Vanish: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel Read Free Page B

life, her torso bucking on the gurney. The IV site magically puffed blue as the punctured vein hemorrhaged into the skin.
    “Shit, lost the site. Help me hold her down!”
    “Man, this gal’s gonna get up and walk away.”
    “She’s really fighting now. I can’t get the IV started.”
    “Then let’s just get her on the stretcher and move her.”
    “Where are you taking her?” Maura said.
    “Right across the street. The ER. If you have any paperwork they’ll want a copy.”
    She nodded. “I’ll meet you there.”
     
    A long line of patients stood waiting to register at the ER window, and the triage nurse behind the desk refused to meet Maura’s attempts to catch her eye. On this busy night, it would take a severed limb and spurting blood to justify cutting to the front of the line, but Maura ignored the nasty looks of other patients and pushed straight to the window. She rapped on the glass.
    “You’ll have to wait your turn,” the triage nurse said.
    “I’m Dr. Isles. I have a patient’s transfer papers. The doctor will want them.”
    “Which patient?”
    “The woman they just brought in from across the street.”
    “You mean that lady from the morgue?”
    Maura paused, suddenly aware that the other patients in line could hear every word. “Yes,” was all she said.
    “Come on through, then. They want to talk to you. They’re having trouble with her.”
    The door lock buzzed open, and Maura pushed through, into the treatment area. She saw immediately what the triage nurse had meant by
trouble.
Jane Doe had not yet been moved into a treatment room, but was still lying in the hallway, her body now draped with a heating blanket. The two EMTs and a nurse struggled to control her.
    “Tighten that strap!”
    “Shit—her hand’s out again—”
    “Forget the oxygen mask. She doesn’t need it.”
    “Watch that IV! We’re going to lose it!”
    Maura lunged toward the stretcher and grabbed the patient’s wrist before she could pull out the intravenous catheter. Long black hair lashed Maura’s face as the woman tried to twist free. Only twenty minutes ago, this had been a blue-lipped corpse in a body bag. Now they could barely restrain her as life came roaring back into her limbs.
    “Hold on. Hold on to that arm!”
    The sound started deep in the woman’s throat. It was the moan of a wounded animal. Then her head tilted back and her cry rose to an unearthly shriek. Not human, thought Maura, as the hairs stood up on the back of her neck.
My god, what have I brought back from the dead?
    “Listen to me.
Listen!
” Maura commanded. She grasped the woman’s head in her hands and stared down at a face contorted in panic. “I won’t let anything happen to you. I promise. You have to let us help you.”
    At the sound of Maura’s voice, the woman went still. Blue eyes stared back, the pupils dilated to huge black pools.
    One of the nurses quietly began to loop a restraint around the woman’s hand.
    No, thought Maura. Don’t do that.
    As the strap brushed the patient’s wrist, she jerked as though scalded. Her arm flew and Maura stumbled backward, her cheek stinging from the blow.
    “Assistance!” the nurse yelled. “Can we get Dr. Cutler out here?”
    Maura backed away, face throbbing, as a doctor and another nurse emerged from one of the treatment rooms. The commotion had drawn the attention of patients in the waiting room. Maura saw them eagerly peering through the glass partition, watching a scene that was better than any TV episode of
ER.
    “We know if she has any allergies?” the doctor asked.
    “No medical history,” said the nurse.
    “What’s going on here? Why is she out of control?”
    “We have no idea.”
    “Okay. Okay, let’s try five milligrams of Haldol IV.”
    “IV’s out!”
    “Then give it IM. Just do it! And let’s get some Valium in her, too, before she hurts herself.”
    The woman gave another shriek as the needle pierced her skin.
    “Do we know anything about