Chapter 1 - THE MAN ON THE GALLEY FLOOR
“Is there a trauma surgeon on board? We have severe arterial bleeding!”
The desperate announcement tore through the overnight flight as violent turbulence shook the aircraft.
In seat 8A, thirty-four-year-old Laura Bennett opened her eyes and instinctively covered the curve of her seven-month-pregnant belly beneath her oversized beige sweater.
Six months earlier, Laura had been one of Boston’s most respected trauma surgeons.
Then one patient died.
Hospital records claimed Laura had waited eleven critical minutes before activating the massive transfusion protocol. The investigation became public. Her reputation collapsed almost overnight.
Laura insisted the records were wrong.
No one believed her.
The stress nearly cost her the baby she was carrying, and eventually she walked away from St. Catherine Medical Center and swore she would never enter an operating room again.
Now, thirty thousand feet above the ground, blood stained the first-aid kit lying in the aisle.
A terrified flight attendant begged for help.
Laura tried to remain seated.
Then another scream came from the galley.
The surgeon inside her won.
She stood.
“Clear the floor,” she ordered. “Bring me every medical kit on this aircraft.”
Passengers moved aside as Laura made her way through the shaking cabin.
Then she reached the galley.
A badly injured man lay unconscious in a spreading pool of blood, his expensive charcoal suit torn open near the upper thigh where a jagged piece of metal had ripped through an artery.
Laura froze.
She knew that face.
Dr. Andrew Walsh.
Chief Medical Officer of St. Catherine Medical Center.
Her former mentor.
And the man whose signature appeared on the report that destroyed her career.
For six months, Laura had imagined confronting Andrew.
She had imagined screaming at him.
She had imagined forcing him to admit what he had done.
She had never imagined kneeling in his blood and trying to keep him alive.
The flight attendant whispered, “Doctor?”
Laura swallowed every ounce of anger inside her.
Then she dropped to her knees.
“Hold pressure here.”
The frightened passenger disappeared.
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The trauma surgeon returned.
And as Laura fought to stop Andrew Walsh from bleeding to death, she had no idea that the man she hated was carrying evidence that could give her life back.
