Courtroom Nurse — Fern Shepard

How much did she owe to the living, how much to the dead? There was only one possible answer for Vicky, not only as a nurse but as the daughter of Dr. Sam Blair...

Emergency call.

Vicky Blair, R.N. knew her mother would never ask her to give up her job in San Francisco and come home if she didn't need her desperately. But it was difficult to convince young Dr. Fred Harlan, who wanted her all to himself. It was especially difficult since the trouble at home concerned Vicky's kid sister, Jean, and the boy she loved, Johnny Rushton. A descendant of one of Rushton City's oldest and richest families, Johnny had also inherited the family's streak of mental instability -- or so his sister, Cora, wanted everyone to believe. She had a lot of people convinced -- including, to Vicky's disappointment, Fred Harlan. Most important, she had finally convinced Johnny, who had told Jean he could not -- would not -- see her again. Vicky knew Johnny was not a victim of hereditary madness. She could prove it -- in court, if come to that, because the revelation that would "clear" Johnny would dishonor the memory of the finest man she had ever known: her father.

Vicky, a nurse who had been working in a San Francisco hospital, returned to her home town and took an assignment at Memorial Hospital at the behest of her mother, who was worried about her younger daughter Jean and needed Vicky's help. The problem was a serious one: the young man with whom Jean was in love came from a family tarred with the brush of insanity and had been convinced by his own sister that he was incapable of earning a living, much less of being a husband and father.

Vicky was one of the few people in the world who knew that, in reality, the young man had been adopted and that his sister was ruining his life with lies. But she could not reveal her knowledge without betraying a secret of her dead doctor father.

Homecoming...
"Thank God you've come, Vicky!" her mother cried. "Something terrible has happened!"
Stella looked ghastly. Her dark eyes were sunk deep, her gray hair straggly. She was struggling to keep control of herself.
"The Rushton boy drove his car over a cliff yesterday. No, he hadn't been killed--not quite. But I talked to Dr. Mac on the phone. I don't think he believes Johnny has much chance..."
"What about Jean? How is she taking it?" Vicky asked."
"Oh, Vicky--" Stella shook her head. "Apparently she had a date with Johnny and the accident happened while she was on her way to meet him. Now she refuses to believe Johnny is still alive. She keep sobbing: "I killed him. I killed him..."

Hero: Tom Gordon
Heroine: Nurse Vicky Blair, R.N.