Night Fall (The Quantico Files #1) - Nancy Mehl Page 0,34
medical personnel ran into the room and pushed a large cart next to the bed. Alex and Logan hurried toward the ICU’s exit to the waiting area. Mike had come in from the front desk, and when he saw them, he jogged over.
“What’s going on?” he asked. “Is Nettie okay?”
Alex shook her head. “I think she’s in trouble, Mike.”
They stood off to the side, waiting to see what would happen. A few minutes later a doctor walked out of Nettie’s room. Behind him, the same medical personnel who’d rushed in came out and walked past them.
“You’re the FBI agents who spoke to Nettie Travers?” he asked.
“Yes,” Alex said. “Is she okay?”
“I’m sorry, no.” His eyebrows knit together in a tight frown. “Can you tell me how she acted before we were alerted to a problem?”
Was he blaming them? “She was trying to tell us something,” Alex said. “It seemed important. Then she sat up. It was like she was . . . I don’t know. Shocked?”
“In pain?”
“Not really,” Alex said slowly, “but it’s possible. I had the feeling she was reacting to something that happened suddenly.”
“Okay, thanks.” He grunted. “She shouldn’t have died. She was getting better.”
“Will there be an autopsy, Doctor?” Logan asked.
“I’m sure there will be. Her sister-in-law is already here from out of town. I’m about to call her. Relatives can say no to an autopsy, but I’m sure they’ll want to know what happened too. She only left after Nettie regained consciousness because I said she was improving.” He sighed softly. “This isn’t a call I want to make. Excuse me.”
“We’ll want to see that autopsy,” Alex said.
“You’ll have to go through proper channels.”
He pushed the door to the ICU open, leaving them standing there.
“I don’t like this,” Alex said as they made their way back to the front desk and waiting area.
“What do you mean?” Mike asked. “People don’t make it sometimes. It happens.”
“But he said she was supposed to recover. Maybe whoever wanted her dead came back to finish the job.”
“In the ICU?” Logan said. “That would be difficult.”
“Yes, it would,” Alex said. “But not impossible.”
Ruth returned with a piece of paper in her hand. “I found this drawing on the floor in Mrs. Travers’s room. Does it belong to you?”
“Yes, it’s mine,” Alex said. “I must have dropped it when the monitor went off.” She took the sketch from the nurse. “Ruth, how difficult would it be for someone to get into one of these rooms without your knowledge?”
“Not possible,” she said without hesitation. “We watch who goes in and out very carefully. If you’re thinking about Mrs. Travers, no one went into that room who wasn’t supposed to be there.”
Alex thought for a moment. “Do you check every doctor who enters the ICU?”
This time Ruth hesitated a moment, obviously uncomfortable with Alex’s question. “No,” she said slowly, “but we know our doctors. We’d notice if a strange one went into a patient’s room.” She pulled her shoulders back and straightened her spine. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.”
As she walked away, Mike said, “I don’t like the way she answered that question. It seems clear to me that someone could get past them if they were wearing a doctor’s coat.”
“I agree,” Alex said.
“Do you think Ruth recognized the man in the sketch?”
“I don’t think so. She didn’t display any signs of dishonesty.”
“Excuse me.”
Alex turned around and found a young woman in blue scrubs. Her name tag indicated she was a nurse. “Can I help you?” Alex asked.
The woman looked around her. “I . . . I doubt it, but I might be able to help you.” She moved a little closer to Alex. “We really thought Mrs. Travers was going to make it.”
“Do you have any reason to suspect that someone . . . helped her along?” Alex wanted to be careful. She didn’t want to spook the girl.
“A man came to the desk asking about Willow LeGrand. She was friends with Mrs. Travers, right?” Alex nodded. “Well, I couldn’t give him personal information about a patient, but I did tell him the survivor from the attack wasn’t Ms. LeGrand. He was very, very upset. He hung around out here for a while”—she gestured toward Mike—“but he left around the time you arrived. It’s possible he got through the ICU entrance when we had an earlier code blue. Everyone was concentrated on that. He might have slipped into Mrs. Travers’s room unobserved.”