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watched, a huge explosion blasted flames and debris in every direction, causing the helicopter doing the filming to shudder.
    Whoever was on that thing, he thought, was a goner.

4
    Waterbury Long-Term Care Facility
Connecticut
    J ennifer Sullivan moved into the room with the practiced quickness that her twenty-six years as a nurse had instilled.
    â€œHey, what’s going on in here?” she said brusquely. She was barely five feet tall, brown eyes, short dark no-nonsense hair, average weight. She considered herself nondescript, plain. But people told her she had a certain presence. She was impossible to ignore. Jennifer knew it was her confidence—and her insistence on providing the best care to her patients. She focused right now on the patient thrashing in the bed. “Come on, sweetheart. What are you doing to yourself?”
    Pat Minicucci was already there, trying to hold JD down. Jennifer could see the feeding tube was detached from the abdominal port and lay on the floor.
    â€œI can’t hold her much longer,” the nurse’s aide said, a note of urgency in her voice. “Have you ever seen her like this?”
    â€œNever,” Jennifer admitted. Glancing at her watch as she stuck her head into the hallway, she called to a passing dietary aide to get the doctor. Luckily, Dr. Baerwouldn’t have left the facility yet to see to his own practice. She moved to the other side of the bed and put a hand on JD’s shoulder.
    â€œDid something bite her or sting her?” Jennifer asked, glancing around in the bedding for a spider.
    â€œI don’t know,” Pat replied breathlessly.
    â€œWell, did she fall? Where did you find her?”
    The patient’s brown eyes were open wide, and she was looking about the room, continuing to fight against the arms holding her. With each heave of her body, JD emitted gasps of breath from between clenched teeth.
    â€œI heard her as I was walking past the room. When I looked in, she’d already slid down to where the bed strap was up almost to her throat. She’d lost the tube.” Pat leaned more heavily on JD’s arms as Jennifer checked the bed for anything that might be poking into her. “As soon as I unhooked the strap, she went wild.”
    JD couldn’t have been a hundred pounds soaking wet, but she continued to put up a fight against the hold on her arms.
    â€œBe gentle with her,” Jennifer found herself saying. Pat was young and close to twice the weight of the patient. She was also new and didn’t know much about JD.
    â€œI thought she was in a coma.”
    â€œNo, she’s an MCS patient. She’s in a minimally conscious state,” Jennifer added as clarification.
    â€œWhat’s the difference?”
    â€œMCS patients, like JD here, can be visibly awake or asleep. There have been times over the past few years when I’ve seen her reach for things, even hold them. I’ve noticed her follow with her eyes people moving about in the room. Sometimes there is even gesturing or verbalization that is intelligible…at least to me.” Jennifercaressed the young patient’s brow. “The important thing to remember is that she’s really fragile.”
    There was no denying it. All the old-time nurses had a soft spot in their hearts for her. JD had been here a little over five years now, and she was the easiest of the traumatic brain injury patients to take care of.
    â€œSlide her up the bed a little.”
    Together, the two women moved the patient enough for Jennifer to reclip the bed strap. Sitting against the edge of the bed, Jennifer leaned over JD and put her hands on either side of the young woman’s face to check the skin of her neck for any bites or scratches.
    Immediately, the patient stopped fighting.
    â€œJesus, Mary and Joseph,” Pat exclaimed softly, “you have the touch.”
    Jennifer saw the young patient’s eyes focus on hers. “Hi, JD.