Out of Nowhere (The Immortal Vagabond Healer Book 1) Read Free

for the stabbing.’
    ‘Ambulance 34 is Katie and Tina today,’ said Nique. ‘So at least we have competent EMTs.’
    ‘If there aren’t too many uniforms around for Katie to keep her concentration.’
    Nique shrugged. ‘If it’s serious, she’ll focus. If it’s not, who cares?’
    ‘Fair enough,’ I said.
    We drove through the city toward the call, just around the corner from where we’d picked up our friend with the twisted ankle. ‘Busy part of town today,’ I observed.
    ‘People probably saw all the red lights earlier and got jealous. All the cool kids are going to the ER.’
    ‘Early in the day for a stabbing,’ I said.
    ‘If it isn’t some guy who cut his finger on a beer can and called 911 with broken English and dispatch screwed up the call.’
    ‘So young and yet so cynical,’ I said.
    ‘I learned from the best.’ She smiled back.
    We pulled up on scene behind the BLS truck. About ninety percent of our calls can be handled by Basic Life Support: Emergency Medical Technicians who can splint, bandage, give you oxygen and drive you to the hospital. As medics—Advanced Life Support—we can start IVs, give medication or fluid and use the cardiac monitor, so if the guy was stabbed badly we might need to step in. Stab wounds can be deceiving. You get stuck in an organ or an artery gets cut and you can bleed out internally without showing much, and act perfectly normal until blood loss gets critical.
    We pulled out our bags and walked over to the alley. The fire engine was just pulling up, a police cruiser already on scene.
    Down the narrow alley, the dirty snow strewn with broken bottles and crushed drug vials, the victim sat on a stoop as the two EMTs checked him over.
    He was completely out of place here. A fortyish white guy wearing an L L Bean barn coat over a hideous sweater, the kind only a WASP would be seen wearing in public. Relaxed-fit khakis and topsiders. Probably drove his BMW here from Hamilton. Katie was checking his blood pressure while Tina bandaged a cut on his face.
    Two burly cops stood just behind them, waiting to interrogate the victim. I was impressed by the fact that they were waiting instead of stomping all over the EMTs’ questions, until I recognized Carlos.
    Carlos had worked with us years ago on the ambulance. He’d fought in Iraq, then gone on the truck, and finally, utterly unsuited for any kind of civilized job, gotten into the police department. He understood that our job came first. Once we had stabilized a patient, then he could slap them around all he wanted.
    ‘What’s up?’ I asked.
    ‘Mr Foley here was minding his own business, not buying any drugs whatsoever,’ said Carlos, ‘when he mysteriously got cut.’
    ‘I hate when that happens.’
    ‘They’re probably all set with you guys. It looks like just a shallow cut on each cheek.’
    ‘Somebody trying to send him a message?’
    ‘He’s too scared to tell us anything. I think he’ll swear he cut himself shaving.’
    ‘Tell him he should just get one of his dentist buddies to write him a script for Vicodin instead of trying to score in alleys.’
    ‘No point in telling him,’ said Carlos’ partner, Nelson. ‘You white folks don’t listen.’ Nelly was about six and a half feet and two-hundred-and-fifty pounds of muscle, a shaved head and skin the color of mahogany.
    ‘Sean ain’t white,’ said Carlos. ‘He’s just pale for a Puerto Rican.’
    ‘What does that make me?’ asked Nique.
    ‘You look that good, don’t matter what color you are, chica. ’
    ‘So Carlos,’ I said, ‘you still keep your EMT certification up? I know you do, so you can get that stipend. Why don’t you pick up a few shifts on the truck for old times’ sake?’
    ‘Tried to. Said I couldn’t carry my gun.’ He smiled. ‘I just don’t feel safe in this town.’
    Tina looked over at us. I raised my head.
    ‘Watcha got?’
    ‘Forty-two-year-old male, lacerations to both cheeks, no other complaints,’ she