She put down the chart and motioned Joanna into one of the trauma rooms. The examining table had been moved out and a bank of electrical equipment moved in, amid a tangle of dangling wires and cables. “What’s this?” Joanna asked.

“The communications room,” Vielle said, “if it ever gets finished. So we can be in constant contact with the ambulances and the chopper and give medical instructions to the paramedics on their way here. That way we’ll know if our patients are DOA before they get here. Or armed.” She pulled off her surgical cap and shook out her tangle of narrow black braids. “The overdose who wasn’t DOA tried to shoot one of the orderlies getting him on the examining table. He was on this new drug, rogue, that’s making the rounds. Luckily he’d taken too much, and died before he could pull the trigger.”

“You’ve got to put in a request to transfer to Peds,” Joanna said.

Vielle shuddered. “Kids are even worse than druggers. Besides, if I transferred, who’d notify you of NDEs before Mandrake got hold of them?”

Joanna smiled. “You are my only hope. By the way, do you happen to know a Dr. Wright?”

“I’ve been looking for him for years,” Vielle said.

“Well, I don’t think this is the one,” Joanna said. “He wouldn’t be one of the interns or residents in the ER, would he?”

“I don’t know,” Vielle said. “We get so many through here, I don’t even bother to learn their names. I just call all of them ‘Stop that,’ or, ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ I’ll check.” They went back out into the ER. Vielle grabbed a clipboard and drew her finger down a list. “Nope. Are you sure he works here at Mercy General?”

“No,” Joanna said. “But if he comes looking for me, I’m up on seven-west.”

“And what about if an NDEer shows up and I need to find you?”