The clerk frowned. “Date of birth?”
Knox’s laugh came out harsh and humorless. “If I knew that, do you think I’d be sitting here?”
That was when the police arrived.
Two officers, called in by a panicked security guard who had used the word intruder, stepped through the ER doors with hands resting on their holsters, eyes immediately locking onto Knox as if he were the obvious problem, which in a town like this he probably was.
“Caleb Mercer,” Officer Ronald Pike said, recognition flickering in his eyes. “What the hell is going on?”
Knox didn’t look up. “Saving a kid,” he muttered.
Pike snorted. “Funny way of doing it. Hands behind your back.”
The zip ties bit into Knox’s wrists without resistance. He didn’t argue. He didn’t fight. His eyes were fixed on the closed trauma room doors as if willpower alone might keep them from opening the wrong way.
Inside Trauma Bay Two, Elaine worked with a speed born of long nights and worse outcomes, IV lines sliding into place, oxygen mask secured, monitors chirping erratically as Ivy’s heart rate skidded between too fast and dangerously slow.
“Core temp is hypothermic,” one nurse called out. “Blood pressure dropping.”
