Chapter 4 Fatal Misdiagnosis

The corridor smelled of harsh antiseptic. Two heavy blast doors separated the intensive care unit from the rest of the house.

Evie looked through the thick glass. On the bed lay an old woman, pale and still, tubes running into her arms and throat. The heart monitor was screaming, the lines jumping erratically.

Eight doctors in scrubs crowded around the bed. Sweat beaded on their foreheads. The lead doctor, Dr. Vance, was barking orders. "Push another fifty milligrams of epi! Charge the defibrillator!"

Evie's eyes scanned the monitors. The numbers clicked in her brain. Her pupils dilated.

She stopped walking. She spun around to face Hartwell. "If he pushes that needle, she's brain-dead in ten seconds."

Hartwell's expression turned lethal. He grabbed her wrist, his grip like a vise. "What did you say?"

"It's murder," Evie said, her voice hard, not flinching under his crushing grip.

Beatrice, who had followed them down the hall, let out a nasty laugh. "Listen to her! A street rat giving medical advice." She pointed a manicured finger at Evie. "Dr. Vance is a tenured professor at Johns Hopkins. You don't even know how to spell cardiology!"

Inside the room, Dr. Vance lifted the syringe, aiming for the IV port.

Evie moved. She didn't try to pull away. Instead, her wrist sank a fraction of an inch, and her fingertips jabbed with pinpoint accuracy into the cluster of nerves on the inside of his wrist. Hartwell's grip spasmed open for a split second, a purely reflexive action, and in that instant, she was free. She stepped past him, walked to the wall intercom, and slammed her fist into the safety glass.

Crash.

She hit the override button. Her voice exploded through the speakers in the sterile room. "Stop the injection! Left ventricular free wall rupture, not V-Fib!"

The doctors inside froze. Dr. Vance's hand jerked to a stop. He glared at the glass. "Who is that? Get them off the line!"

Evie rattled off a string of hemodynamic values and echocardiographic markers so fast the words blurred together. "Defibrillation and epi will tear the myocardium. She'll bleed out in seconds!"

Dr. Vance's face turned purple. "That's impossible to diagnose without an echo! This is malpractice!"

Beatrice waved her hand at the guards. "Throw her out! Now!"

Two large men grabbed Evie's shoulders, yanking her away from the wall. Evie's eyes went cold. She dropped her center of gravity, her elbow snapping back, aimed at the guard's floating rib.

"Release her." Hartwell's voice was a gunshot in the quiet hall.

The guards let go instantly, stepping back.

Hartwell walked up to Evie. He stared down at her, his eyes searching her face for any sign of a bluff. Beatrice stamped her foot. "Hartwell! If you let this imposter kill your grandmother, the trust goes to the cousins!"

Hartwell didn't even glance at Beatrice. He reached for the intercom. "Dr. Vance, stop all procedures. Stand down."

He looked at Evie. His voice was rough, heavy with the weight of a life-or-death gamble. "Prove it."

Evie shrugged off his lingering touch. She smirked, then reached out and hit the sensor pad. The blast doors hissed open.