Fractured Memory

There was something off about her appearance. For bed, she’d dressed in light black cotton pants and a pink T-shirt. He traced his fingers over the scars on her neck and felt her pulse. Something in his mind begged him to remember. Her lips. It was the color. He brushed his thumb over them, spurring his memory into action.

His job was to observe. To catalog every detail to determine if something was amiss. After she’d packed and dressed yesterday, she wore little makeup. Her lips had not looked this red.

Unnaturally red. Cherry red.

He brushed his thumb against her lips again. Definitely not lipstick.

Voices called out as he heard heavy boots racing up the stairs. Two paramedics in their firehouse bunker pants and suspenders eased him back.

“What happened?” one asked. Eli took in the name on the badge. Russell.

“She complained of a severe headache, seemed unsteady and then passed out. I can’t get her to wake up.”

Another firefighter surveyed the living room.

“Is someone helping my partner, Ben? He’s unconscious outside.”

“Yes, another team is with him. What’s her name?” Russell asked.

“Julia Galloway.”

“Age?”

“Twenty-nine.”

“And you are?”

“Eli Cayne.”

“Relationship?”

What could he say? Protector?

Eli indicated himself and Will. “We’re U.S. Marshals.”

That raised Russell’s eyebrows. He turned away from Eli and focused on Julia. His partner snaked his hands under her T-shirt and attached heart monitoring leads to her chest, a blood pressure cuff to her arm and a lit probe on her finger. Next came some oxygen delivered through small tubes in her nose.

Russell placed a fisted hand in the center of her chest and rubbed it against her sternum. “Julia? Julia! Can you hear me?” He took a penlight from his pocket and shone it into her pupils. “Equal and reactive to light,” Russell noted. A firefighter helped the paramedics by documenting Russell’s findings.

Russell’s partner called out, “Vital signs are normal. I’m going to start an IV.”

Russell turned back to Eli. “Do you know anything about why she wouldn’t be responding to us? Did she fall and hit her head? Did she take any drugs or alcohol that you know of? Is she a diabetic?”

“No, no, and I don’t know.”

Russell turned to his partner. “Let’s get a blood sugar. After that, let’s try a dose of Narcan.”

“What is that?” Eli asked.

“Narcan is a medication that reverses narcotic drugs if people overdose on them. The blood sugar will tell us if she’s diabetic.”

At that moment, a piercing shriek filled the small townhome. Everyone startled and Eli reached for his weapon.

Julia didn’t flinch.

“What is that?” Eli yelled.

A firefighter bent over and pulled the contraption out of the plug. The alarm ceased. “Just as I thought. It’s the home’s carbon monoxide detector. Found it on the floor. There are toxic levels in this place.”

Russell snapped his fingers in the air. “Everyone...go, go, go! Let’s get her outside.”

Eli reached under and scooped his arms under Julia’s and lifted her up. Russell grabbed her legs. It surprised Eli how quickly Russell could go down the stairs backward with a body in tow, but he was likely used to doing it every day.

“Straight to the rig, guys,” Russell instructed, and they raced Julia to the back of the open ambulance door.

A second ambulance screeched to a halt in the street just behind the two fire trucks.

“Hey,” Russell yelled to his cohorts. “Get that guy loaded fast and on one hundred percent oxygen. There’s a carbon monoxide leak somewhere in that place.”

One of the firefighters held a thumbs-up sign and began to scoop up Ben’s lifeless body.

Eli and Russell clamored up the two steps at the back of the ambulance and plopped Julia down on the narrow gurney.

“Are you coming?” Russell asked Eli.

“Yes.” Eli saw Will and Jace hovering by the front door of the townhome. “Jace! Meet me at...”

“Sage Medical Center,” Russell said.

Jace nodded, and Russell yanked the doors closed and pounded on the roof. After that, he busied himself removing the oxygen prongs from Julia’s nose and placing her on an oxygen mask. Eli heard the rush of air as Russell cranked the oxygen to its maximum flow rate.

Eli sat on the bench opposite the gurney and grabbed Julia’s lifeless hand. “Is this all from the carbon monoxide?”

“Likely. It explains why both of them fell ill.”

Eli shook his head as scrambled thoughts scurried through his mind. “What does that do to a person?”

Russell placed a blue tourniquet around Julia’s forearm. “Carbon monoxide is a toxic, colorless, scentless gas. It replaces oxygen on your red blood cells and starves the body of oxygen. That’s why she complained of a headache. Your brain gets very cranky when it doesn’t have enough oxygen.”

“Why didn’t we get sick?” Eli motioned his hand between himself and Russell.

“It takes time for that process to happen—about fifteen minutes minimum if the levels are high. Once you open a door, the gas will start to vent out. We didn’t have enough of an exposure to be symptomatic.”

“Can you treat it?”

Russell withdrew the needle from its plastic sheath and then shoved it into the back of Julia’s hand. Drops of her blood hit the floor of the ambulance before Russell could connect the IV solution. Her life spilled out in front of Eli. Was he at fault? Could he have prevented this from happening?

Russell pointed to the mask. “The oxygen. If it’s really bad, the doctor may place her in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber.”