Chapter 9: Code

Gabriel left the car at the hotel's front doors with the engine running.

We went through the lobby at a dead run, past a bellman who stepped back with his mouth open.

We took the carpeted hall to the ballroom.

The doors stood wide.

Two hundred people were on their feet, in dark suits and silk dresses, and every one of them was backed away from the stage.

My father lay on his back on the boards under a banner that read, in gold, SELWYN HARBOR HOTELS PRESENTS THE NEW TRAUMA WING.

A hotel security guard in a blazer was kneeling beside him, doing compressions with his arms locked.

My father's face was gray-blue.

There was a bright yellow defibrillator on the floor next to his head, with the pads still in their package.

My mother knelt on the other side with her pearls swinging, pulling at the guard's sleeve.

"Stop that," she was saying. "You're hurting him. You're hurting him."

"Ma'am, he's not breathing..."

"I said stop!"

I ran down the center aisle with my coat open and my hospital badge swinging against my chest.

"I'm a physician," I called. "Move. Everyone back."

My mother looked up.

For one second I saw her face as it must have looked twenty-six years ago.

She would have stood like this in a maternity ward with an empty bassinet.

Then she saw me.

"No," she said. "Not you. Get away from him."

I dropped to my knees beside my father on the boards.

"Mrs. Selwyn, he has no pulse."

"Don't touch my husband!"

She flung herself across his chest.

I took her by both shoulders.

"He's in cardiac arrest," I said, as steadily as I could. "If we don't shock him in the next minute, he's gone. Let go."

"You did this. You came to my husband's event to..."

"Mom."

Clary had come up the stage steps in a blue dress and flat shoes.

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