Page 25 of Double Dirty

“No. They even gave her Narcan to try and bring her around. But since that didn’t work, they said it probably wasn’t an opioid. When they asked me on the phone what she was taking, and I said nothing, I told them it might be that. I knew Watts had a couple convictions for pushing Vicodin and fentanyl and shit like that.”

“That makes sense. It’s good that you knew that, that you could tell them.”

“It didn’t work,” he said miserably, as if he’d failed at CPR or something. I put my hand on his shoulder.

“You did everything you could. We just have to hope she’ll be okay.”

The doctor came in, a tiny redheaded woman with an iPad.

“So, it looks like acute overdose of a powerful sedative. That would explain why the opioid antagonist wasn’t successful. Her respiration is slow, but her oximetry is decent. I’m going to keep her in ICU until she regainsconsciousness, normally within forty-eight hours, and then we’ll assess where she is.”

“She’s going to wake up though?” I said.

“I can’t make guarantees, but she will most likely come out of the coma, yes. At that point we determine if she was without oxygen and for how long. Any length of time is damaging to brain function, and we won’t know if she’s lost until she’s responsive.”

“Thank you,” Rafe said.

“I’ll check in on her tonight to see if there’s any progress. Go up to the nineteenth floor and they’ll fill you in on the regulations.”

She left and we wandered out to the elevator.

“She’s not going to die,” Rafe said, his voice hollow with shock.

We were silent as we listened to the visiting restrictions and learned that we’d have to sleep in the waiting room. It didn’t make sense for us both to stay—we could switch off, sleep at home, could schedule a way to go to work. But we stayed anyway.

For two days we slept in short snatches, ate out of vending machines, shuffled silently into Lexi’s ICU cubicle, a cold glass box of sorts with a bed and a lot of noisy monitors and one chair. Only Janet from her workplace came to visit—no other friends, certainly no family if she’d ever had one.

Right after sunset the second night, while I had gone to see if they’d refilled the spicy hot barbecue chips slot in the snack machine on the seventh floor, she woke up. I wasn’t there, but Rafe was. When I returned, bitching about the snack offerings, the cubicle was full of nurses and doctors. Rafe beckoned me from the corner. His eyes were red.

“Oh God,” I said, searching his face for a clue. Had she flat lined? Coded?

He shook his head, “Awake,” he managed.

I gripped his arm, “She woke up!”

He nodded. I started to pull him out of the cubicle to give them room to check her, but I heard her say my name. Over the din of voices and the beeps and noises of the machines, I knew her voice, though it was gravelly and low.

“Leo?”

“I’m here!” I said, probably shouting, probably too loud for the small room. I didn’t fight my way through the crowd—I wasn’t stupid enough to get in the way of medical professionals doing their job. But I knew she wanted me there, that she knew now that we were both sitting vigil for her.

“What did she do?” I asked Rafe as we sat in the waiting room, anxious for a chance to visit her after she’d been assessed.

“She kind of moaned, and I was holding her hand and talking to her—she moved her fingers a little. I went to let go, like maybe me holding her hand was uncomfortable with that damn oxygen thing on her finger, but she said ‘no’ like she didn’t want me to let go. Then I said her name and she said mine. I hit the nurse call button and that was it.”

We breathed relief and waited. It was hours later. He had fallen asleep, and my phone battery was low.

“You can see her now for a few minutes before they transfer her down to twelve,” the nurse’s aide said.

“Thank you,” I told her, jostling Rafe to wake him.

Lexi looked like shit. I went to one side of her bed and Rafe crowded in against the IV pole and the heart monitor on the other side.

“Hey, girl,” I said. “Welcome back. Don’t ever take a nap like that on us again.”

“You won, Lexi,” Rafe said, “You did it. You scared the living shit out of me.”

He scrubbed at his eyes. She tried to lift her hand toward his face, but it dropped weakly on the blanket.