face in the fur. “He locked Pansy outside. You know… how she…hates…” Her shoulders heaved, one hand rose to her chest and rubbed a spot just below her collarbone. “She must have heard me…come in…” Her breath rasped. The next one was clearly a struggle.
“Where’s your inhaler?” Jake took a deep breath, as if it could somehow get to her lungs.
“In my pack.” She fumbled the clasp on the flap, the wheezing getting louder with each inhale.
Jake grabbed the cat and shook the bag upside down. “Where?”
Green eyes widened. “I…dumped…” Shoulders rounded, cords standing out on her neck, she stood and quickly lowered her head. “Can you…take…me home?”
Eyes darting around the park, he stuffed the cat in the pack. Slinging it over his shoulder, he scooped up Lexi and ran to the truck. As he opened the passenger door, the train signal clanged. He whipped the seat belt across her. The skin around her mouth had a purple cast. “Hang on, baby. Try to relax.”
Lexi nodded. The rumble of a train muffled the clanging and doubled the distance he’d have to drive. He couldn’t chance taking her home. If she couldn’t find her inhaler, or it didn’t work fast enough…
Jake jumped in, started the truck, and did a U-turn, tires squealing. He glanced right when he got to the road, thinking for a fraction of a second about trying to beat the train. Gates lowered on his thought. Red lights flashed. He weaved between slowing cars and onto Bridge Street. Sunlight lasered an SOS through the spaces between boxcars. Through the open window, wheels clacked over the tracks. A shadow train barreled along the grass beside him. He ran a stoplight and sped onto the overpass then barely missed a car on Robert Street. Lord…
He flipped open his phone, dialed 911, and asked them to call the ER at Aurora Memorial. His voice shook. He gave them Ben’s number.
Lexi grabbed his arm. “Take…me…home.” Her words were tight, faint. Her exhale whistled.
“No time.” As he closed in on the sign for Perkins Street, he glanced at Lexi. Looking straight ahead, white hands gripping the seat, spine hunched, she fought for every breath. Jake’s damp palms gripped the steering wheel. Pulse hammering in his throat, he zigzagged—Kane Street to Highland to Randolph. He took the back way in to the hospital, praying no one got in his way. He wove around cars and people in the parking lot and slammed the truck into neutral under red block letters. Unfastening Lexi’s seat belt, he slid her toward him.
The hospital doors opened automatically. He ran through the waiting area and was ushered through double doors and into the ER. He answered questions as he laid Lexi on a bed then kissed her forehead and stepped out of the way. She reached out for him. A man in blue scrubs tucked her hand back at her side. Jake moved around him. “I’m right here, Lex.”
“Pulse ox eighty-nine.”
“BP one-forty over eighty.”
A nurse put an oxygen mask over Lexi’s nose and mouth and explained they’d be giving her Albuterol through the mask. She lifted the tips of her stethoscope to her ears then stopped. “Are you her father?”
Not yet. “I’m her uncle.”
The nurse nodded. “I’m going to start an IV on that side. Why don’t you come over here and hold her hand. Might calm her down a bit.” She smiled at Lexi. “You’re going to be just fine, Alexis. It’s scary, isn’t it?”
Lexi nodded. The weight of responsibility dropped from Jake’s shoulders. She was in good hands. She was going to be fine. He walked around the bed. Her fingers wrapped around his. “Is it getting any better?”
Her chest still heaved, but she nodded again.
“Good. I’ll stay right—”
“What happened?”
Ben Madsen lumbered through the curtain. His hair was greasy and he hadn’t shaved in days. He wore a faded yellow shirt unbuttoned over a stretched-out undershirt, baggy jeans belted under his enormous belly. Couch-potato poster boy. Sometimes stereotypes were the only thing that fit.
“She had an asthma attack.”
“She always has asthma attacks. She’s allergic to that blasted cat, and I’m forking over a hundred dollars a month for an inhaler. How’d she get here? Where was she? Little twit left the phone in the garage or I wouldn’t have gotten the call. She locked me out.”
The LPN looked up at Ben. One eyebrow rose and she shook her head. Jake wondered if she’d be allowed to testify in court. If that day ever came.
“Looks like she’s going