Trial By Fire

“Would you like me to pack up a few things and meet you at Cordes Junction?” he asked. “That way you wouldn’t have to come all the way back here.”

That was something Ali had learned to appreciate about Leland Brooks-he always seemed to know exactly what was needed without ever having to be asked.

“Where will you be working?” Leland wanted to know. “How long will you be gone?”

“I’m going to Saint Gregory’s Hospital,” Ali answered. “Maybe one day, maybe two.”

“That’s at Sixteenth and Camelback, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Ali answered.

“Very well then,” Leland said. “I’ll meet you in Cordes Junction as quickly as I can. At the Burger King.”

Ali smiled at that. Her former associates in L.A. would have been appalled. “Great,” she said. “See you there, and thank you.”

CHAPTER 6

Her eyes blinked open, fighting the light. A woman’s face, partially concealed by a white surgical mask, swam across her line of vision, hazy and out of focus. She fought to make her eyes work, searching for details that might help clarify the situation.

The eyes peering at her from behind a pair of gold-rimmed glasses brimmed with kindness and compassion. The woman attached to the eyes wore green surgical scrubs with a matching green cap perched on the top of her head. Over that she wore a gauzy-looking material that rustled like paper when she moved. Barely visible beneath it was a simple gold cross that hung on a chain around her neck.

The woman-was she a nurse? it was hard to tell-spoke then, her words soothing and quiet, while the patient strained to listen and make sense of any of this.

“There was a fire,” the nurse was saying. “A terrible fire.”

Yes, she thought. The fire. I remember that-all of it.

She had witnessed the fire from every angle, from inside the fire and from above it. She knew that what she had first thought to be a bed was really a stack of Sheetrock. The house had been unfinished, all studs and wires and pipes. That much she knew. The rest was a mystery.

Whose house was it? she wondered. What was I doing there? How did I get there? Why wasn’t I wearing any clothes?

Speaking softly, the woman continued her explanation. “A firefighter found you inside a burning house and carried you out. You were transported to a hospital here in Phoenix -Saint Gregory’s. Until we’re able to locate relatives, I’ve been asked to serve as your patient advocate.”

Phoenix, she thought. That sounds familiar. But where is it, and what am I doing there? Or here, if there is here? And what’s a patient advocate? I thought she was a nurse. Why not a nurse?

“You have second- and third-degree burns over fifty percent of your body,” the woman said. “You’re being treated in the burn unit at Saint Gregory’s.”

Never heard of it. Saint what?

“The kinds of injuries you have sustained are very serious and very painful. We’re keeping you heavily sedated due to the pain.”

She thinks I don’t know about the pain? Is she nuts?

“You’re on a ventilator because you also suffered inhalation injuries. You’re being given fluids as well as being treated with a morphine drip. Most patients are able to adjust their own pain-management requirements by pressing the pump and upping the dosage as needed, but the injuries to your arms and hands make managing your own pain impossible. That’s one of the reasons I’m here-to help with your palliative care. My name is Sister Anselm.”

Pal what? she wondered. What’s that? And Anselm. Isn’t that a man’s name?

“I’m a Sister of Providence,” Sister Anselm said patiently. “I’ll be monitoring your vital signs twenty-four hours a day. If I see warning signs that the pain is getting to be too severe, I’ll be able to increase the dosage. Do you understand?”

Yes, I understand. Of course I understand. There’s a button that I can’t push. I need to push it now. Because the pain is coming back. It’s coming.

“We need to find a way to communicate,” Sister Anselm continued. “Do you need pain medication now? If so, blink once for yes.”

Yes! Yes! Yes!

She was trying to blink with every fiber of her being. Trying. Trying. Trying. But nothing happened. Nothing.

Sister Anselm gazed at her face for a very long time. Eons. Ages, while the pain rose up and engulfed her. Finally the nun sighed and said, as if to someone else in the room, “Nothing. It’s too soon, I guess, and maybe that’s just as well.”

Even so, the nun must have pushed the button on the pump, because shortly after that the welcome cotton cocoon began to descend around her. The room retreated.

In those few moments between waking and sleeping, between the arrival of oblivion and the return of the flaming nightmare, she had time for one last realization.

Sister Anselm may not be a nurse, she thought, but she’s my guardian angel.

On the drive to Cordes Junction from Prescott, Ali thought long and hard about her situation. When Sheriff Maxwell had shown up on her doorstep a few weeks earlier, it had seemed to her that the man had practically begged her to take the job he was offering, that he had really needed her to come and handle his department’s media relations concerns. The Camp Verde fires constituted a major media relations event.

So why’s he sending me to the sidelines? she wondered. What’s going on with that?

She met up with Leland Brooks at the Burger King in Cordes Junction. He was waiting for her inside, seated in a booth. He had ordered two Whoppers and two coffees, one each for both of them. Raised in the Sugarloaf Cafe and out of loyalty to her parents, Ali had a hard time setting foot in fast-food joints. When the need arose, however, Leland Brooks had no such compunction.

“You skipped breakfast,” he explained, pushing one of the Whoppers in her direction. “That’s not good for you.”

Ali had never had an uncle, but if one had existed she imagined he would be a lot like Leland Brooks-bossy, understanding, solicitous, exasperating, and terrific, all at the same time. Her parents, her father especially, had questioned her keeping Leland Brooks on the payroll.

“What does a single woman like you need with a butler?” Bob had grumbled. “It seems like you’d have better things to do with your money.”

The truth was, thanks to Paul Grayson’s death, Ali had plenty of money. Keeping Leland Brooks on the payroll had been a conscious decision on her part. His loyalty to her in the face of very real danger had made a big impression.

She had told him at the time, while he was still under a doctor’s care, that as long as he wanted to work, he had a place with her. Her parents’ opinions notwithstanding, Ali expected to keep her end of that bargain. She suspected that not working would have killed the man. Besides, Ali enjoyed Leland’s unassuming company and his efficient way of managing things-her included. And on a day like today, it was his presence at the house-looking after the place and taking care of Sam-that made it possible for her to leave home on a moment’s notice for an unspecified period of time.

“I booked you into the Ritz,” he was saying now. “Suite three oh one. That’s the room where Arabella liked to stay on those rare occasions when she went to Phoenix.”

Having pled guilty by reason of insanity to three separate homicides and one attempted homicide, Arabella Ashcroft was now permanently confined to a state-run facility for the criminally insane. Ali felt a momentary flash of sympathy for the woman.

Her room now probably isn’t nearly up to Ritz standards, Ali thought.

“The hotel is located at Twenty-fourth and Camelback,” Leland continued. “The concierge tells me that’s quite close to the hospital.”