The Baby Discovery

When she walked into the ER at seven-twenty, Dr. Parker’s head turned in her direction. She’d forgotten his hours were different than those of the staff.

He checked his watch. “You’re forty minutes early tonight. In case you’re looking for Baby Doe, he’s not here.”

“No!” she cried in agony, and started shaking her head.

“Take it easy, Meg. I meant that it was good news. He’s still sick, but stabilized. I took him off the extremely Critical List and had him transferred to the nursery around dinnertime.”

“Thank heaven!” She clung to the counter, still trying to recover.

“I guess we should have hung a sign. When Mr. Broderick discovered the baby wasn’t here, he reacted the exact same way you did.”

“He’s here?” Just the mention of the stranger’s name brought this suffocating feeling to her chest.

“Obviously he was.”

Without conscious thought Meg raced around the corner and down the hall. She opened the door and took the stairs to the nursery one floor up.

“Where have you put Baby Doe?” she asked Shelby Clark, one of the nurses at the station.

“You mean, our little celebrity? I’m afraid you’ll have to stand in line outside the sick baby nursery,” she teased. “At the moment there are three people ahead of you. They’re all men, and they’re gorgeous!” she confided.

“If you’re up here, that means the word has already spread to the main floor. I think every eligible female in this hospital is waiting her turn for a glimpse of them. Donna says they’re movie stars here on location for a film.”

Donna was wrong.

The men were probably the engineers helping Zane Broderick on his project. But Meg kept those thoughts to herself.

“I just want a peek at the baby before I go on duty in a few minutes.”

“Sure you do.” Shelby winked.

Under other circumstances Meg would have enjoyed Shelby’s innocent teasing. But not tonight. Meg was too close to this case. Dr. Parker had upset her too much.

If she’d found Dr. Tingey in the ER, his first words would have been, “I have good news. Baby Doe has been transferred to the nursery.”

But that wasn’t Dr. Parker’s style. Telling her the baby was gone had almost given her a heart attack. Aside from her other reason for leaving Tooele, the thought of not working around Dr. Parker any longer than necessary held a lot of appeal.

It was just as well she’d talked to Debbie this morning about moving back to Salt Lake. To her surprise, her roommate admitted she’d been worried about Meg and thought a change of scene sounded like a good plan for her.

Meg also learned that Debbie had been considering moving home to Logan, Utah, where she could stay with her folks and attend graduate school at Utah State. But she’d been hesitant to talk to Meg about it because she didn’t want to leave her in the lurch.

Not only had their talk helped Meg decide to give two weeks’ notice to the hospital, Meg’s first reaction when she heard the baby was gone proved her emotions were too involved to be healthy.

Hard as it was to do, she decided it would be better not to see the baby again. Now that he’d been moved to the nursery, there was no reason for Meg to be up here. No reason at all.

This was the crucial moment to practice self-restraint. Otherwise she would be in a much worse condition when child welfare services came to the hospital.

The police report was already in their files. Any day now, probably as early as tomorrow, a social worker would show up to find out how soon the baby could be placed in foster care.

Already the abandoned infant had endeared himself to Meg. Because of Mr. Broderick, she no longer thought of him as Baby Doe. In her heart, he’d become Johnny.

She needed to make the break while she still could. It meant she wouldn’t be seeing Mr. Broderick again, either. He made up the other part of her forbidden list.

“You know what, Shelby? I think I’ll come back when there isn’t a line. See you later.”

Meg left the floor, not interested in remaining there to catch up on hospital gossip. Once she’d reached the ER and had hung up her coat, she plunged into her work with a vengeance.

If there wasn’t anything going on between crises, she took inventory of supplies in the cubicles, anything to keep so busy she wouldn’t think about what was going on upstairs.

“What’s with you?” Julie asked when there was a quiet moment. Meg had been counting boxes of gloves and syringes. Her colleague’s question threw her off.

“Just trying to make myself useful.”

“Well stop it! You’re putting me to shame.”

Meg was still down on her haunches. “Sorry, I hadn’t realized.”

“Hey— I was only teasing. What’s wrong? You don’t seem yourself.”

“Let me get you something for it.”

“I took some tablets while I was hanging up my coat, but thanks anyway.”

“Sure. Did you know Baby Doe was transferred to the nursery?”

“Yes, I heard. I-it’s wonderful.”

“Lucky, too.”

“What do you mean?”

“The police were here a few minutes ago looking for that gorgeous grouch who brought the baby in. At least now they can’t pin a murder charge on him.”

Upon that revelation, Meg dropped the clipboard. After grabbing for it, she got to her feet. “Surely they weren’t here to arrest him!”

“I don’t know. Dr. Parker sent them to the nursery.”

Adrenaline surged through Meg’s body. “Julie— It’s quiet right now. Would you cover for me? I’ll be back inside of ten minutes.”

“Of course. You spelled me off last night when I missed all the action. Give me the clipboard.”

“Thanks.”

She dashed out of the cubicle and ran down two corridors in search of the stairs. Once she’d reached the next floor, she headed straight for the sick baby nursery.

Through the glass of one of the partitioned rooms, she could see Zane Broderick talking to the policemen who’d come to the ER last night. Two other men as tall and attractive as he was stood close by, their expressions equally solemn.

If those officers were reading him his rights…