Saving Meghan(106)
“I hope you don’t mind if I eat,” she said. “It’s been a long day, and I haven’t had a bite.”
“No, of course not,” Zach said. He waited while she took a spoonful of soup, and another after that, until it seemed half the thermos had to be gone.
“I’m sorry, Becky,” Zach eventually said.
“Nothing we can do about it now,” she replied.
“They promised me they weren’t going to bring Meghan back to that floor. We were going to resume the mito cocktail. I was going to push for the Elamvia clinical trial.”
“The only thing I know is that you lied to me,” Becky said, shaking the spoon at him.
“I misled you,” Zach countered, “because I knew there was no other way you were going to bring her back. I had to do it. For her safety, and for yours.”
“Well, I should be very safe in prison, thank you very much,” Becky said curtly.
“Not if I prove she has mito,” Zach said.
Becky shot him a hopeful look. “Can you redo the biopsy?” Quick as her excitement had come, Zach watched it fade. “You quit,” she said, remembering. “Carl told me that you had resigned.”
“Knox and Nash reneged on our deal. I had no choice.”
“So you can’t help,” Becky said.
“I’m not going to abandon this case, or you,” said Zach. He thought about reaching across the table to take hold of her hand in a comforting way, but worried about how the gesture might be construed. “I may not be at White anymore, but I’m still a doctor; I can still advocate for you in court. I want to keep trying to help.”
Becky inhaled deeply. “Thank you,” she managed in a whispered voice. “You’re the only one who seems to believe me. Guess you should know that Carl and I are getting divorced.”
Zach was sorry to hear the news, but he was not the least bit surprised. “Was it your Escape from Alcatraz routine that dealt the final blow?”
Even though Becky managed a strained smile, Zach immediately regretted his attempt to bring levity to the situation.
“No. I had pretty much made up my mind to leave him when he blocked the second biopsy. Then I wanted to kill him when he bribed or screwed Kelly London. But I’d say the last straw was when Meghan told me that he hit her after she found out he was having an affair.”
Zach grimaced in sympathy. “Becky, I’m so sorry. I can’t even imagine how enraged you must be. What now?”
“Now I get my lawyer involved and—”
Becky stopped mid-sentence. Zach thought she was getting emotional, but she looked strange. She was blinking rapidly, taking in short, sharp breaths.
“Becky, are you all right?”
All she could manage was a wheezing gasp. Becky clutched at her stomach, teeth clenched from what appeared to be a sudden, sharp pain in her belly. She made a groaning sound, slumped forward, righted herself, groaned again, and kept blinking.
Zach got up, knocking over his chair with a loud clatter as he stood. “Becky, are you okay? Are you choking?”
He was about to perform the Heimlich maneuver, but Becky had the wherewithal to shake her head. Air seeped into her lungs like she was taking it in through a straw crimped at one end. She groaned and gurgled something wet and viscous up her throat. Panic and the fear of death overcame her as she tried to take deeper breaths. She made an effort to stand but was wobbly on her feet, dizzy as though drunk. Zach studied the too-rapid rise and fall of her chest. She braced her hands against the table, her body racked with another spasm.
Zach’s mind clicked through health conditions that could cause breathing problems, recalling all possibilities as fast as any Google search. Asthma. Heart failure. Respiratory infection. Pericardial effusion—fluid around the heart. Pleural effusion—fluid around the lung. None of those quite fit what he was seeing. Becky seemed suddenly and inexplicably ill.
Suddenly ill …
A thought tugged at the back of Zach’s mind as Becky’s color began to change, from moonlight pale to a touch of blue. Traces of spittle frothed at the edges of her mouth. Each breath sounded like she was choking on air.
Zach got Becky back in the chair before she toppled over. Placing his index and middle fingers on her neck, just to the side of her windpipe, he felt the rapid pulse over the carotid artery.
His eyes went to the thermos on the table, and to the spoon, spotted with remnants of the chicken soup.
Suddenly ill …
Zach had no monitors to check blood pressure or oxygen saturation. He could not administer medications through IVs. There were no labs to inform him of blood gases, potassium levels, or levels of creatinine, bicarb, sodium, or any of a multitude of readings he’d want to know. There was only Becky’s continued wheezing, her evident disorientation.
Zach made his calculation based on Becky’s alarming coloring, her continued respiratory distress, and the viciousness of the spasms that shook her body. Zach decided to call 911 on the way to the hospital, knowing every second counted, and praying he could get there in time.
CHAPTER 52
BECKY
Somehow she was in a car, and they were moving.
How did that happen?
She didn’t remember leaving the house. She did not remember much of anything. She could think only of how sick she felt. Her vision had gone out of focus, as though someone had taken steel wool to her eyes and scratched everything blurry. Her stomach cramped severely, worse than labor pain, squeezing her insides like a balloon compressing to the point of rupture. Her body prickled with the needle-like sensations of every muscle going to sleep all at once. All she wanted was air, sweet, precious air. She could feel her throat tightening, choking her.