“What about his hand?”
“He’s lost two fingers, pinkie and ring. Middle finger is fifty-fifty, they have to watch it. Index should be all right. Massive soft tissue damage to his palm. The tendons are a mess. I don’t know about the carpal ligament but all the bones in his wrist are intact, thank God. Surgeon says he did great.” Lucky’s voice fell apart. She let out a tremendous breath and seemed to deflate under the drape of Erik’s arm. She sniffed hard and Francine automatically passed her a tissue.
“Will they let you see him?” Erik asked.
“Detective Khoury is in there now,” she said, pressing the tissue to her eyes.
“Mr. and Mrs. Bianco?”
The party turned as one to the surgeon who had appeared in the waiting room. His scrubs were navy blue and he wore a patterned skull cap. Joe stood up.
The doctor came closer. “You are Margaret’s father?”
Margaret? Erik thought, startled. Margaret is James’s sister.
“I am Joseph Bianco, Marguerite is my daughter. This is my wife. This—” he touched Erik’s shoulder. “—is my son and the young lady is my daughter’s roommate. But she is family.”
“I’m Dr. Akhil Jinani. I’m a vascular surgeon and I operated on your daughter this evening.” He and Joe shook hands. “Please, sit down.”
Erik stared at the doctor. He was Indian. Or perhaps Arab. Dark-skinned and a bit of black hair threaded with silver peeking beneath his cap. Yet his features were young, almost pretty. A boy’s face in an older man’s body.
“Marguerite is resting and doing fine,” Dr. Jinani said, the words brisk and tight within the lilting accent. “And they are moving her from recovery into the ICU. She is not going to die, Mrs. Bianco. And right now there’s nothing to indicate we will lose the leg.”
He paused to let them all digest and for Francine to get another tissue. Erik was still stupidly struggling to grasp Daisy sharing a name with James’s sister.
“I will try to make this as simple as possible,” the doctor said. “In surgery tonight we explored the gunshot wound and found the damaged femoral artery. We were able to stop the bleeding and I placed a graft to bypass the injured section and establish flow distally. In other words, the pulses behind her knee and the top of her foot were restored, and the leg began to warm up.”
“Which is good,” Francine said.
“All good signs, yes. I am optimistic she will recover fully and retain the use of her leg.”
Another pause then, as the question passed unasked around the circle of people. To ask if she would dance again seemed trivial when set against the relief of her being alive and all right. But this was Daisy.
Dr. Jinani looked around his audience carefully. “I briefly heard what happened at the university,” he said. “On the news. And naturally we had to cut her out of tights and toe shoes. I assume she is an accomplished dancer?”
They nodded as one. Francine’s eyes closed and she held the ball of tissues tight to her lips. Erik thought about the purple leotard with the criss-cross straps. It was Daisy’s favorite. Gone. Dropped ripped and bloodied on the emergency room floor. Most likely thrown away by now.
“Mrs. Bianco,” the surgeon said. “It would be foolish of me to make promises about her future in dance right now. But let me say being a dancer was on Marguerite’s side today. She’s in phenomenal physical shape. I was somewhat amazed. Despite the shock and blood loss, her heart rate was steady all through surgery. She required no transfusions. And her blood pressure is quite satisfactory right now. As is the blood flow to the lower leg. Circulation is our priority and what we must monitor tonight. We can only go as far as we can see.”
“Of course,” Francine said, sniffing and blinking rapidly. “Of course. She’s alive. Nothing else matters.”