Page 151 of The Ghost and the Graveyard (Knight Games 1)
I snorted. "Still? Are you sure he's even there anymore? It's been weeks."
"She says yes. No change. He's off the vent, but the lights aren't on and nobody's home," Michelle said.
"What problem could this patient possibly have that you and I need to consult on after all of this time?" I asked.
"Rhonda can't decide which celebrity he looks like," Michelle said.
"Are you serious? You've been bugging me about this because you want to ogle a patient?"
"I wanted to ogle him with you. It's no fun to do it by myself."
We'd reached the fishbowl corridor to the ICU, and I stopped at the double doors. "You do know you're married, right? Does Manny know you're ogling patients?"
"It doesn't count if they're unconscious. And it doubly doesn't count if a single friend is with me. Wink, wink."
Resistance was futile. "Okay. Lunch it is."
Unfortunately, lunch it wasn't. The ICU was short-staffed, and my three patients were needy. An eighty-year-old male who was recovering from surgery threw a clot, and I ended up performing CPR. I told his soul to get back into his body, and it obeyed. The code staff might have thought it was a little creepy-after all, they couldn't see his soul hovering above his body-but they didn't say anything to me when his heart started beating again. I think they just figured I was overly passionate about saving him. What else could they think?
Anyway, the time flew by. I subsisted on toaster pastries and soda from the vending machine until almost six. That's when Michelle called me.
"I'm giving up on you and heading down to Neuro to see sexy Mr. Unconscious. Last chance to join me."
"Sorry, my friend. Can't leave until my relief gets here. I almost lost a guy today."
"Sounds like it's been a rough one. Okay, you're off the hook. I'll give you the scoop tonight."
I wasn't expecting to hear from her again, which was why I furrowed my brow at the floor secretary when she motioned for me to pick up the phone fifteen minutes later.
"You need to get down to Neuro, stat," Michelle yelled into my ear.
"I told you, I can't."
"No, Grateful. Listen to my words. You need to come down to Neuro and sort some things out, now!" She hung up the phone.
I waved down my charge nurse and begged her to cover for me for my last forty minutes. I told her I was sick, which wasn't exactly true unless you counted severe anxiety as an illness. She said it was okay. I took off down the hall and across the atrium to the east wing. Neuro was on the fourth floor. I jogged into the elevator and waited as the pathetically slow doors shut, and the Muzak version of "Gold Dust Woman" played annoyingly in the background. The song was nearly over by the time the doors opened on four.
Michelle met me, pacing.
"What's going on?" I asked, but she grabbed me by the arm and led me into a room on our left. She ushered me to the end of the bed and pointed at the patient. The man had bushy blondish hair and a beard. His muscles were wasted, but that was to be expected when you'd been in bed for more than a month in a coma. His bandages looked okay. The feeding tube and IV were operating as intended.
"What am I looking at?" I finally asked.
"Grateful, concentrate!" Michelle turned the man's head with her hands to face me and pulled up an eyelid to expose one green eye.
My brain refused to process what I was seeing. There had to be an explanation. This wasn't how it was supposed to work. "It couldn't be him. A cousin? Maybe a brother?"
Michelle handed me a piece of paper, a handoff report we used at the hospital to bring caregivers up to speed on a new patient. I read through it and knew without a doubt that it was true.
The man in the bed was Logan.
We Steal A Body
"Holy hell! Fuuuck, we've gotta stop Rick!"
I whipped out my cell phone and dialed the house, then kicked myself for not buying one of those old-fashioned answering machines. Rick wouldn't pick up my phone, and there was no way for him to know that it was me on the line. I tried our mental connection but got nothing. I guess my power didn't stretch that far.
"He's not answering."
