Then a text pinged in. Please contact Bairnsdale Regional Health Services Emergency Department as soon as possible.

Libby sighed. Perhaps Ramesh had sent one of her sickies to the hospital and they wanted to talk to her. She picked up her bag and, murmuring her apologies, shuffled past her colleagues before making her way to the emergency department. The place was buzzing, with at least a dozen people waiting in chairs, so that meant a lot was happening on the other side of the locked doors. Using her lanyard, she buzzed herself in.

She didn’t recognize the nurse at the desk. “Hi, I’m Dr. Hunter. I just got a text. I think you’ve got a patient of mine here.”

His fingers hovered over a keyboard. “What’s the name?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’ve sent us a patient but you don’t know their name?”

Libby ignored the man’s incredulous tone and showed him her phone. “I just got this message.”

He frowned as he peered at the screen. “Are you Libby Hunter?”

“Yes.”

“Ah.” He stood and gave her a rueful smile. “Sorry for the confusion. Come this way.”

She was about to ask who’d been admitted but he was already striding away from her. She followed him past the cubicles to one of the monitored beds.

“Oh my God!”

Nick lay on a hospital gurney, his usually healthy, tanned face matching the color of the covering sheet. A pulse oximeter was fitted on his forefinger, an IV line ran into the back of his hand, oxygen prongs sat in his nostrils and leads protruded from behind his hospital gown. The EKG machine beeped rhythmically.

She grabbed his free hand, gripping it hard as if he might suddenly be pulled away from her. “What happened?”

“Your husband’s experienced some chest pain,” the nurse said matter-of-factly. “We’ve taken bloods and he’s had a chest X-ray. We’re just waiting for the results. His vitals are stable, although his BP’s still a bit high. Dr. Naing will be in shortly to talk to you.”

Libby’s gaze swung to the EKG, frantically looking for signs of a heart attack. “Nick, how long have you had pain?”

“I dunno. A few hours.”

A few hours! Panic skated through her. “Tell me everything.”

“There isn’t much to tell. I’ve felt lousy all day and then I got this pain …” He rubbed his chest with his hand. “It got worse and then it got hard to breathe.”

Her own breathing sped up when she thought of his briskness on the phone. Then her abiding love for him got tangled up with frustration. “Why didn’t you tell me when I phoned you about Lucy?”

“I didn’t have it then.”

“When did it start?”

He blew out a long slow breath and closed his eyes, weariness emanating from him.

“Nick?”

He took a moment before opening his eyes and when he did, the swirl of confusion in their depths made her wonder if he’d been given morphine. “What?”