Close Encounters Read Online Free PDF Page B

to protest, Lee jogged back down the corridor to the elevators. It took just a few minutes to retrieve the claim forms from the receptionist.
    Back on the first floor, he found himself at the ER duty station. He walked past it, then retraced his steps. He had changed his mind once again and started to walk away when one of the women behind the desk asked, “Can I help you?”
    He showed his ID and badge. “I’d like to see a list of admissions for the past fifteen hours.”
    There had been only two. One white male heart attack, and one black female gunshot.
    He thanked the assistant and turned to take the elevator to the ninth floor and the critical-care ward. Lee didn’t have to ask which room Carol Taggart was in. At the extreme end of the ward a young uniformed officer was stationed outside the door. Lee again showed ID, this time to the staff at the nursing station.
    As Lee began walking the length of the hallway, several hospital personnel left the patient’s room and came toward him, deep in conversation. He hurried to catch up to them.
    “Doctor… you got a minute? I’m Lieutenant Grafton. You have a gunshot victim here…”
    Two of the three staffers immediately deferred to the third, indicating that they would speak with him later. The remaining man was in his early thirties, slightly built and balding.
    “Can’t you guys give it a rest? We’ve had cops in and out of here all morning.”
    “This isn’t an official visit. I just wanted to find out—”
    “There’s already someone with her. She needs to get some rest.”
    “Okay, okay,” Lee conceded. “Can you at least tell me what you know? How bad was it?”
    “The bullet passed through her upper chest. There was a lot of internal bleeding and she had a collapsed lung.”
    “Is… is that serious?”
    “Serious enough. Her chest cavity filled with liquid and she was having trouble breathing.”
    Lee frowned thoughtfully, nodding.
    “She was gone for about three minutes, but we don’t see any evidence of brain damage…”
    “Wait… what do you mean, ‘she was gone’?”
    “As in no pulse, no pressure, no life. She stopped breathing. Her blood pressure dropped very low. We had to put in a chest tube to suction her out. Look, I gotta go. Don’t worry, you guys will get a report when it’s done.”
    “And the bullet?”
    The doctor shook his head. “No bullet. Just two small holes.”
    “Is she going to live?”
    “Oh, yeah, she’ll pull through.”
    Lee watched him walk away, feeling a rush of unexpected relief.
    Carol reached out her hand to Matt. “The flowers are beautiful. But they look so expensive. A plant would have been fine, you know.”
    Matt squeezed her fingers. “Sorry but a plant don’t cut it. That would be like giving you a head of lettuce in a pot or something.”
    Carol grimaced. “I can’t laugh, Matt. It hurts.”
    “Sorry.”
    She rested her head back on the pillows. Actually it didn’t hurt nearly as much as when she’d been brought in the previous morning. The doctor had given her something so she could sleep. She wanted to sleep, but without the nightmares she’d been having. Or the memories that had catapulted her back to her childhood. It wasn’t like her life flashing before her eyes. It was more like… a visitation. It was all somehow connected to that extraordinary moment when she was about to see her mother again, even though she had absolutely no conscious recollection of her. Odder still was her strong sense that something had changed. As if she had given birth to herself.
    She wanted to go home to her family.
    Family.
    Whenever someone said “family” to Carol the picture she got never seemed quite right. The requisite number of people materialized, but they were mismatched. A patchwork of people made up of leftovers, she used to think. Lost and found souls.
    “Do you remember what happened?” Matt’s voice interrupted her thoughts.
    “Not really. It’s all confused. It happened so