Paging Solome Griggs

The doctor brushed anxiously past the countless other hospital personnel crowding the main corridor to the ER. She had just come from a twenty-two minute power nap in a small maintenance closet and was now careening into the eighteenth hour of her shift. She was used to napping in closets on busy nights like this one, or worse, not getting any sleep at all until morning. No wonder the internship at the university hospital last year had been so raw.

Relatively new to the profession though she was, she understood the two reasons for the current uptick in emergencies: one, it was the weekend, and two, the night of the full moon. Everything always went to hell on full moon nights.

A cool, well-bodied voice sounded over the public address system.

"Dr. Griggs, telephone please. Dr. Griggs."

Damn, she thought. She unholstered her pager and jabbed the recent recall button a few times rapidly with her thumb. No one had paged her, so what--?
Just as she was about to finish that thought, she slammed into the hard left half of a tall, masculine person in a dark gray suit. Her pager went skittering across the floor.

"Hey--" she began hotly, before noticing who this hard masculine person was.

"Well hello to you, too." he replied with a very playful half smile and a daring flash in his eyes. He momentarily let those eyes travel from hers down to the place where their bodies pressed together in the congested corridor. She smiled back, shaking her head in exasperation before looking past him.

"Is that my pager over there?"

It was almost sweet, the way he blinked and seemed to physically return to the real world. He quickly turned and reached down to recover the gadget, flashing that grin one more time as he tossed it back to her.

"Paging Solome Griggs." he said. "Really. It's an emergency."

"Later." Dr. Solome Griggs brushed past him. "And it's Doctor Griggs."

"Hey--" he began.

"Much later."

He followed her.

"Listen," he said, all traces of playfulness gone. "I know what you're about to walk into down there."

"Tell me." she sang, still cruising at top speed.

"That fire down at Port Street that took down the E. J. Danning building? You kidding me?"

"Danning..." she repeated. "Where do I know that from?"

"Board of Trustees has a Danning. Related, but distantly."

"Okay."

"The place wasn't just gutted; it was destroyed. Got the call down at headquarters and they immediately dispatched all of the nearby cars to the scene. It was like a bomb had gone off."

"So, what were you doing there?" Dr. Griggs asked, pausing for the first time.

"Investigating. I am a district attorney, after all. Some crime scenes warrant a personal visit."

"What are you saying, Brock?" She had stopped walking now. She was about to say more, when the cool and well-bodied voice sounded in the hall.

"Dr. Griggs to Room 217, ER."

"Get going, Solome." Brock said gravely. "They're gonna need you in there. They pulled a guy out of the burning building. He's bleeding like crazy, has some burns."

"If we can stabilize him," she said, "we'll probably still have to transfer him to the state burn unit in Manatowak."

"Maybe so." Brock was about to let her go, but he put out his hand and touched her shoulder. "Listen, if there's any chance at all, I need to speak to him. Tonight. Please."

"Brock, you know I can't."

"Please, Solome."

The doctor sighed and folded her arms over her chest, looking off to one side. She owed Brock Stanwick a favor, and now it seemed he was calling it in.

"Alright." She said. "I'll go and see what I can do."