I can still hear the baby crying when she closes the door. The sound mixes with the memory of Eve screaming into the phone, begging for me to help her. Begging for her baby to be saved. I get in my car and head for the nearest hospital.
Patient privacy is a big deal to hospital staff, but a smile and a wad of cash goes a long way towards loosening lips. It takes ten minutes from the time I walk through the automatic sliding doors of the hospital to gain access to O’Neill’s recovery room. When I walk in, he is sitting up in bed eating from a gelatin cup, laughing at a joke from a morning talk show host. He glances disinterestedly towards me, probably assuming I’m just another nurse coming around to check his blood pressure, and looks away before doing a rapid double take. The heart monitor
