Part 3 (2/2)
Jo ran toward them. ”Officer, stop. No.”
Paterson was wrestling Kanan. ”Face down.”
Kanan didn't respond. He continued rolling leftward, hands clenched to his chest, face pressed against the floor.
”Hands behind your back,” Paterson said breathlessly.
Jo grabbed Paterson by the shoulders. ”Stop. He's having a seizure.”
”He's resisting.” Paterson grunted, straining to pull Kanan's hands down.
”Officer, he's seizing,” Jo said. ”Get off. Move.”
Kanan wasn't jerking or flailing or beating his head against the floor. He was simply gone, into a realm where bright lines flared at the corners of his vision and a panoply of color spun across the mind. He kept turning.
”Partial seizure,” Jo said. ”Get off him. Now.”
* 4 *
Kanan lay in the aisle of the jet, turning as if on a rotisserie. Jo tried to pull Paterson away from him.
”Call the paramedics,” she said.
Officer Weigel loomed over them, Taser in his hand. ”He got a hundred thousand volts. He'll come out of it.”
”The Taser may have triggered the seizure, but something else is wrong with him. Officer Paterson, let go.”
Paterson relented. Jo knelt at Kanan's side, fear pouring down her back like cold water. She wasn't a trauma doc. She was a forensic psychiatrist. In her line of work the crisis cases never presented medical emergencies. Her crisis cases were already dead.
She shook it off, telling herself: Go through it step by step. First, ABC. Airway, breathing, circulation. She checked that Kanan was breathing and had a pulse. Then she stripped off her sweater, rolled it up, and tucked it under his head. Heat was pouring off his skin.
”Paramedics and an ambulance. Call them,” she said.
”You're not going to section him?” Paterson said.
”No. I'm getting him to an E.R.”
Paterson got on the radio. Jo checked Kanan's face and head for fractures and lacerations. The only cuts she could see were the gouges on his forearm. She avoided touching them and began to wish she'd brought latex gloves. In the aisle she spied his cell phone. She picked it up. Looked at dialed calls-an area code 415 number, about forty-seven times.
Like an ebbing wave, the seizure subsided. Kanan stopped turning and lay limp on the floor. His eyes closed and opened again. Above Jo, Paterson's radio leaked static.
She put a hand on Kanan's shoulder. ”Mr. Kanan? Ian?”
She heard the clink of handcuffs being removed from a utility belt.
”Don't,” she said. ”He has a head injury. Where are the paramedics?”
”On their way,” Paterson said. ”He a.s.saulted a police officer. He needs to be restrained.”
”You're not going to arrest him.”
”That's not your call. Sectioning him is. You going to do that?”
Kanan s.h.i.+fted. ”What's... am-river's too...”
”Ian,” Jo said.
”All wrong it's...” He looked at her as though seeing her through a distorted video link. ”Slick it's too... falls-misty it's...” He blinked and grabbed Jo's arm. ”Get you.”
He began breathing rapidly. Jo took his pulse. One forty-eight.
”Is anybody here to meet you?” she said. He was wearing a wedding ring. ”Is your wife picking you up?”
His gaze sparked, as though her voice had lit a fuse in his brain. His eyes rolled back to whites and his lips parted. Beneath Jo's hand his body tensed.
He convulsed. This time the seizure was grand mal.
The ambulance rolled north through the rain on 101, its siren shooing traffic out of its way. Kanan lay strapped to a gurney, unresponsive. Jo sat by his shoulder. The paramedic kept her balance as the vehicle took a curve. She called Kanan's name and flashed a penlight in his eyes.
Officer Paterson lurked by the back doors, baby face puckering with suspicion. His left hand ran back and forth over the handcuffs on his utility belt.
Jo shook her head at him. ”You can't cuff a seizure patient.”
”One hand to the stretcher.”
”No. We need to be able to maneuver him. If he vomits we have to keep him from inhaling it, or he could die.”
”He's a loose cannon. And he's going to be under arrest,” Paterson said.
”If you think you can Mirandize him in this condition, you're the one who needs sectioning.”
Kanan groaned. The paramedic said, ”Ian, can you hear me?”
A gust of wind whistled over the ambulance and flung rain across the windows. Kanan's eyes woozed open.
Jo took his hand. ”What's your name?”
He blinked as though trying to focus. ”Ian Kanan.”
His gaze cleared. His pupils were equal, reactive to light, and had a wolfish glow. Jo felt a p.r.i.c.kle along the back of her neck.
On the jetliner, Kanan had dropped Paterson to his knees with the speed of a train wreck. Despite her spirited defense of him, Jo didn't want Kanan to do worse to anybody in the ambulance.
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