“For Chrissake, Shaun, don’t just-”

“What are you boys doing?” The nurse bearing down on them had a bosom like the prow of a battleship, and the face to match. In one swift move, she caught the old woman’s wrist lightly in one hand while digging her other fingers bone-deep into Russ’s shoulder.

“Ow!” he said. “We’re not doing anything!”

“Is this your grandmother?”

“I don’t know who it is! We just found her. At Stewart’s Pond. She walked into the water. She tried to drown herself.”

She sized him up with a single flick of her eyelashes, and even though she barely came up to his chest, she somehow managed to speak over his head. “Skelly, McClaren, get that gurney over here.” She glared at Shaun, who was looking longingly at the exit doors. “Don’t even think about moving, young man.”

Two nurses scarcely older than Shaun and Russ rolled a pallet over. One of them glanced sympathetically at Russ. The battleship let go of his shoulder in order to ease the old woman onto the gurney.

“Into the examination room,” she said to the other nurses, who obeyed her with such speed that Russ figured she must terrorize everybody she came into contact with. She hooked her hands around his and Shaun’s arms and followed the gurney, towing them past the admissions desk and through the swinging double doors into the examination room. She bulldozed through a square of limp blue curtains shielding the old woman from public view. “Get Dr. Hansvoort,” she said firmly. One of the young nurses disappeared. “Well, don’t just stand there,” she told the remaining nurse. “Get her vitals. Ah, Dr. Hansvoort. Thank you for coming so promptly.”

The young resident who had parted the curtains looked as if he wouldn’t have dared take his time. “Nurse Vigue?”

She rattled Russ’s and Shaun’s arms. “All right, you two. Tell Dr. Hansvoort here what happened.” She narrowed her eyes. “Truthfully.”