Table of Contents
THE BLANKING BRIDE
Nicole?
No response.
I touched her arm and again called her name.
She looked at me. Blankly.
Are you okay? I asked.
Who are you? she asked.
Hank. Dr. Lawson. We met earlier.
She stared at me for a beat but said nothing.
Im your grandmothers doctor. Remember?
No response. She glanced at Jill and then turned her eyes back toward me. Why are you here?
Now I was getting concerned. Your party.
Party? Her gaze again rose to the night sky.
I grabbed her arm and gave it a shake. Nicole?
She looked at me, her face expressionless, her pupils slightly dilated but no more so than would be expected in the dim light that filtered down from the patio.
Who are you?
Other Books by D. P. Lyle
NONFICTION
Murder and Mayhem: A Doctor Answers Medical and Forensic Questions for Mystery Writers
Forensics for Dummies
Forensics and Fiction: Clever, Intriguing, and Downright Odd Questions from Crime Writers
Howdunnit: Forensics: A Guide for Writers
FICTION
Stress Fracture
(A Dub Walker Thriller)
Hot Lights, Cold Steel
(A Dub Walker Thriller)
Devils Playground
(A Samantha Cody Thriller)
Double Blind
(A Samantha Cody Thriller)
OBSIDIAN
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First published by Obsidian, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
First Printing, June
Copyright Universal Studios Licensing LLC, 2011. Royal Pains Universal Network Television, LLC. Licensed by NBCUniversal Television Consumer Products Group. All rights reserved
eISBN : 978-1-101-52898-3
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
There are many people who made this book possible and I wish to thank each of them.
Lee Goldberg, who suggested me as the author for this series and introduced me to the world of tie-in novels.
Andrew Lenchewski and John P. Rogers for creating the Royal Pains TV show and the wonderful characters that populate the series.
My wonderful agent, Kimberley Cameron of Kimberley Cameron and Associates.
My equally wonderful editors, Sandra Harding and Elizabeth Bistrow, who offered needed advice and criticism.
All the great folks at Penguin, including the publisher of New American Library, Kara Welsh.
The Hamptons: Exile or Refuge?
Life is funny. Just when you think you have it figured out, a curveball comes your way. For me, it came down to a single word: triage.
An odd word, for sure. But then we got it from the French, so what do you expect?
In a medical setting, it saves lives. Most of the time.
To the French, triage means selecting, or sorting. In medicine, it means to prioritize patients by need.
Every busy emergency department has a triage system. The one I had worked at did. A physician or nurse performs a quick cursory exam of each patient who comes through the door, and rather than rushing everyone into a treatment or trauma room on a first-come basis, the ones in the most precarious situations jump to the front of the line. Just common sense and good medicine.
Such a system becomes critical when the ER is overrun. Like when the Friday-night knife and gun club kicks into gear. You know, too much to drink, someone looks at someone the wrong way or hits on the wrong woman, and the weapons are hauled out. Soon the ER is smothered with the dead and the dying, the bleeding and the screaming, the angry and the frightened.
Seen it a hundred times.
So triage is your friend. Right up until it isnt.
Thats what happened to me. Triage bit my butt.
Im Hank Lawson. Dr. Hank Lawson. I now run a concierge practice in the Hamptons, but not long ago I ran an ER. A very busy ER.
One day we got hit. Hard. I was working on several patients at once, focusing on the most needy. Two in particular: a teenager who had suffered a cardiac arrest and an elderly man with an evolving heart attackan acute MI to those of us in the profession. I moved both to the front of the line. The kids CPR was successful and I managed to stabilize the MI patient.
So far, so good. Or so I thought.
In medical emergencies, stable is a relative thing. Often temporary. It can change in a heartbeat. Literally. A patient spiraling downhill toward death can be yanked back from the brink, while another that seemed to have weathered some crisis suddenly begins the death spiral.
The kid was the most fragile, the most likely to take a turn, the one that most needed my attention. He got it. His life was saved. While I was doing that, the MI guy wasnt so lucky. His condition headed south and ultimately he died. It happens. An MI kills someone every minute of every day. Even in hospitals.
The real problem? Mr. MI was Mr. Clayton Gardner. A very important man. A pillar of the hospital. A billion-dollar bank account and huge hospital donations will do that.
