Blindsighted (Grant County #1) - Karin Slaughter Page 0,63

asked, trying to use a firm voice.

“Yeah,” Lena returned, giving Sara an odd look.

Ellen filled the last syringe. “It’s down the hall,” she told Lena.

Sara heard them leave, but she kept her eyes on Julia Matthews. Sara’s vision tunneled, and for the second time she felt herself on the gurney, saw a doctor leaning over her, taking her pulse, checking her vitals.

“Sara?” Hare was looking at the woman’s hands, and Sara was reminded of the marks she had first seen in the parking lot.

Both palms were punctured through the center. Sara glanced down at the woman’s feet, noting that they, too, had been punctured in the same way. She bent to examine the wounds, which were clotting rapidly. Specks of rust added color to the dried black blood.

“The palm has been pierced through,” Sara offered. She looked under the woman’s fingernails, recognizing thin slivers of wood pressed under the nails. “Wood,” she reported, wondering why someone would take the time to scrub the victim down with bleach in order to remove physical traces, yet leave slivers of wood under the nails. It did not make sense. And then to leave her arranged on the car in such a way.

Sara worked all of this out in her head, and her stomach responded to the obvious conclusion with a slight pitch. She closed her eyes, picturing the woman as she had been when Sara first found her: legs crossed at the ankles, arms at ninety-degree angles from the body.

The woman had been crucified.

“Those are puncture wounds, right?” Hare said.

Sara nodded, not taking her eyes off the woman. Her body was well nourished and her skin had been taken care of. There were no needle marks to indicate prolonged drug use. Sara stopped in her tracks, realizing she’d assessed the woman as if she were at the morgue rather than the hospital. As if sensing this, the heart monitor went into failure, the shrill scream of the machine putting Sara on alert.

“No,” Sara hissed as she leaned over the woman, starting compressions. “Hare, bag her.”

He fumbled around in the drawers for the bag. Within seconds, he was squeezing air into the woman’s lungs. “She’s in V-tach,” he warned.

“Slow,” Sara said, wincing as she felt one of the patient’s ribs crack under her hands. She kept her eyes on Hare, willing him to cooperate. “One, two, squeeze. Quick and hard. Keep it calm.”

“Okay, okay,” Hare mumbled, concentrating on squeezing the bag.

Despite the great press given CPR, it was merely a stopgap measure. CPR was the act of physically forcing the heart to circulate blood into the brain, and very rarely could this be done manually as efficiently as a healthy heart performing the task on its own. If Sara stopped, so would the heart. It was a time-buying procedure until something else could be done.

Lena, obviously alerted by the shrieking monitor, ran back into the room. “What happened?”

“She crashed,” Sara said, feeling a slight sense of relief as she spotted Ellen in the hallway. “Amp of Epi,” she ordered.

Sara watched impatiently as Ellen popped open a box of Epi and put the syringe together.

“Jeesh.” Lena cringed as Sara administered the drug straight into the woman’s heart.

Hare’s voice rose a few octaves. “She’s in V-fib.”

With one hand Ellen took the paddles off the cart behind her, charging the defibrillator with the other.

“Two hundred,” Sara ordered. The woman’s body jumped into the air as Sara electrocuted her. Sara watched the monitor, frowning when there was no corresponding reaction. Sara shocked her two more times with the same response. “Lidocaine,” she ordered just as Ellen popped another box.

Sara administered the drug, keeping an eye on the monitor.

“Flat line,” Hare reported.

“Again.” Sara reached for the paddles. “Three hundred,” she ordered.

Again, she shocked the woman. Again, there was no response. Sara felt a cold sweat come over her. “Epi.”

The sound of the box popping open was like a needle in Sara’s ear. She took the syringe, pushing the Adrenalin directly into the woman’s heart one more time. They all waited.

“Flat line,” Hare reported.

“Let’s go to three-sixty.”

For the fifth time, a charge went through the woman’s body with no response.

“Goddamnit, goddamnit,” Sara muttered, resuming compressions. “Time?” she called.

Hare glanced at the clock. “Twelve minutes.”

It had seemed like two seconds to Sara.

Lena must have sensed from Hare’s tone of voice where he was going with this. She whispered under her breath, “Don’t let her die. Please, don’t let her die.”

“She’s in prolonged asystole, Sara,” Hare said. He was telling her that