Chapter 10 - The Emergency Pager
The harsh ringtone cut through the quiet lobby like a siren.
I pulled the phone from my coat pocket. The caller ID displayed the direct extension of the pediatric intensive care unit at St. Luke.
“Dr. Miller,” I answered instantly, all thoughts of corporate liquidators and ruined weddings evaporating from my mind.
“Dr. Miller, thank God you’re answering,” the ICU head nurse’s voice came through, fast and breathless. “It’s Paisley Howard. Her vitals just spiked. Her blood pressure is dropping again, and Dr. Harrison is scrubbed in, but he’s hesitant to go back in without your surgical notes from yesterday. He says there might be an overlooked micro-hemorrhage near the splenic artery.”
My heart skipped a beat, but my hands didn't shake. The surgeon in me took over in a microsecond.
“Tell Harrison not to touch her,” I commanded, my voice dropping into absolute, unshakeable authority. “I’m five minutes away from the hospital. Prep OR-3 immediately.”
I hung up before she could reply.
I looked up at Zachary. His face had gone pale, the coffee cup slipping slightly in his hand. “Paisley?”
“She’s crashing,” I said, already turning toward the exit doors. “Micro-hemorrhage near the splenic artery. I have to go right now.”
Zachary didn't ask questions. He didn't hesitate. He dropped the pastry bag onto the security desk, grabbed his car keys from his pocket, and sprinted beside me toward the exit.
“Take my car,” Zachary said, pulling the sleek sedan door open as we hit the curb outside the Frost Tower. “It has police-escort priority clearance. I’ll drive.”
We tore out of the downtown parking garage, tires screeching against the asphalt as Zachary gunned the engine, weaving expertly through the morning traffic toward the hospital.
As we sped down the highway, the morning wind whipping through the cracked window, I looked over at Zachary—his knuckles white on the steering wheel, his jaw set with fierce determination, driving like a man fighting for his own family.
For the first time since I walked out of that wedding venue yesterday afternoon, I realized something profound: the life I had left behind in ruins wasn't a loss. It was an empty operating room, cleared out just in time to save everything that truly mattered.
May you like
The hospital gates loomed ahead through the windshield, and as Zachary slammed on the brakes outside the emergency trauma entrance, my phone buzzed with an incoming alert from the federal prosecutor’s office:
“Andrew Foster has just been taken into custody.”
