Mercy

By Echo Heron

Catalina Richardson is both dedicated nurse and off-beat black sheep of Mercy Hospital where, in the chaos of the infamous Ward Two, she is torn between the demands of being a nurturing caregiver and being choked by hospital politics. With with only the sanctuary of a cramped linen closed to sustain her, Cat is drawn into the complicated and traumatic lives of 5 of her patients and their visitors—one of whom just may prove deadly. With only Gage, the blind visionary, and Detective David Padcula to protect her, Cat is on her own when she comes face-to-face with a psychotic killer.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Feb 17, 1992
• ISBN: 9781938439384

Echo Heron

Echo Heron is the award-winning, bestselling author of Intensive Care: The Story of a Nurse. Some of her other works include Emergency 24/7, Condition Critical, and Mercy. 

Book preview

AUTHOR

M O N D A Y

• O N E •

Her extraordinary feet, encased in worn, size 12-EEE running shoes, carried Catalina Richardson toward the white building she had come to regard as the enemy.

A lighted sign sporting the words, ‘MERCY HOSPITAL’ gleamed like the guiding lamp of a lighthouse through the thick fog. Set into the archway over the entrance was a large clock face, put there, she supposed, to remind the living that time was passing and life was short. Through the mist she could just make out the time: six forty-five. Fifteen minutes before she had to report for duty.

On impulse, she walked across a soggy rectangle of lawn to a wind-sculpted Manzanita tree. Cat leaned against the smooth bark, closed her eyes and let her shoulders ease down to their natural position. If she could have one solid moment of peace, she felt she might be able to get through the next nine or ten hours without screaming. The noise and exhaust fumes of early morning San Francisco traffic quickly put an end to any hope for tranquility.

Cat brushed a few coppery red strands of hair away from her eyes, heaved an irritated sigh and headed toward the hospital entrance. Out of her entire high school, she was the only girl who had not wanted to be a nurse. As it turned out, she’d been the only one who’d had the guts and brains to actually become one.

For twenty years she’d tended to the suffering and dying, watching over them, tending to their needs. Every disease, ailment, or trauma that had ever made the human body its target had passed her way at least once. Each day she would fight off disease and death much in the same manner a fastidious housekeeper might go after a moldy shower stall. Armed with the ability to see beyond the ailing body, Cat inevitably found the injured spirit lost in the darker recesses of her patients’ souls.

But lately her interior landscape was slowly rearranging itself as the winds of corporate greed eroded her enthusiasm for nursing. When asked what she did for a living, she often replied she was a licensed member of the Sisters of Masochism, signed up for a full-time abuse position. Nursing was now more like penetration without foreplay. Convinced there had been a terrible mistake, and that someone else, someone like Sally Ride or Cher, was living the exciting life meant for her, she considered finding a job in the ludicrous, but lucrative, business of metaphysical healing. She certainly qualified for it—most of her career, all she’d ever had to do was look into a patient’s eyes to know their diagnosis and prognosis.

Cat crossed the doctors’ parking lot lost in a fantasy wherein she is at the bedside of a young liver cancer victim laboring through his last few hours. With cool assurance, she places her hand on his anguished, but quite good-looking forehead while her co-workers watch, transfixed by the brilliant luminescence radiating from her.

Be healed, she whispers as the patient miraculously pulls himself out of bed smiling, a rosy glow replacing the mustardy jaundice of his skin. His tests, she announces, will no longer show a trace of disease.

The patient gazes at her with desire as he lifts his muscular hand to caress her—

The shrill sound of a car horn tore through her brain. With the reflex of a true transplanted New Englander, Cat glared at the source of the blast and gave it the finger. Had the red Bugatti been closer, she would have smashed its hood with her fist. Dr. Nachmann, chief of surgery, rolled down the window and, with an unintelligible snarl, flipped the bird right back at her.

At first she was indignant. Damned superiority-complexed, and overpaid doctors think it’s just themselves and a world full of third-class citizens. Pricks, every damned one of them!

Then embarrassed. What’s wrong with me? I’m a forty-two-year-old professional. Maybe he didn’t recognize me. Doubt he missed the flaming red hair.

And, finally pleased. The old fart has some fire left in him. Good to know I can reduce one of the false gods to adolescent rage.

The nurses at shift change report were going to love the story. She sighed. Show-and-tell at Mercy Hospital Ward Two. How pitiful having to stretch so far for a little fun.

The moment she stepped inside the building, she was enveloped by the familiar hospital smells of disinfectant and dirty socks. The crowded waiting area was a scene fraught with confusion and impatience. Four Chinese women, each holding a fussing baby, added to the cacophony by yelling unheeded commands at a large assortment of children scattered throughout the lobby. A cluster of childless strollers, loaded down with shopping bags and hastily shed coats, blocked the entrance to the ladies’ room.

In the very center of the lobby, three look-alike blond children played, swinging each other to and fro in a game of How Much Pain Can You Stand? She noted the sharp corners of the magazine tables, and calculated the number of seconds before the inevitable head bump would send searing screams through the air.

As if guided by her thoughts, the smallest child careened headfirst into the edge of one of the tables. There was a dull thud, a short pause, and then the earsplitting wail. Unimpressed by a lack of bloody show, the two uninjured children resumed their game.

Until a couple of years ago, she would have run to the child to give comfort, but now, well, now she was different. Live and let live. Pretend you didn’t see. Save your energy for the big, unavoidable problems.

In front of the newsstand, Gage, the vendor, sat on a low stool, his head rhythmically nodding to that silent music only the blind can hear. She made a quick study of the small, wiry black man who, when standing straight, came to the top of her shoulder. With his gray hair and high forehead he resembled a character straight out of a Dickens novel. Considering that he and his guide dog, Tom Mix, first appeared in the newsstand on Christmas day the year before, this seemed entirely appropriate.

Gage’s age was an unknown. He could easily have been forty, or seventy. She found it ironic that his skin, the source of senseless hatred and persecution, possessed the property of being ageless. Overall, the man was a mystery to her, and not just because he often spoke in riddles, but because of the way he seemed to read her mind and feelings without the aid of sight.

There were times when she found Gage’s presence deeply familiar and comforting—although his explanation that he had spells of second sight and that he’d been her mother in a previous life, caused the logical and scientific areas of her mind to balk. She’d laughed at him for taking that nonsense seriously, and explained his ‘spells’ as part theatrics, part lucky guessing, and part Mississippi backwoods storytelling mixed in for good measure.

At first she hadn’t paid much attention to his cryptic ramblings about dark and light forces, assuming that whatever disease had robbed him of his sight had spread to his brain and destroyed all four aces. Then, he began the singsong riddles that predicted certain events of her life, that without fail, took place, accurate to the letter.

When he commenced warning her about the people or situations she needed to avoid, she listened in spite of herself. As of late, he’d begun showing up in her dreams, giving instructions on how to open herself to oracular powers during her waking hours.

She decided to just walk past him and not say hello. Enough was enough of his prognostication drivel. He knew too much about her. Worse yet, he forced her to think about those things she’d worked for years to repress. And then, like a piece of iron to a strong magnet, she made a beeline for Gage and his dog.

Kneeling to stroke the shepherd’s heavy coat, she caught a strong whiff of woodsmoke that was their scent. She’d often imagined them sitting by a cozy fire having one-sided conversations befitting a blind man and his dog. How’re you and Tom Mix doing today, Gage?

From under his perpetually half-closed lids, Gage’s eyes wandered as if they had a life of their own. We’re fine, Ms. Catalina, he said in a voice that despite its deep guttural sound, was to her, hypnotically gentle. But I see you’re havin’ a hard time turnin’ your mind back onto work.

A nervous smile took over a corner of her mouth. In spite of herself, the fact that he always distinguished her moods, if not actually read her thoughts, gave her a perverse thrill—rather like looking in a mirror and finding she’d grown a Siamese twin.

It’s always hard coming in here, Gage, she said dryly. Especially Mondays. Just as I start to think that there might be another kind of existence that has nothing to do with blood, shit, disease and death, I have to come back to this hellhole.

Aw c’mon, girl, it ain’t that bad.

She flared, resentful that her misery was not being taken seriously. "Yes, it is that bad. After twenty years, I’m running out of codependency gas. I resent the hell out of this tuck-and-roll routine. I’m missing my chance at having a normal life. I feel like the life is being sucked right out of—"

She snapped her mouth shut. What the hell was wrong with her, and why was she telling these things to the newspaper vendor? Had she lost her grip? Was this the beginning of menopause?

Then what would we do without your fine self around here? Old Doc Nachmann, needs a ball of fire like you to get his blood up once in a while.

Cat squinted one eye. I don’t know how you do that, Gage, and I don’t believe that crap about you being sent here as my guiding light, but someday I’m going to do something that embarrasses you so much you won’t be able to face me for days.

Honey child, I reckon I’ve seen every bit of everythin’ there is to see, he said, pointing a bony finger more or less in the direction of her crotch, which she found somewhat ironic. Nothin’ you’ve done or is ever gonna do is new to this old man.

Taking a Chronicle off the top of the stack, she pulled several coins from her jacket pocket and pressed them into his hand. I don’t know, Gage. Sometimes I get so tired I just want to be the only one who needs me.

Gage thought for a moment. My sweet Delia used to say, ‘You can’t play jazz till you done the blues.’ Now, I know you ain’t happy, Catalina, but that’s ‘cause you’re on the edge of somethin’ big. Each of us been put here to do good, so when you go up there with them sick folk and do what you do, you’re doin’ the Lord’s work. You’ve been given an honor by helpin’ them folk. Try thinkin’ about them, and not your own self. This ain’t the time for bein’ selfish, girl.

A deep flush rose to the roots of her hair. ‘Selfish’ was one of her trigger words. It was what her mother had called her every time she attempted to stand up for herself or improve her life in even the smallest of ways.

I don’t feel so ‘honored’ when the idiots who run this place regard me as some kind of brainless peon so that I won’t ever suspect that I might be worth more.

Girl, stop foolin’ with them two-bit notions and get to the nitty-gritty. That political shit don’t amount to a speck of fly dust when you doin’ the Lord’s business. His drooping eyelids lifted and the sightless ebony eyes came alive, as if seeing wonders. The way I see it in my mind, girl, you’ve already saved a whole army of lives and took the pain out of a million folks besides. You should be walkin’ in tall cotton, but you’re too busy feelin’ sorry for your own self to see what riches you’ve got inside you.

She snorted, her anger dissipated by his backhanded praise. Geez Gage, you sound like a preacher.

The man’s face went sad and earnest at the same time. You’re right on that—I am a preacher in my own way. That’s what He did with this old blind man—He made me see things real clear for other folk what they can’t see themselves. The sight is His. He only lets me borrow it time and again.

Gage laid his fingers lightly on her arm. Her skin responded with goose bumps as five distinct lines of heat radiated into her flesh. I’ll tell you one thing, sister, there’s commotion and pieces of fractured things all around you; things I can’t hardly see.

He swayed side to side humming a peculiar melody. It was the signal that the sight was about to take over. She observed him closely, hoping for some trip-up, wanting to prove once and for all that he was a fraud.

Soon there’ll be some serious changin’ of lives near you, he said. Secrets and lies, a wish to die. Silence and chains to break, peace to make. A love at last, dark roads to glass. Dancin’ flame and silver light.

Her arm began to burn where his fingers rested, but she was unable to pull away.

Gage trembled. Search out the way, but know the silver light seeks to harm. It seeks—

Tom Mix whined and nudged his master’s leg. Gage blinked and shook his head. Taking an unsteady backward step, he sat heavily on a wooden stool.

Freed from his grip, Cat knelt at his side. You okay, Gage?

The man drew a tattered cloth from his pocket and wiped his face. God Almighty! There’s powerhouse stuff goin’ on with you, sister. Could’ve knocked me to my knees. He bent his head in the attitude of one ready to disclose an important secret and took her hands in his. Child, you’ve got to keep yourself closed and open. You’ve got to be watchin’ out for evil stuff comin’ down your road.

The heavy feeling returned, wrapping itself around her windpipe. What evil stuff? What did you see?

Can’t say for sure, but you got yourself a heap of serious healin’ work to do before you…before then.

Whether it was his sincerity or the fear that still gripped her, she felt exposed and vulnerable. She pulled her hands away and forced a spiteful Bette Davis laugh. Tell you what, Gage. I’ll start believing in your voodoo bullshit when you conjure me up a winning lottery ticket.

He flinched and stiffened as if he’d been struck. When he spoke, Gage’s voice was thick with injured feeling. I didn’t ask to take you on, Ms. High and Mighty Richardson. Your sass don’t exactly make me flush with happiness neither. I wish I was helpin’ somebody who appreciates the gift, not somebody who sees nothin’ except shit. I’ve been sent here to take you on as my job and I don’t ask questions. I just do what I’ve been sent to do. You don’t have to hear a word I say, just like you don’t have to see the sun shinin’ or the joy in livin’.

Instant remorse made her crumble. The man meant no harm. She supposed in his own way he genuinely believed he was taking care of her. I didn’t mean it like that, Gage. It’s just that I was brought up believing in hard facts like lab results and mathematical logic and—

And things like your mama comin’ back to apologize for the pain and harm she put on you, and you not able to get through that mule nature of yours to forgive her so she can rest in peace?

That awful dream about her mother—how the hell did he know about that?

He shook his head. I’ll tell you, girl, a little of your sugar used to sweeten my coffee right now. My grandma used to say that when I was pushin’ her patient nature over the edge of the precipice.

A group of disabled children burst from the doors of the rehab center and ran into the lobby. A Down’s syndrome boy stopped to wave cheerfully at Gage and Tom Mix. Unable to comprehend why the man did not return his greeting, the child began waving with both hands, his movements growing more frantic.

Wave, Cat said quietly. There’s a little boy here who’s waving at you.

With the bearing of innocence itself, Gage waved happily in all directions until, with his special sonar, he located the boy and made a sweeping bow. Delighted with Gage’s response, the boy ran off giggling.

See? said Gage. We gotta help each other.

She glanced at the lobby clock, sucked in a breath, and groaned. Got to go. If I don’t get myself upstairs in the next three minutes, you’ll be helping me find another job.

She turned and, without thinking, waved goodbye.

On cue, Gage waved back.

* * *

Halfway up the first flight of stairs, she found Dr. Cramer staring blankly at the pink paint of the stairwell. The chief of cardiology didn’t blink when she passed her hand in front of his eyes, but instead turned his glassy stare in her direction.

You okay, Dr. Cramer? You look like you’ve been without sleep for a week.

Famous for his tendency toward eccentricity, Cramer waggled his eyebrows. Catechols, he said, and lapsed back into appraising the wall.

Catechols? Momentarily concerned that he might have lapsed into some sort of fugue state, she waited until he blinked, and then tiptoed to the next set of stairs.

On the fourth floor landing, she passed an attractive man carrying a Coach briefcase and wearing an Italian hand-tailored three-piece suit. He gave her full breasts a furtive sidelong glance, then let his gaze slide down to her belly, her hips, and inevitably landed on those giants of grotesqueries—her feet. He looked away and hurried on. Somewhere along life’s path, he’d at least been taught not to stare at others’ deformities.

His reaction didn’t bother her. Ever since her parents broke the news that foot binding was illegal, she stopped thinking of her feet as a handicap and taken them in her stride, so to speak. By the time she turned twenty-one, she’d accepted her feet and was fond of saying that no one could doubt that she had them firmly planted on the ground.

She guessed Chaps a millisecond before the pungent backdraft of the man’s cologne hit her nostrils. Through experience, she knew he was the type who drank Corona with a twist of lime, had an MBA, kept a 1959 Porsche Speedster in the garage but drove a BMW, wore a gold Rolex, played tennis at the club four times a week, had a standing weekly appointment for hair styling, manicure, and pedicure, and described his Burberry raincoat as an essential piece of status that showed the world the man he really was.

She had his type figured out years ago. With or without the Burberry, he was the type of man who, especially in bed, had nothing to say. During the more self-destructive times in her life, she’d made a habit of picking men of his type. She could always count on them to be arrogant, condescending, lazy, and immaculately fussy, as in: "Me? You want me to put my mouth on that?"

Accompanied by soft background music of Earl Klugh or George Winston, he’d use her wearing the same vacant stare she’d seen on men when they practiced the guitar. His type of man imagined soft-focused, callipygous, large-breasted and barely pubic-haired Playboy centerfold models while pumping like a mad drummer, totally blocking out the fact that a living, breathing human female was actually present.

Three seconds after his little orgasmic victory, he would rinse himself off, brush and floss, then devise some complicated though transparent excuse to dump her off at home and be back in time to watch Saturday Night Live unhampered.

Taking the rest of the stairs two at a time, she reached the fifth floor, not even breathing hard. Pretty good, she thought, forty-two and still in shape—not quite ready for menopausal therapy. She slipped her arm free of her purse and touched the flesh of her own well-shaped gluteus maximus; searching for, but not finding, so much as one lump of deadly creeping cellulite.

Even with the bridge of freckles spanning her face high cheekbone to high cheekbone, she realized she was still able to elicit jealous glares from women and lustful, longing glances from men—although, living in San Francisco, more often than not it was vice versa.

As a matter of self-preservation, she’d sworn off emotional vampires after a disastrous love affair four years before—the last of a series of equally destructive relationships that had stolen a quarter century from her life. Battle-weary and disillusioned, she was done indulging in the dramas of passion and sex. Her days of feverish hip thrusting and moaning were over, leaving in their wake a torturous mixture of sorrow, vague longing, and loneliness.

Though she’d been through all the therapy one person could safely stomach, she still harbored bitterness about her lonely, celibate life, certain that she’d been cheated out of something worth having. Regardless, she made the deliberate choice to free herself of all attachments. As if to commit a kind of living suicide, she swept bare the clutter of her life.

She started small, using a garage sale as her vehicle. Her closets and hope chests were relieved of a small mountain of clothes, ten pounds of costume jewelry, and some seventy-eight pairs of shoes.

Every corner and cubby was searched out and despoiled of dust-collecting artifacts, each one holding some precious or woeful memory: an improperly dried sprig of lilacs from her first wedding night; a pair of snow boots from her second; a miniature bottle holding a drop of mercury from her father’s drugstore; a Utica Club beer cap; a champagne cork from her thirtieth birthday celebration under the Eiffel Tower, and an empty condom packet commemorative of the humid night at summer camp during which she lost her virginity on a dare.

With the exception of her Persian cat, The Great Saphenous Vein, and the bare essentials of life, everything she owned went to new homes. Gone was the mahogany sleigh bed where guests and rejected lovers had slept. Goodbye to the antique oak stationery which had waited a hundred and fifty years for someone to write one good poem on its open leaf. Good riddance to the rocking chair in which she’d hoped to rock the children no one was willing to have with her.

That was only half the load. On her thirty-eighth birthday, she dismissed those she termed her ‘California pretend friends’ one by one. Most of them were typical type-A, status-conscious yuppies who actually read Town and Country cover to cover and judged people’s character by what investments they’d made and which brand of espresso and pasta makers they owned. Half of what they earned they snorted in locked bathrooms, then flaunted the other half in expensive cars and any variety of trendy toys they couldn’t afford but refused to live without.

Only slightly taken in by their opaque charms, she’d gone along for the ride for lack of something better to do and because someone, usually one of the husbands currently bewitched by her, paid her way. With them she sailed, golfed, faked it at doubles tennis, played Trivial Pursuit in the plush lounges of expensive ski lodges, trekked in strange lands with unpronounceable names, attended formal balls, weekended in Carmel-by-the-Sea, played best friends with the pretty wives, and had intellectually sophisticated arguments in Jacuzzis at the very best hotels about the true meaning of politics, religion, sex, and life in the sixties. She’d even gone so far as to join the hunt club despite her fear of horses.

But the society that had it all left her empty. On the verge of soul malnutrition, she installed an answering machine and disconnected the doorbell.

Of course, they wanted her back. Even though she wasn’t truly of their class, she’d been amusing and a good sport. They were secretly thrilled by her disturbing directness and tactless honesty when she confronted them with unwanted truths about themselves. She was stable, solid as a rock in their hedonistic world of fleeting pleasures and trends. To her and her alone they’d divulged all their secrets, invested their time and money, and therefore felt they owned her. They wouldn’t let her escape their exclusive circle without a fight.

In a last-ditch effort, they paid her surprise, late night visits after their second bottle of a private reserve cabernet or the third line of good cocaine. They complained that living that way—apart from other human beings—was, well, not quite human.

In response, she explained calmly but with purpose that like Garbo she vanted to be alone, dahling. True, loneliness and boredom occasionally surfaced in panicky spurts, but she ignored these regressions by cramming her empty hours with the usual and not so usual things lonely single straight people did in a largely gay, mostly conservative city.

She ignored the classes that prepared one for being lonely and single, and instead read libraries of books, surveyed all the back alleys of San Francisco, listened to taped lectures by Rajneesh and Joseph Campbell, scanned the pink section of the paper for admission-free happenings, and taught The Great Saphenous Vein to relieve himself in the toilet, then flush.

Once, she spent four months writing a novella about an invisible woman, entitled Melinda Gets Vague, but eventually grew bored and lined the bottom of the garbage bin with the pages. Still, no matter how hard she tried to suppress it, awareness of being alone was the pea under her mattress. There had to be more, but what it was and where to find it, remained a mystery. She often likened her emotional state to standing in front of an open refrigerator, staring undecidedly at the contents and hoping that the Frigidaire genie would come forth and tell her what she wanted.

Sometimes, when she played the part of the failed romantic, she thought of herself as what Colette called ‘A lady on her own’, resigned to the idea that her mature years would be barren, with no one to love but her cat, and having no purpose except to attend Wednesday night bingo at the retirement home for aged nurses.

Yet when she reviewed her life each morning, she wasn’t unhappy, but rather discontent and waiting—not for a lover, or at least it didn’t have the usual high-pitched strain of that kind of waiting. It was the sort of waiting one does when on the brink of discovering something beyond comprehension, as in the split second before a slightly suspicious Fay Wray opens the front door to King Kong.

• T W O •

Ward Two went by several names. The patients often referred to it as ‘The Dump’, the physicians jokingly called it ‘Turf Tundra’, and the nurses who worked there entitled it ‘The Ward from Hell’.

Because of its multifaceted nature, Ward Two was unique. Divided in two sections, a thirty-two-bed stepdown ward and an eight-bed acute unit, the fifth floor ward had been designated as the catchall department for those patients the other units did not have room for, or simply did not want.

For thirty-one years this Ellis Island of Mercy Hospital received the huddled masses from oncology to obstetrics, proctology to psychiatry.

Ward Two shift change chaos was in full swing as nurses rushed in and out of patient rooms dispensing late six and early seven a.m. medications. Adding to the cacophony were the clanging call lights and shouts of the confused postsurgical patients who were just coming to consciousness and loudly praying that no more trucks would hit them.

Pausing in the doorway of room 516, Cat beheld two senior nurses, Trish and Mathilde, standing transfixed in front of a sleeping patient’s television, both of them absent-mindedly chewing the dead skin of their cuticles.

She knew what they were watching. It was just three days before the second anniversary of the Challenger explosion. The morning news shows, always eager to exploit any tragedy, were getting an early start at reminding the public of the disaster by replaying the film footage of seven people being blown to bits over and over again while the listing of regularly scheduled programs America was missing ran across the bottom of the screen with apologies for the inconvenience.

She didn’t really want to see it, but overruled her own objections and stepped into the room.

There it was, played in a constant staccato rhythm: the missile climbing into the clear blue Florida sky, cut to the seven smiling astronauts, another cut to the high school auditorium filled with stunned teenagers, and finally a replay of the expressions of disbelief and horror long since etched into every American memory.

Tears came to her eyes, and she wanted to cry for—whom? The spouses? The children?

The pictures changed again, and there was the major brass of NASA, reluctant and cautious, answering the news media’s questions, affirming the reporters’ suspicions that someone had screwed up somewhere and someone was going to pay.

Then the footage of Hollywood Howdy Doody in the Oval Office with his Brylcreemed pompadour and rheumy eyes, sounding downright sincere for the gullible sector of Middle Americans who read Reader’s Digest while sitting on the porcelain throne; one tear-jerking story guaranteed not to take longer than the average time needed for a morning bowel evacuation.

He was a lousy actor, Cat said, not taking her eyes from the TV. "But he did better at hiring himself out to the government as a professional puppet.

How the hell can you stand to watch this again?

Trish stopped watching long enough to toss her a poisonous glance. "Screw you, Richardson. It’s history on film, okay?

Cat ignored the remark but couldn’t help noticing that Mathilde, the sweet-natured Frenchwoman she’d worked with for most of her twenty years in nursing, also wore an uncharacteristic sullen expression.

Defiant, the two of them stared her down like bullies ganging up on an intruder. Her own contrariness reared its wrathful head and ordered her to push buttons.

Don’t you know what a mountain of political hype went on around that accident? We’ll never know just how much the government had to do with it, just like we’ll never know the real stories behind the murders of JFK or Marilyn Monroe, or Bobby Kennedy or—

Trish pushed by her. Besides being full of shit most of the time, Big Foot, your negativity, not to mention your skewed opinions, generally suck horse dick. However, I have great hopes that next time you insist on polluting the air with your speculative conspiracy theories, you might choke on your own tongue.

On another day, the woman’s attack might have caused injury; today it fell into Cat’s left-field sense of humor. She stuck out the tongue she was supposed to choke on and wagged her head after the fashion of the playground bully who has just unfairly scored the ball. Hey! she called out to the retreating figure, Was that a rock coming from the direction of a glass house I just felt whiz past my head?

In reply, Trish gave Cat the second one-fingered salute she’d received in ten minutes.

In spite of herself, Mathilde snickered, sobered, then scolded. You are too outrageous the way you speak to each other. Tsk! Horse dicks! You speak like spoiled children. I myself will put you both over my knees to spank! Why do you make so many difficulties for the other women to like you all the time, huh?

Cat pointed to herself in mock surprise, Surely you aren’t referring to me?

Mathilde rolled her eyes. "In France they would say you are terrible like, ah, Un mulet? No. Ah qui! Like un rouleau compresseur!"

Without having any idea what un rouleau compresseur was, Cat nodded in agreement. She probably was just that.

This was nothing new. Even as a young girl she’d been branded as difficult—a gangly anemic who preferred the company of cats to other kids, and dissecting worms to playing dolls or Two-Court. At some point, the neighborhood kids got to calling her ‘Red Spider Woman’, and during her high school years it was generally believed that if one of her intense stares fell on a person for too long, it would hex his soul forever.

Most of the Ward Two nurses didn’t like working with her because they thought her too unpredictable and too ‘East Coast’, which was to say, she saw through most people’s bullshit and said what she meant, unedited.

Gilly, head supervisor of Ward Two, once told her several of the girls referred to her as ‘She Who Should Be Feared’. This news did not surprise her either. She looked on her fellow nurses as family and although she would never admit it, she cared for most of them unconditionally.

Their attitudes toward her stung only when she was feeling sorry for herself and dwelling on the fact that there had been few special people in her life who had loved her enough to break through the outer crust and get to the marshmallow center.

At that very moment, the most important of those special people gave her hair a yank as she flew by, balancing an empty bedpan on her head.

Cat noticed that Nora’s five-foot frame was draped in an oversized, ankle-length scrub dress cinched by a wide red patent leather belt, the buckle of which was a prominent cluster of rhinestone grapes. Partial to flash and trash, Nora Carmotti was by no means a slave to fashion. Cat guessed it was more than likely the two had never met.

It was quarter to two and I’d just walked in the door when they called to ask if I’d come in at three, Nora called back, skillfully dodging an occupied wheelchair. And just wait till I tell you about what happened last night, you’ll die!

Was it rape or love?

Instead of answering, the hazel-eyed vamp let out a whinny of laughter and disappeared into room 510.

From their first meeting on a Boston Commons Swan Boat when they were kids, her and Nora’s lives had been inextricably entwined. As different as Laurel and Hardy in temperament, they’d shared a thousand or more major lifetime events, including a total of three marriages, three divorces, seven family deaths, two nervous breakdowns, a half-dozen serious love affairs, and a couple of hundred fits of wheezy, pee-your-pants laughter.

Excuse me, Red.

Cat winced and gritted her teeth. Why did people do that to redheads? Nobody ever said ‘Excuse me, ‘Brown’, did they?

Swinging around, she glowered at the man, and then quickly sucked in a sharp breath. She’d not bargained for his particular brand of smile. Beyond the deep smile lines was a general framework that was, miracle of miracles, at least four inches taller than her own five-foot nine-inch stature.

The rest of him followed an offbeat romance novel recipe: thinning black hair shot with silver at the temples, blue eyes behind wire rim glasses, sculptured cheekbones, an exquisite northern Italian nose, and a cleft chin. His teeth were just crooked enough to be endearing, and under his oxford-blue shirt with the too-tight starched collar was a budding spare tire that tugged at the buttons. Overall, the combination of imperfections made him more than just another nice face in the crowd. In her world, men this pleasantly unique had long since ceased to exist.

Yes, Blackie?

Dropping the smile, he adopted a look of mock seriousness. "Sorry. I forgot how sensitive you redheads are about your coloring and anything else that crosses your paths. But if it means anything to you, I’d have

Reviews for Mercy

[Gabrielle Turner · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A great mix of high paced medical drama, mixed with intrigue and danger. Humor and spiritual insight abounds. A must read if you loved "Intensive Care" or "Critical Condition". Can't wait to read another of Echo Heron's books! :)

[juglicerr · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This novel centers around Catalina Richardson, a nurse approaching burnout after 20 years, and the lives of five of her patients. Two are dying, two need to put their lives back together, and one has been dumped at the hospital more for a lack of anywhere else to go than for any real medical need. The stories chronicle the attempts by the nurse, patients and their loved ones, separately and together, to cope with their situations. Catalina needs to decide if she can continue as a nurse. In addition, she is reluctantly accepting mentoring in psychic powers from a newsdealer operating a stand in the hospital lobby. One of her patients is the victim of a brutal attack, and Cat becomes very involved in her life, and acquires a romantic interest in the detective investigating the crime. I found the book involving, once I had gotten into the lives of the various characters. There are a lot of life-and-death issues to ponder, and I plan to read the remaining books in the series. The book and the characters may seem a little crude at times, but I think that goes with dealing so intimately with the ailing human body.