face was clear. Brain damage. Paralysis.

“We’ll get to that when it’s time to get to it.” The doctor squeezed his shoulder. “Right now we’re just hoping she survives.”

Hoping she survives…

Kate sank back, her head crashing and empty at the same time. She wanted to cry. She leaned against Greg. In the hollow of her heart, the questions had disappeared. A horrible new fear had started to emerge.

Not so much a fear as a certainty.

It was she who always closed up the lab. She who should have come out that door. The police had said as much. It was as if they were waiting for her…

She looked at Tom and Ellen and wanted to tell them. This was no gang killing.

But they were right about one thing: Tina was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

With all the certainty in her heart, Kate knew-that bullet had been meant for her.