Chương 2
Now Liam noticed the distance between performance and panic. Ethan was worried, but not about Anna.
He was worried about the room.
Coleman stepped aside, leaving a clear path through the doorway. Ethan finally walked into the corridor. His polished shoes made almost no sound.
The second security officer followed.
Liam tried to remain near Anna, but Priya blocked him with one shoulder.
“You cannot be in here as family and as staff.”
“I’m not leaving her alone.”
“She isn’t alone.”
“She woke up. She looked at him.”
“I heard you.”
“Those are hand marks on her throat.”
“I see them.”
“And her ribs—”
“Liam.” Priya lowered her voice. “Go wash your hands.”
He looked down. A faint trace of Anna’s blood marked his thumb where he had checked her lip.
He crossed to the sink because Priya had given him something he could obey. He turned on the water too hot. Soap foamed between his fingers. He scrubbed until the skin across his knuckles reddened.
Behind him, Tasha cut away one sleeve of Anna’s gown to examine the bruising on her upper arm. Ben read out a blood pressure. Priya ordered imaging and a forensic nurse consultation. Each phrase separated Liam from the bed a little more.
He dried his hands on a paper towel that tore in the middle.
Tasha approached him near the curtain.
“Go sit in the family room,” she said.
“No.”
“That was not a suggestion.”
“Ethan’s outside.”
“Security is with him.”
“He can leave.”
“The police are coming.”
“He could call someone. He could—”
“He probably already has.” Tasha’s expression did not change. “You standing in this room angry enough to shake won’t make your sister safer.”
“I’m not shaking.”
She looked at his left hand.
It trembled against his thigh.
Liam curled it into a fist.
Tasha softened, though only slightly. “She needs a brother when she wakes up. Right now, she has doctors.”
The family room was six doors down, beside a vending machine that had been out of order since Tuesday. Liam sat on a molded plastic chair beneath a framed photograph of a river no one in Riverside recognized. A paper cup of coffee stood abandoned on the counter. Someone had folded its cardboard sleeve into smaller and smaller squares.
Through the narrow glass panel in the door, Liam could see Ethan speaking to security. Ethan’s hands moved carefully as he explained something. He never pointed. He never raised his voice. He looked like a man discussing a delayed flight.
A police officer arrived first, then another. They separated Ethan from the security officers and took him into an empty consultation room.
Liam stood.
Tasha appeared outside Anna’s bay and shook her head at him.
He sat again.
His phone vibrated in his pocket. The screen showed three missed calls from an unknown number and a text from the hospital’s medical director asking him to call immediately. Beneath that was a message from Ethan sent twenty-six minutes earlier.
Anna had an accident. Riverside ER. Come if you can.
The wording was almost polite.
Liam stared at the timestamp. Ethan had contacted him after the ambulance arrived, not before. He tried to remember the last time Anna had called him herself. Two weeks ago, perhaps. She had left a voicemail while he was in surgery, asking whether he still had the name of the contractor who had repaired his kitchen cabinets. When he called back, Ethan answered her phone and said she was in the shower.
Liam had forgotten about it.
The consultation room door opened. A woman in a dark blazer entered with the officers. Detective Marisol Vega had worked enough assault cases through Riverside that Liam recognized her. She wore no uniform, only a badge clipped near her belt and a legal pad tucked beneath one arm.
Before the door closed, Ethan saw Liam watching.
He did not look away.
For the first time since Liam had opened the curtain, Ethan smiled.
It was not broad enough for anyone else to notice.
Liam crossed the corridor before he had decided to move. Coleman stepped between him and the consultation room.
“Don’t,” the security officer said.
“He’s provoking me.”
“He’s sitting behind a door.”
“You didn’t see his face.”
“No, Doctor. I’m looking at yours.”
Liam stopped close enough to see a gray thread caught on Coleman’s shoulder seam. Somewhere down the hall, a child began crying. A respiratory therapist hurried past carrying a portable oxygen tank.
Coleman lowered his voice. “You put a hand on him, you help him.”
Liam stepped back.
The medical director called again.
This time Liam answered.
“Where are you?” Dr. Helen Kenning asked.
“Emergency.”
“I know where the emergency department is. Are you inside the treatment area?”
“No.”
“Have you accessed the patient’s chart?”
“She’s my sister.”
“That was not my question.”
“I haven’t opened the chart.”
“Did you issue an instruction to lock the unit?”
“I called security and requested restricted access.”
“Three staff members say you said, ‘Lock this unit down.’”
“Her husband assaulted her.”
“Has she made that statement?”
“She’s unconscious.”
A silence followed, not surprised but administrative. Liam could picture Helen in her office at home, reading glasses low on her nose, one hand held against her forehead.
“You cannot act as her physician,” she said.
“I know that.”
“You cannot speak to police as though your medical opinion is independent.”
“I know what finger marks look like.”
“You also know exactly how defense counsel will describe your involvement.”
Liam turned toward the glass panel. Ethan’s profile showed through it. He sat with one ankle resting on the opposite knee, his shoulders relaxed.
“I’m not worried about defense counsel.”
“You need to become worried. Not instead of your sister. In addition to her.”
“Is this the part where the hospital protects itself?”
“This is the part where I stop one of my best physicians from destroying his credibility before his sister can use it.”
May you like
Liam said nothing.
Helen continued. “You are off clinical duty for the remainder of the shift. Priya is in charge of the patient. You may remain as family, provided you follow staff direction.”
