‘Dr Ferraro!’ she called, her eyes lighting on hers. ‘Thank God you’re here. Come quickly.’
‘What is it?’ Jade asked, breaking into a run behind the turning nurse.
‘Something’s wrong with Dr Della-Bosca,’ she replied breathlessly, pushing open the swing doors through to the scrub room and into the prep room beyond. ‘She thinks she’s doing a breast augmentation, but you’re down for laser surgery on this patient. When I tried to tell her, she went mad.’
Oh, my God!
Jade took one look inside the room and froze as she took in the bizarre tableau in front of her. Boxes of medical supplies and instruments were scattered all over the floor of the room, in the centre of which stood Grace, felt-tipped pen in hand, calmly marking out lines on the naked breasts of the blonde girl lying on the trolley.
The girl seemed completely out of it, and fear cranked up inside Jade—she wasn’t down for a premed before her laser treatment, so what the hell had Grace given her?
But before she could take care of Pia, it was Grace’s condition that worried her more right now. The apparent calmness with which she continued with her geometrical markings was at complete odds with the scene of devastation all around her.
‘What’s going on?’ Jade asked, knowing for all Grace’s apparent air of normality that something was desperately, frighteningly wrong. Quickly she turned to the theatre sister, mouthing the word ‘security’ and seeing her brief nod before she backed purposefully out of the room.
Then she looked back at Grace, and what she saw in Grace’s eyes made fear and anxiety come together inside her like a tangled, stinking clump of seaweed, pushed up by the tide and left to decompose on the shore.
‘Everything’s fine,’ Grace assured her. ‘We don’t need you yet.’
‘But Pia is my patient this morning.’
Grace looked up from her work and over at Jade. ‘You’re not even gowned up. I might as well make a start if you’re not ready.’
She had to be ill! Her behaviour was too far out of the ordinary, yet too calm for all that had happened between them this morning.
Then Jade reassessed the tiny pinpricks of the older woman’s eyes peering out at her, and in one heart-sinking moment the tangled seaweed ball inside her congealed into something much more knowing.
Drugs. While everything she knew about Grace begged her to be wrong, her brain screamed that there was no question that this woman was under the influence of a mind-altering substance. She’d taken something—most likely some kind of opiate—to make her so calm and make her pupils look so unnaturally pinprick-sized. But from the way she was behaving, the way she was so far out of control, she must have misjudged and overdosed herself.
Oh, Grace, she thought, blaming herself, her heart heavy for her friend even as concern for Pia was foremost in her mind, what have I done?
She moved closer to the woman, keeping a steady eye on the encouraging rise and fall of Pia’s chest, fuelled by the welcome sounds of commotion outside. Help was coming. ‘Grace, I don’t think that’s such a good idea. I think you might want to come with me. Let’s go and sit in your office.’
‘What are you talking about? You don’t tell me what to do. You think you’re so good, so perfect. Sweet, perfect Dr Ferraro. But you’d be nothing without me—nothing! Mind you,’ Grace continued, waving the blue pen around as if it was a wand, ‘you do have some good ideas from time to time. That foundation idea of yours was the best one you had. All that lovely money. All for me.’
‘No! That money is to help the children who can’t afford surgery.’
‘Such a clever plan! I knew I kept you around for a reason.’
‘Grace, you’re not well,’ Jade persisted, not believing what she was hearing, trying to ignore the stinging remarks in her concern for her friend. ‘Have you taken something?’
Grace laughed then, a hideous cackle that chilled Jade’s blood. ‘Of course I’ve damned well taken something! Everybody in this town does. How else do you think we make it through the day? You really are a hick, aren’t you? I should have left you back there where you came from. I never should have bothered with you.’