by Edie Claire
The charge nurses. The DON!
Mei Lin’s heart could beat no faster. How high up did this evil go? Did it stop with Julia and Tina Booras? Was the DON herself involved? How long had it been happening? To go undetected for any length of time, the stolen doses would have to be coordinated so that no resident suffered obvious symptoms. Had Mariel Gonzalez’ death been a rare mistake? Or… God forbid, had other residents gone into withdrawal, only to have their symptoms ignored, their records altered? Had other residents died?
Mei Lin’s gaze moved to the phone. She could not call Tina Booras. Nor could she page the Director of Nursing. Not when she had no way of knowing where the corruption stopped. Following the facility’s protocol was almost certain to tip off a guilty party, and if the situation became a she-said, she-said Mei Lin would be sure to lose. Her only chance at stopping this horror would be if she went outside the chain of command. Even then, she’d need hard evidence. And if she was wrong, she would never work again.
She breathed deeply and attempted to center herself. She had to make a decision, and she had to make it now. Julia had stolen at least one pill tonight and had not left the building since. Mei Lin was fairly certain Julia had moved no farther than the nurses’ station, and all the public areas of the home were covered by security cameras. If the LVN was swapping out the pills at the residents’ bedsides, she must be keeping a supply of placebos on her person. Which meant that Paulina’s dose of narcotic — and perhaps others — could still be sitting in Julia’s scrub pockets.
Mei Lin picked up her cell phone, stepped into a nearby supply cabinet, and shut the door.
She looked up Dallas Police, Narcotics Division. Then she clicked on the number and called.
Chapter 16
Present Day
“What happened?” Stanley asked after Mei Lin went quiet for a while. They were the first words he’d spoken. He’d been listening to her story attentively. “Did they send someone out?”
She nodded. If possible, the rest of her tale was even less pleasant to remember. “They came out, all right. It was awful. Julia went hysterical the moment they asked to speak with her. She refused to let them search her pockets and they detained her until they got a warrant. She had three doses of narcotic and some spare placebos in the front pocket of her scrub top. She was crying and screaming…”
Mei Lin shook her head at the memory. She hadn’t seen Julia since her arrest that night. She’d heard that Julia’s mother was taking care of the kids, but she still felt sick every time she thought about the children. “The next few hours… days… were a fiasco, as you can imagine. Nearly everyone on staff was questioned, as well as the administrators. I was suspended by the Executive Director, only to have that order rescinded almost immediately. They didn’t know what to do with me.”
“I can imagine,” Stanley broke in wryly. “They should have thanked you. But that’s never what happens. Let me guess… you became a pariah?”
Mei Lin nodded. “I wasn’t looking for thanks. But everyone at work acted like I was some kind of traitor to the team — as if by going outside the system and calling the police, I had personally made orphans of Julia’s children. It was miserable. Eventually I just quit.”
Stanley clucked with dismay and shook his head. “You did the only thing you could do. If you’d told your supervisor they would have just fired the people involved and hushed it up. Then off those nurses would go to steal pills elsewhere.”
Mei Lin paused and looked at him. He really did understand, didn’t he? Although she had received unqualified support from her friends and family, others in the healthcare field had not seen the issue as so cut and dried. “The Director of Nursing was very well liked,” she explained. “No one could understand why I hadn’t just reported what I saw to her. There was no evidence she knew what was going on, but she got fired anyway. They said she failed to check references, but really they just needed someone in management to take a fall. The other nurses blamed me for that, too. And in a way, they were right. If I had trusted her and she had reported it herself—”
“If she reported it herself,” Stanley rebutted. “Handling it internally and hushing it up would have been better for her — for everyone employed there. Don’t you see? What you did was put the patients first. Not just your own, but the next ones those two were likely to harm if they weren’t arrested. And you know damn well they never would have been arrested if you hadn’t acted immediately, while the LVN still had the pills on her! The scam could have gone on for years.”
Mei Lin’s eyes grew watery.
“You did the right thing,” he said again, decisively.
“I know,” she conceded. “But I still feel responsible for its happening at all — for not seeing it sooner. I worked very closely with Julia. If you’d asked me the day before if she was capable of doing such a thing, I would have said no. I didn’t even suspect that Tina Booras had it in her to be so cruel.”
His weathered brow creased. “So? You’re not a mind reader.”
“But I was a manager!” Mei Lin argued, giving voice to her innermost angst. Her family had tried to be helpful, but they didn’t understand — they didn’t know what it was like to be responsible for helpless patients’ lives. “If I can’t judge the character of the people who work under me, what good am I? It’s all well and good to be a cheerful person with a rosy attitude on life, but what if I’m just plain gullible? Because the handwriting is on the wall, Stanley. I am gullible! I am too trusting! If I sat here and listed all the times I’ve gotten burned, just in the last two years—”
He sat up, his expression intent. “So tell me.”
Images of Josh, Anthony, Jeremy, and Travis flashed before Mei Lin’s eyes. “You don’t want to know.”
“Yes, I do,” he insisted. “I want to know why you think you have bad judgment, because I disagree. You knew something was seriously wrong with Mariel Gonzalez that night, didn’t you? You also knew something was seriously wrong with me. You were so certain of it that you hiked all the way up here, to a place you didn’t know, to help a man who for all you knew could have been an ax murderer.”
“Well, wasn’t that gullible, too?” Mei Lin challenged. “If you were an ax murderer I’d be dead now!”
He mulled that over. “You took a calculated risk, yes, but the odds were in your favor and you did it for a good cause. What you did took courage, Mei Lin. The kind of courage that way too many people in the medical field today lack.”
“You don’t know the whole story,” she demurred. “I’ve thought about this a lot, and my mind is made up. I can be a good nurse, but I’m not nurse practitioner material. I’m not even charge nurse material. I’m better off sticking to—”
“You’d be a great nurse practitioner!” he interrupted.
“No, I would not!” Mei Lin argued, her voice rising. How had she allowed herself to get into this conversation? Every second was torture, but her lips kept flapping. “My professional judgment is only part of it. My personal life is a friggin’ disaster, and all because I keep trusting people who can’t be trusted! I’m just plain stupid about people, especially men. And sooner or later that stupidity is going to hurt somebody else!”
“What makes you think you have to have a perfect life to be a good practitioner?” he shot back with equal volume. “Good Lord, girl! As a man I’m the scum of the earth, but I was still a damn good surgeon!”
Mei Lin got up from her chair. He was poking needles at her psyche, and she didn’t like it. Her mind was made up. “It’s my decision,” she proclaimed. “I have to do what I’m comfortable with. And as for—” She touched an unexpected object protruding from her back pocket. Anxious for a distraction, she pulled it out and looked at it. “Oh,” she remembered, holding it out to him. “Sorry. This is for you. I found it on the porch earlier.”
Stanley eyed her suspiciously as he took the note. “This conversation is not over,” he warned. He unfolded the paper, held it at arm’s le
ngth, and squinted. “Dear Mr. Smith,” he read aloud. “I’m tracking some wildlife in the area and stopped by to make sure you don’t mind me crossing onto your property. Hated to wake you — heard you’re not well. Will drop by again soon. Please tell Mei Lin or Jesse if this is a problem. Thank you, Dave Markov, Chief Ranger, Glacier Bay National Park.” He lowered his hands to his lap, his brow furrowed. “I’ve heard of him. He’s never bothered to come out here before, though. I wonder what wildlife he’s talking about.”
“It’s my fault, I’m afraid,” Mei Lin apologized, grateful for the reprieve. She let out a heavy breath and sat down again. “I ran into some bears on my way home yesterday, and he wanted to check them out. Do you mind?”
Stanley’s expression changed from puzzlement to worry. “Check out what? What happened to you? Were you hurt?”
His tone was practically paternal, and Mei Lin was touched. “Nothing happened,” she assured. “The bears just sized me up and walked off. Of course, just seeing them that close was scary enough! But that’s not why Dave is tracking them.” She paused a second. She’d promised the ranger she wouldn’t tell anyone else, but Stanley didn’t count; it had happened on his property. “He’s interested because one of the cubs was an unusual color. Have you ever heard of a glacier bear?”
Stanley’s face froze. The color drained from his cheeks so rapidly that Mei Lin leaned forward, fearing he had gone into shock. Was he having a stroke? A heart attack? She grabbed his wrist to take a pulse. “What is it? Are you in pain?”
He stared back at her, glassy-eyed. Then he took in one huge gulp of air, and his color began to return. “Glacier bear?” he repeated hoarsely. He pulled his arm away from her and struggled to fully sit up. “Where was this?” His voice grew stronger. “When?”
Mei Lin studied him in surprise. It took several seconds for her to realize his crisis wasn’t medical. He was flipping out over the stupid bear!
She fell back into the chair again and tried to calm her unjustly rattled nerves. What was wrong with these people? You could expect a man who served as chief ranger at a National Park to have a thing about bears… but Stanley was a freakin’ doctor! “You scared me!”
“Sorry,” he replied shortly, no longer sounding paternal. He’d morphed into a man possessed, just as Dave had yesterday. “Tell me!” he begged. “Tell me everything that happened. Exactly what you saw!”
Mei Lin sighed. She was surrounded by crazies. But the obsession did seem to make the men happy, and with Stanley that could be significant. She decided to indulge him, telling the story of her harrowing encounter in narrative form, complete with hand gestures and a few melodramatic embellishments. Stanley listened with an expression of rapture, interrupting frequently to ask for more detail. But when he seemed satisfied that she’d told him all she knew, he pulled back the blankets and swung his legs off the bed.
“Oh, no!” she protested, alarmed. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“Well, out, of course!” he declared happily. “I can’t very well see this cub for myself if I’m lying around inside, can I?”
Mei Lin shot up and moved around the foot of the bed to block him. “You can’t possibly think you have enough strength to go traipsing around in the woods! You still can’t even make it to the outhouse!”
Stanley frowned up at her. His breathing was rapid again, and his face was flushed. Mei Lin stared stonily back at him until he gave in and looked away. She knew he hated needing her and Jesse to empty his chamber pot, but he really couldn’t walk more than a few steps without his legs giving out. “Okay, so maybe not,” he conceded. “But… a glacier bear!”
His tone on the last two words was as reverent as if he were proclaiming the messiah, and Mei Lin rolled her eyes. “Well, if anybody can track down those bears again, it’ll be Dave,” she assured. “And if you want to get out there yourself, the fastest way to—”
“Well I sure as hell can’t just lie in here all day! I can sit out on the porch and keep watch at least, can’t I? There’s a chair out there. I’ll need something to prop up my feet…”
Mei Lin stopped arguing. Why a man who was convinced he had nothing to live for would get so excited about a bear, she had no idea. But if the prospect of spying one of the rare creatures from his porch was enough to motivate him through even one more dose of medicine, she was all for it. She helped him hobble outside, settled him in his plastic Adirondack chair, and scouted around until she found a wooden crate to use as an ottoman. Then she brought out a blanket and covered his legs. It was a warm day for Gustavus — low sixties, perhaps — but the porch was in the shade and the breeze was cool. The whole time she worked, he babbled with excitement, hardly noticing her.
“To think of all the years I’ve waited to see a glacier bear! Shoot, it’s been my whole life! My grandfather saw one once, you know, up in Yakutat when he was a kid. He had cousins that lived up there. By the time I came along there was only Old Reggie left, but he was a character. We never saw a glacier bear, but we sure did try! When the boys were old enough we took them up there too, my dad and me. Such good times! And to think that in all those years, we never saw a damn thing, and now there’s a blue cub right on my own property! I can’t believe it!”
Despite his still-lingering fever and weakness from exertion, Mei Lin was surprised to hear Stanley flap his lips so carelessly. When he’d mentioned ‘the boys’ before, he’d been delirious. Whenever he was fully conscious he had denied having children.
“It’s funny,” Stanley continued. He looked at her without seeing her, his piercing eyes watching scenes from a lifetime ago. “I used to tell a story just like yours. Well, sort of. It was about a mother bear with two cubs, one black and one blue. There were these two brothers who would go out camping, and more than anything they wanted to see a glacier bear. But no matter how hard they tried, the bears always stayed just out of sight! They’re all following each other around, you know, and the cubs are just as interested in the boys because one of them has brown hair and the other blond…” He laughed to himself. “They loved that. And then there was this really funny part where the boys are stringing their pack up in a tree at night — you know, to keep the bears out of their food — but then the cubs figure out that—” He looked around his chair. “Can you grab my binoculars?”
“Where—”
“In the bin under the bed. Thanks. Anyway, so the cubs smell the food in the pack and decide to try…”
Mei Lin let him prattle on as she walked back into the cabin and reached under the bed. She pulled out a plastic storage bin and was surprised to find it full of crossword puzzle books. Had he not said he could barely write his name? Curious, she opened one and saw that the grids were filled in not with letters, but with dots and dashes. Morse code, she thought with amusement. Leave it to Stanley… he’d found a way to keep his brain active, even in his self-imposed solitary confinement. She replaced the puzzle book, located the binoculars, and shoved the bin back under the bed. When she returned to the porch he was still talking.
“And then the next day, they decided to kayak to a ‘secret island,’ but the cubs heard them talking and swam out first, you see…”
She laid the binoculars down in his lap and studied him as she pretended to listen. His cheeks were a healthier color and his blue eyes held a vibrant new sparkle. The optimist in her couldn’t help but smile.
There might just be hope for him after all.
Chapter 17
Margot’s heart beat rapidly as she dialed her younger son’s number. Jason’s hearty, cheerful “Yo” made her smile, even as she fretted. “Hi, honey,” she greeted. “I can’t reach your brother. His phone’s been off for a while and it’s got me worried. Is he there with you?” She thought she detected a sigh on the other end, but perhaps she was only imagining it. Something crashed in the background, and the voice swore, even as it remained cheerful.
“Well, his stuff is sure as hell here,” Jason answered. “Although
I swear half of it is mine. Dude never returns anything. Hey! So that’s where my pressure shower went!”
“I’m serious, honey,” Margot pleaded. “I’m worried. Do you know where he is?”
This time a sigh was definitely audible. “He’s on a plane, Mom. Keep calling, you’ll get him eventually.”
Her pulse increased. “A plane to where?”
“Juneau. I think.”
Alaska! But how could Thane have… no. He didn’t know anything. He was looking for a job up there, remember? Margot tried to calm herself. She was being ridiculous. Alaska was a big state. “But he’s all right?” she finished lamely.
“Why shouldn’t he be?” Jason returned.
“No reason,” she replied too quickly. She was worried about Thane for more reasons than one, but she had to watch what she said. Jason might or might not already know about the Vanessa situation, and if he didn’t, it was just as well. As difficult as her youngest son had been to raise, she did take some comfort in knowing that his obliviousness to family drama had left him a relatively happy, unencumbered adult. Thane was another matter. He’d always been more sensitive, which is why she was determined to deliver this latest bombshell about Vanessa in person. “It’s just that I haven’t seen him in a while… I haven’t seen either of you in a while. I was going to drive to Tofino tomorrow, but I guess I’ll have to wait. Do you know when he’ll be back?”
“Sorry. You’ll have to ask him,” Jason said blithely, seeming distracted.
Margot was not offended. Her youngest had been in a state of constant motion — and resistance — since toddlerhood, but he was a good son and she knew he loved her. She agreed that she would try Thane again, asked a few questions about Jason’s new surf lodge, embarrassed herself by asking about a girlfriend who was apparently now an ex, and then hung up.
