Lucidity

Chapter 4 - Hide-n-Seek

“Nice presentation, Vincent.” Eve Warden lingered after the neurosurg conference to speak with the pediatric chief resident. It surprised her how close in age she and Vincent Emberek were: she was thirty-eight and he was thirty-five. Yet, he was only beginning his career and she was about to achieve the pinnacle of hers.

As Eve admired Vincent’s well-sculptured body and dark, Mediterranean good looks, she wondered if he realized she had been studying him since he first came to Angels of Mercy nine months ago, that she had chosen him, had been grooming him oh so carefully. She needed a new associate for her next venture, someone with experience with both adult and pediatric patients, someone who would be as enthusiastic about his work as he was his partner.

She brushed against Vincent’s hip. He didn’t shy away from the contact. His rugged good looks would be a definite asset in attracting the right kind of private patient to her clinic. And those hands—large, callused, the hands of a workingman.

Eve took in a sharp breath as she imagined those hands on her body.

“You need to spend more time up in the Extended Care Unit,” she told Vincent. “I know you’re focusing on Pediatrics right now, but I have some very interesting adult patients as well.”

“Did you tell him we need to use Lucidine on Katherine Jellicle?” Jonas Helman interrupted her.

Eve frowned at the neurosurgeon. She was probably the only person in the hospital who could get away with giving Helman a look like that. But she and Jonas had been partners both in and out of the operating room for years. Eve’s specialty in neuro-anesthesia had proven invaluable to the surgeon in his development of new operative techniques. She liked to think she was the power behind the power, that she’d molded the man, shaped his career.

Enhancing her own in the process. Her work with Jonas had led to patents on several monitoring devices and drug protocols, gaining her prestige and financial freedom.

Although Jonas didn’t know it yet, she was ready to move on. The surgeon had grown too predictable. His egocentric demands, constant need for attention was wearisome. She needed fresh blood.

Like Vincent. He would be an invigorating change of pace.

“We hadn’t gotten there yet,” Eve told the surgeon, wishing he’d leave this to her.

Jonas didn’t get the hint. He never did. “Jellicle keeps sabotaging her recording,” he told Vincent, acting as if the eleven-year-old girl was insulting him personally by not following his instructions. “I need somewhere between ten to fourteen hours more to finish mapping her seizures. I want Eve to put her under with Lucidine. I can’t operate until I have that information.”

Vincent looked puzzled. “Lucidine?”

“Lucidine,” Helman told him. “Haven’t you been following Dr. Warden’s work?”

“Vincent’s duties are keeping him on the pediatric floor, Jonas.”

“Still, the man’s boarded in both medicine and pediatrics, he should be keeping current. Though I don’t know why anyone would waste that much time doing both residencies. I could’ve made a surgeon out of you in the same time.”

A chance to cut was a chance to cure. Eve prudently held her tongue. Jonas routinely disparaged any branch of medicine that didn’t involve arms plunged deep inside body cavities. He even ridiculed her own field of anesthesia, calling it 99% boredom and 1% panic, despite the fact that without Eve’s help he never could have progressed to become head of the neurosurgery department.

The two men squared off with her in the middle.

“Maybe if you did more reading you wouldn’t be in the midst of a malpractice suit, Emberek,” Jonas added injury to insult. “One that I understand is not going favorably.” He shook his head in mock dismay. “Doesn’t bode well for your chance at receiving a permanent appointment here.”