Trauma

CHAPTER 29

Carrie kept a light foot on the gas on her early-morning drive back to the VA. She had espresso for blood. The notion that Fasciani had somehow gotten up and walked away from neuro recovery simply did not compute. Could Fasciani have had a medical emergency like Abington’s? Perhaps he coded, maybe an arrhythmia like Abington, and had been transferred to the med ICU — “turfed,” as Goodwin would call it. DBS-induced palinacousis and arrhythmia? Carrie could not dream up a more bizarre set of symptoms.

If Carrie could have called Lee Taggart or the duty nurse for the eleven o’clock shift from home, she would have. The problem was, Carrie did not have access to the scheduling application. She was Dr. Finley’s employee and had no IT privileges. If she wanted to speak with the nursing staff, her only option was to return to the hospital. Not a problem. Carrie had reheated a burrito in the microwave, and a Red Bull would keep her alert for hours.

Besides, this would give her an excuse to go to the med ICU to look for Fasciani and personally check up on Abington, assuming he was still a patient there. It would be easy enough to walk the floor without raising too many eyebrows. Her goal was modest and obtainable. She would get to work hours before everyone else, find out what she needed to know, and maybe grab a few hours’ sleep in a vacant on-call room.

A little past one thirty in the morning, Carrie arrived at the VA and parked in the same spot she had occupied hours ago. Then it was back through the rear entrance with a head nod and a flash of her badge, this time to a different security guard. She raced down the hallway, eager to confirm what she already knew to be true. The hospital, like most of the patients here, seemed fast asleep.

The elevator stopped on the third floor and Carrie hurried out. In no time she was back at the double doors to the neuro ICU. They were locked, but that was standard procedure. More unusual was the view through the windows built into the swinging doors. The hallway lights were off. The glow from various screen savers illuminated the nurses’ station enough for Carrie to see it was unoccupied.

Unoccupied, but why? What had happened to her patient? Not her patient, but rather Navarro’s and Goodwin’s.

If Fasciani was still in the hospital — and where else would he be? — Carrie reasoned she would find him in the med ICU. He’d coded, or something. The arrhythmia. It was the only logical explanation.

Soon Carrie was standing outside the locked doors to the med ICU, looking through the glass into a well-lit, active unit. Carrie buzzed the intercom and announced herself as Dr. Bryant. The doors unlocked and Carrie strode over to the nurses’ station. A black woman in her late twenties, hair pulled back, high cheekbones, pretty and slight, looked up from her monitor and gave Carrie a quiet smile.

“Morning, Doctor, what brings you here?”

“I just wanted to see if you had a patient by the name of Eric Fasciani brought here this evening?”

The woman, Dot according to her name badge, clicked at her keyboard and shook her head slightly.

“The name doesn’t sound familiar. No, I’m sorry. He’s not here.”

Carrie’s brow furrowed and her eyes narrowed into slits. Where could he have gone? She asked, “Is Steve Abington still here?”

Dot executed more key taps than a ticket broker at an airline counter. That slight frown returned. “We don’t have a Steve Abington here, either,” she said.

“Well, he was transferred to the floor the day before yesterday.”

Dot checked her screen again, thinking she might have missed something. “I’m sorry, we don’t have his record, so I can’t tell you where he went.”

“Can we check the computer?” Carrie asked.

“Sorry, I can’t do that,” Dot said. “This new electronic medical record system is great in some ways, but we’re still in classes for access authorization. I’ve spent about a hundred hours and all I’m allowed to do now is input vitals and other nursing data.”

Carrie was not the least bit surprised. She understood this all too well.

“I can look up labs,” Dot offered. “But I still can’t see things like patient demographics. Don’t ask me why. Most everyone hates it, but I suspect we’ll get the hang of it soon enough.”

Carrie brightened. “Could you check for any labs you might have done for Steve Abington in the last day or two?”

Dot nodded and her fingers went flying over the keyboard. “There’s nothing in the system.”

“Nothing? Is that common? I mean, he was a patient here.”

“Honey, at the VA we see it all. The only thing common is that nothing is common, if you get my drift. By the way, who are you?”

That was it. The last thing Carrie needed was a leak of her presence getting back to Dr. Goodwin or Navarro. She had to bring her concern to somebody who could really help.