Chapter 9: Doran's POV: Chest Pain

Doran's POV

The tones went off at ten past two in the morning, and I was awake before my partner was.

"Female, thirty, chest pain," the dispatcher said. "Maple Run Drive."

"Maple Run," my partner said, still pulling his boots on. "Fancy."

I took the address on the screen, and something in my stomach turned over.

I knew the address.

It was on the run sheet I had filled out for Claire on Christmas Eve, under the line for home address.

I hadn't looked at it since.

"You okay?" my partner asked.

"Fine."

"You drove like you stole it."

"It's two in the morning. Nobody's out."

The house was a white colonial with black shutters and Christmas lights along the gutters.

Every lamp in it was on.

Dean Albrecht opened the door in his socks.

I knew him from the speakerphone.

I had never seen his face.

He was a tall man with good hair, and he was holding a glass of water.

"Thank God," he said. "She's in here. She says it's her heart."

"What's she feeling?"

"A lot of pressure."

Brandy Lorimer lay on the leather couch under a blanket in the living room, with her eyes closed and one hand over her breastbone.

She did not open them when we came in.

I knelt beside her and said her name.

"Brandy? I'm Doran, I'm a paramedic. Can you tell me where it hurts?"

"Here." Her voice was thin and small. "It's like a weight."

"Does it go into your arm or your jaw?"

"Maybe."

"Maybe yes or maybe no?"

"I can't tell."

My partner put the cuff on her and clipped the monitor to her finger.

The numbers settled in front of us.

Pulse seventy-two. Pressure one-eighteen over seventy-six. Oxygen ninety-eight.

I ran a twelve-lead on her and watched the screen. A clean, steady line.

Dean hovered at the end of the couch with the glass of water.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Car Crash Neglect Christmas Divorce from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.