Urgent Care (11 page)

She hadn’t told him about the missing rape kit or that Karen, the victim, had also once been involved with Seth Cochran. Or her suspicions that there was more going on, distracting Nora. “I don’t want her to be alone. Was thinking about sending Gina home with her.”

Trey glanced at the clock. “Sure, that’s fine with me. Not like Gina is skipping out on her own. She’s made up most of her shift; that’s what counts.” He threaded his fingers through hers. “You going to fill me in on all the details later?” He didn’t wait for her answer, but instead shifted his weight as if off-balance. “My mom wants to know your schedule over Christmas.”

“I’m working.”

“Right, like you were working Thanksgiving.”

“I
was
working Thanksgiving.”

“Lydia. I know you traded shifts with Mark Cohen to work Thanksgiving.”

“Is that a crime? The man deserves to have time with his family.”

Trey’s stare hardened. “Look, I know this is hard for you. Family stuff. But they really want to celebrate the holidays with you. We’ve been together five months; you can’t avoid them forever.”

Five months? Before Trey, the longest she’d let any man stick around was five weeks. Operative word being
let
—as in she was in control of the situation.

Not with Trey. Anything but in control. It was as if she’d somehow allowed her life to gallop away, a horse without a rider.

“It’s just one day. What can happen in one day?”

A lot. People lived their whole lives and died in one day—as a street medic, he knew that as well as she did.

It wasn’t that Trey’s family wasn’t nice—they were. Too nice. And loving. All those questions, concerns, trying to get to know her, watching out for Trey, judging her . . . not to mention the noise, the laughter, old jokes, old memories, things she could never share. Weekly dinners were bad enough. A full day with Trey’s loud and loving family scared the crap out of her.

As usual, Trey picked up on her vibes better than she did herself. “There’s no reason to be scared. It’s only Christmas.”

“You make me sound like some kind of freak, an alien from outer space.”

“Doesn’t matter. They’ll still love you. That’s what family is all about.” The radio on his belt sounded an alert. He kissed the top of her head, his hand lingering as if reluctant to pull away from the contact. “Gotta go. I’ll see you at home.”

Lydia stared after him as the ambulance bay doors swished open and shut again. Home. She had a home—her home, his home, their home. When would those simple facts become real to her?

 

 

NORA LEANED AGAINST THE NURSES’ STATION, feeling numb. Worse than numb—numb would be a blessing. Instead, she had tons of feelings reeling around, colliding inside her gut, ricocheting down her nerve endings.

A stream of lab techs, nurses, and finally Ken Rosen wandered into the isolation room. She knew the patient in there was some kind of VIP, yet she couldn’t find the energy to do more than direct traffic.

She’d thought that she’d outrun her past; she’d accepted the lies she told herself and everyone else, had re-created herself after the rape. She’d left her apartment and found a new one, left her old friends behind, abandoned all her old routines. She’d survived the attack—put it all behind her—had even tried her best to give something back by becoming a sexual assault nurse examiner. It had been a year before she dared to trust a man, date again. Seth. Look how that worked out.

And now her carefully crafted wall of denial was crumbling.

She sat down and began to mindlessly organize the lab results spewing forth from the printer. Jim Lazarov jogged out from the isolation room, his mask hanging jauntily from the neck of his Tyvek gown.

“Aren’t my labs back yet?” he demanded.

Nora reached for the last of the papers and handed the stack to Jim.

“Why didn’t you bring them in? Dr. Frantz was waiting.”

“They just came up,” Nora responded before she could stop herself. She didn’t owe an explanation to anyone, much less a snotty intern. “Everything is normal except for the white count.”

“We already knew that from the earlier CBC,” he said, dismissing her with a wave of his hand and marching back to the room, holding the papers aloft as if they were hard-won trophies.

Nora watched him go, her vision blurring as she forgot to blink, allowing herself to be transfixed by the fluorescent lights overhead. Footsteps pounded the linoleum to her left, but she didn’t focus until a large shadow blocked out the light.

“Is it true?” Oliver Tillman, the medical center’s CEO, towered over her, leaning across the counter and bracing his elbows on it.

Nora blinked hard, twice, before meeting his gaze. His eyes were narrowed, his lips compressed into a tight line, but other than that his face was devoid of expression. His Donald Trump mop was in dire need of a comb.

“How could you?” His voice thundered through her. Jason, the desk clerk, jerked his head up and spun out of his chair to stand beside Nora as if she needed protection. Tillman’s face flushed scarlet, and he spoke as if Nora had injured him personally. “What is wrong with you that you could be so incompetent, so careless? Answer me!”

Nora had no answers. No matter how much logic told her otherwise, she couldn’t help but feel that her lies and secrets were as much the cause of Karen’s death as the killer’s blade. Worse, she felt powerless—like she had two years ago, waking up in the freezing cold.

Lydia emerged from a patient’s room. “Mr. Tillman,” she said, chiseling herself between Nora and the administrator. “Can I help you?”

“I had to come down and see in person the woman who—”

“The woman who fought to save another nurse’s life? Nora did a commendable job. I wonder how many others walked past that cemetery and chose not to get involved?” Lydia wasn’t much taller than Nora’s own five-three, yet she seemed larger as she stood up to Tillman’s fury.

“A nurse who is dead. She lost the damn rape kit.” Tillman’s voice dropped to a dangerous rumble, surprising Nora with the force of his emotion. Tillman was a jerk, but usually a slick, back-stabbing jerk. Last time she’d seen him this upset was when he was trying to get Lydia fired. “Then she left the body unattended.”

“I’m sure your concerns focus on the safety of the staff.” Lydia’s tone had an edge to it. “You’re not accusing my nurse of any involvement in this vicious crime, are you, Mr. Tillman?”

“I’m accusing your nurse of incompetence. That’s enough to warrant an investigation.”

“I’m certain your investigation will find no evidence of incompetence or wrongdoing. Nora is one of the best nurses I’ve had the pleasure to work with.”

Nora barely heard the war of words being fought over her head. She was drowning, being dragged down, with no energy to fight her way back up to the surface.

“We’ll see about that,” Tillman snapped, firing his parting salvo. His footsteps echoed down the hallway as Lydia crossed around to Nora’s side of the counter.

“Come on,” she said, taking Nora’s elbow. Nora was surprised to find herself standing under her own power. Lydia escorted her away from the many staring eyes at the nurses’ station and down the empty hallway behind the trauma rooms.

“Gina’s here,” Lydia said. “She’s going to take you home, stay with you.”

Nora somehow found the strength to shake herself free. “I’m fine. Really. I can finish my shift.”

“No, you can’t. You can either sit here and let everyone stare at you, feeling sorry for yourself, or you can go with Gina.”

“Lydia, I said I was fine. I can rest tomorrow on my day off, but today I need to work.”

“This isn’t about what you need, it’s about what’s best for the patients. Think about it, Nora; you’ll see I’m right.”

Nora opened her mouth to protest, then reconsidered. Lydia stood, arms akimbo, as unyielding as granite. “Fine. Whatever,” Nora conceded. “But don’t bother Gina. I’m going to head on home.”

“Then Gina can drive you there.”

Normally, Nora would have rebelled against anyone taking control of her life like Lydia had. Normally, she was the one in charge, the one giving the orders. But today she felt anything but normal.

Jim Lazarov sauntered around the corner, interrupting them. “Did they ever find that rape kit, Nora?” he asked with a too-innocent expression.

Lydia dismissed him with a wave of her hand, her gaze never leaving Nora’s face. “Not now, Jim.”

“What the hell?” he asked. “
She’s
only a nurse, but she’s allowed to jump all over me when I make the slightest slipup. You know what your problem is?” he said to Nora, who was trying her best to ignore his sneer. “You’re obsessed by these sexual assault cases. Seeing abuse everywhere you look.”

“I don’t care,” Lydia said, now bringing the weight of her glare onto the intern. “This is not the time or place. Go see a patient.”

“Yeah, right. At least you won’t have to worry about
my
killing them,” Jim said, his tone triumphant.

Nora felt the blood rush away from her body, her cheeks suddenly burning with cold.

“No wonder Tillman says she’s incompetent,” Jim continued. “I heard her tell Seth Cochran that she killed Karen.”

Nora lashed out without thinking. She shoved Jim against the wall, cracking his head against the tile. “That’s not what I meant, and you know it, you eavesdropping little—”

Amanda and Gina turned the corner and came to an abrupt halt as Lydia pulled Nora off Jim, who stood looking at her with wild eyes.

“You all are witnesses,” he said. “She assaulted me. Without provocation. I’m calling a lawyer.”

Nora stumbled back, alarmed by what she had done.

“I didn’t see anything,” Lydia said.

“Neither did I,” Amanda said.

“Don’t look at me,” Gina chimed in. “But if you want a lawyer, my dad’s one of the best in the country. Uh-oh, sorry, he’ll probably be the one suing
your
ass.”

Gina and Amanda closed ranks on either side of Nora.

Jim glowered at them, then speared Nora with a glare. “You’re going to regret this.”

“No one is going to regret anything,” Lydia said, stepping between Jim and Nora. “This has been a bad day for everyone. Jim, you go see your next patient. And Nora, let’s get you out of here.” Hands on her hips, she stared at Jim until the intern grudgingly left them and moved on to his next patient.

“I can’t wait until I have to give him an evaluation,” Gina said.

Amanda pursed her lips, watching the intern turn the corner. “Think he could have taken the rape kit? He’s had it in for Nora ever since he started.”

Nora shook her head. “Why? What good would it do him?”

“It would make you look bad. Especially if he got word to the right people, like Tillman,” Lydia replied.

“What rape kit?” Gina piped up, obviously peeved at missing a good scandal. “And what does the hospital CEO have to do with anything?”

Thursday, 1:22 P.M.

“SO, WHAT’D I MISS?” GINA ASKED AS SHE WALKED Nora over to the employee parking garage. Seemed a long way to go. Gina usually managed to snare a spot in the closer patient garage, even though it was against the rules.

Unlike the patient garage, the employee one was fully automated, accessible only via employee IDs. The atmosphere was dark and stifling once they passed beyond the outside walls. Their footsteps echoed eerily as they trudged up the concrete staircase illuminated only by a flickering, low-wattage bulb at the top of each flight.

Nora looked even paler than normal in the dim light, her freckles pronounced, her eyes red-rimmed, with sagging circles beneath them. Gina wondered if maybe she needed a spa day more than a shoulder to cry on. Actually a spa day wasn’t a bad idea all around—Gina was past due for a pedicure, and her hair was crying out for Antonio’s magic touch. God, she was going to look awful at that damn ceremony Saturday night. . . .

They arrived at Nora’s Accord, and still Nora remained silent as she grudgingly handed Gina her keys.

“You don’t have to tell me,” Gina said, starting the car and revving the engine before backing it out of the slot. “I can ask Jim Lazarov. He seemed to know everything.”

Nora straightened and sent her a glare that Gina deflected with a grin as she slid on her sunglasses. The Accord jetted out the exit, barely missing the barrier gate as it swung open, and then turned out onto the street.

“I found Karen Chisholm in the cemetery this morning,” Nora finally answered, her voice a monotone that struggled to reach Gina over the sounds of traffic. “She’d been raped and stabbed. She died in room thirteen.”

“No shit. You’re the one who found her? You’re okay, aren’t you?”

Nora didn’t answer. Gina turned to give her a quick once-over. She looked numb. Lifeless. Sign-her-up-for-the-next-zombie-movie-casting-call dazed. “Karen, the nurse anesthetist? The same chick who was screwing Seth?”

Nora opened her mouth, then closed it again, merely nodding.

“What’s the deal about a lost rape kit?” Gina pressed as the light turned green and the Accord surged forward. Not bad for an economy car. Still, she’d rather be behind the wheel of her BMW.

“Seth and I left the body unattended . . . I should have seen, known better.”

“Right, of course. I forgot, you’re a charge nurse, you see all, know all.”

Nora didn’t rise to the bait like she usually would have. Instead she curled farther back into the passenger seat. “The police can’t use any evidence found on the body. And the rape kit I did went missing.”

“Lazarov was there?”

“Lots of people were there; that’s the problem. Tillman even came down to the ER, implying that I’d lost the kit on purpose.”

“Tillman’s an idiot.” If anyone in the ER had stolen that kit, it had to be Jim Lazarov. He and Nora had been waging a war of wills ever since he’d started at Angels. For some reason, the intern couldn’t seem to understand that the charge nurses didn’t just run the ER, they owned it. Even the attendings bowed to their authority.