by Lucy Kerr
*
After a twelve-hour shift, nothing feels better than your head hitting the pillow.
And nothing feels worse than someone waking you up a mere two hours later. It’s just long enough that your body has moved into deep sleep, but not long enough to actually feel rested.
“You didn’t tell me Steven Tibbs’s wife died!” My mother’s voice was an octave higher than usual and less than a foot away. I rolled over, giving her my back, and pulled the comforter over my head.
She tugged it away. “Why didn’t you say something this morning? I had to hear it from Helen Barker, of all people, smug as you please that she’d gotten the news first. You know I don’t allow television in the mornings, Francesca, but if this is how you’re going to behave I might have to reconsider.”
“Can we talk about this later? Like, in five hours? Or never?”
“Helen said you were there when they brought Kate in.” She sat on the edge of the bed as if readying herself for a long chat.
“I was, but I can’t tell you anything about it. There are privacy laws—which you well know—and I’m not going to risk my job because you want to one-up Helen Barker.”
“There’s no need to be snippy,” she grumbled. “It’s so awful. Poor Steven. He and Kate were such a sweet couple.”
“You knew them?” Of course she did. What my mother didn’t know about Stillwater, or couldn’t find out, wasn’t worth knowing.
“I’m voting for him, aren’t I?” Her gaze sharpened. “If you really want to know more about Steven, you should talk to Marshall.”
But I knew Steven. Everyone knew Steven. It was his wife who’d been run off the road, whose lungs I had pumped air into. Whose death I’d witnessed. “What was Katherine like?”
“Kate,” she said absently, tucking a wisp of silver-white hair back into its neat twist.
“Kate,” I echoed. The nickname made her seem more real, somehow. Less a patient, more a person. “Did you know her well?”
“Mostly by reputation. She wasn’t local, you know. She and Steven married while he was in law school, and when he moved home to take the job with the district attorney’s office, she got a job as a case worker at Children and Family Services.”
“Tough job,” I said. I’d spent plenty of time with social workers in the ER—we frequently called them in for cases of suspected abuse. Greenstick fractures, where a child’s bone breaks from being bent or twisted, cigarette burns, a thumb-shaped bruise … and those times when your sixth sense prickled, the ice in your gut and the hairs on your nape telling you that the usual ER philosophy—treat ’em and street ’em—didn’t apply. When keeping a child safe meant keeping them away from their parents.
“One of the toughest,” my mom said. “You treated her.”
It wasn’t a question, which meant I wasn’t breaking confidentiality. “I tried to.”
Her hand brushed over my shoulder, and she paused for a moment, watching me closely. “Helen said there was another driver. He was in the ER too, but he escaped before the police could arrest him.”
That was a generous description of events; it made it sound like I hadn’t screwed up at all. Had Noah planted that story, or was it one of my coworkers, trying to shield me? “Mom, come on.”
“I’m just asking!”
“Well, you’re asking the wrong person. Talk to the police.”
“Aren’t you and the MacLean boy talking again? I thought he might have mentioned something to you. A name? Helen didn’t seem to know.”
“I didn’t get a name.” Not a real one, at least. “When would Noah have talked to me?”
“Well, you saw him at the hospital. I assumed …”
Now I was fully awake. “Do you have actual spies around town, or have you upgraded to surveillance equipment? Drones, maybe?”
“So you did speak to him,” she crowed. “What did he say about Kate’s murder?”
“First of all, we don’t know that it’s murder,” I said. “It could’ve been an accident, considering how bad the storm was, and the driver freaked out and fled the scene. Second, even if Noah knew something, I’m the last person he’d share it with.”
“I thought you two …”
I cut her off. “Third, I’m going back to sleep. Wake me up when it’s time to get Riley, please.”
I retreated beneath the covers, and with a huff, my mother left. But the damage was done. Soon enough, my mom would find out that I’d been the one to let Kate’s killer escape; soon enough the whole town would find out. I would be the juiciest news on the grapevine. Even worse, it would be true, unlike half the gossip that flooded Stillwater regularly. My mistake, and I might as well own it.
And if I owned it, I should fix it.
For a long time I lay staring at the wall, wondering if the grapevine was right about something else too. Social workers tended to make a lot of enemies. So did politicians. Was it possible Kate Tibbs’s accident was actually murder?
*
“Feeling better?” I asked when I picked Riley up from school. The two-story redbrick building hadn’t changed since I’d been a student there. A barely suppressed shudder ran through me at the sight. Even the playground was the same—old-fashioned metal equipment and wood chips that left splinters embedded in your knees and palms. My hands stung at the memory.
She nodded glumly. Her color was better, but she’d lost her typical bounce. Even her pigtails seemed subdued.
“Does the lunchroom still smell like hot dogs?” I asked.
Riley made a face. “And bleach. Who was your teacher when you went here?”
“Mrs. Lundstrom,” I said. “She was pretty mean. Is your teacher nice?”
“I guess. She’s teaching us about fossils. Fossils are cool.”
She dribbled a soccer ball as we walked, feet scuffing through the still-sodden leaves. She glanced over at me, taking in my fleece jacket and scrubs.
“Do you have to work again tonight?”
“Yeah. Another twelve.”
“But I have a soccer game.”
I winced. I hadn’t thought to check Charlie’s meticulously color-coded family calendar before signing up for shifts. Coordinating schedules was a new experience for me. “I’m really sorry, Riley. I’ll try to catch the next one, okay?”
“Yeah, sure.” She kicked the ball a little too hard. It shot away, and she scrambled after it, propelled by barely concealed hurt.
When I caught up to her, she asked, “Why do you have to wear those clothes?”
“My scrubs?” I plucked at the blue poly-cotton shirt. “They show patients I’m a nurse. Plus, I get pretty dirty at work, and I’d rather keep my regular clothes clean, you know? They’re comfy too. Like pajamas.”
“But you look like everyone else,” she said. “That’s boring.”
Avoiding boredom was Riley’s mantra, in life as well as fashion. Today she was sporting purple-and-white-striped leggings under a pair of blue shorts, in deference to the chilly air, and a neon-green T-shirt that said, “You snooze, you lose,” beneath a red zip-front hoodie. She looked like a cross between a rainbow and a tornado, but somehow she managed to pull it off.
“I’m sorry I have to miss your game,” I said again. “You’re going to be awesome. Maybe your dad can record it, and you can give me the play-by-play tomorrow after school.”
She shrugged. “I guess. If you’re not working.”
“I’m off for a while now. Almost a week.”
“Really? Could we do something fun this weekend?”
I started to say yes but caught myself. “I’m supposed to help at the store.”
The soccer ball shot into a nearby hedge. “You’re always helping at the store.”
“Only for the weekend,” I said quickly, alarmed by the sheen of tears in her eyes. “Maybe we can have a movie night. Or bake cookies. Or we could get your Halloween costume. That would be fun, right?”
She considered this as she dug the soccer ball out fr
om the shrubbery. “I guess. Mom says you have to do something with all the junk you brought home.”
“It’s not junk,” I said. “And I did do something with it. I put it in the office.”
“Yeah, but Mom told Grandma it’s in the way.” She slipped her hand into mine. “You should bring it home and unpack. Then it wouldn’t be in the way, and you’d be all moved in.”
“Riley, there’s barely room for me in Grandma’s house. Besides, I’m only going to be here a few months. I’d have to turn around and pack it all up again.”
It would have been more practical to put everything in storage, but as my mother had pointed out, it was silly to spend money on a storage unit when the space above the store was free, in both senses of the word.
“I guess.” Riley’s face darkened. “Are you sure you have to work tonight?”
I tugged her pigtails, remembering only too well that feeling of powerlessness. “It’s not fair, is it?”
She leaned into me, smelling of pencil shavings and sunshine. “When will you be back?”
“In the morning, just like today. We’ll do something fun this weekend, okay? You and me. In fact, that’s your assignment while I’m at work tonight. Come up with an adventure for us.”
“Sausage biscuits?” she said hopefully.
“Excellent start,” I assured her. “But why stop there?”
Five
Despite Steven’s plea for privacy, television news vans had taken over the hospital parking lot, and a gaggle of reporters crowded the main entrance. Rather than fight my way through, I headed for the emergency room doors. Jess Chapman seemed to have the same idea. Keeping her head down and her coat collar up, she scurried through the rows of cars.
“Jess! Hold up!”
She started at the sound of her name, her shoulders easing as she spotted me. As I drew closer, she forced a smile.
“How are you doing?” I asked.
“Good. How are you?” The reply was rote and stiff, meant to discourage real conversation. It would’ve been the easiest thing in the world to follow suit and leave her to handle the lingering effects of a tough case on her own. But easy didn’t mean right. More senior nurses had helped me through my toughest traumas; it was only fitting that I pay those lessons forward.
“I’m hanging in there,” I said. “It always takes me a few days to bounce back after a case like last night.”
She blinked at my admission but didn’t respond. Her hands worried the strap of her tote bag as we continued walking. Rather than spook her by making eye contact, I hitched my backpack more securely over my shoulder and kept my gaze fixed on the building ahead of us.
“I used to think it was a sign of weakness, letting a patient’s death get to me,” I said. “The first time it happened, I threw up in the staff lounge. I figured if I wanted to be a good nurse, I had to toughen up. Turn off my feelings.”
Her voice was hoarse, barely audible. “I can’t.”
“Good,” I replied firmly. She glanced over at me, eyebrows lifted in a question. “I was wrong. We’re not meant to be robots, Jess. If you don’t care about your patients, you’re in the wrong line of work.”
“But …” She brushed a wisp of pink-streaked blonde hair from her eyes.
“Last night was rough. Every single person in that room took it hard, not just you.” I paused and took a deep breath. “I treated the other driver. The one who hit Kate Tibbs.”
She stumbled. “What?”
I recounted John Mueller’s arrival and escape. “If I had called security, they might have been able to detain him long enough for the police to arrest him. I didn’t, and he got away, and we don’t even know his real name.”
She shook her head, ponytail swinging emphatically. “You don’t know—”
“That he was the driver?” I finished for her. “I’d bet my nursing license on it. I let him get away, Jess, and that’s on me. Nobody else.”
“It’s not the same. You left him to save Kate’s baby. Everyone worked to save her baby, except me. I just …” She waved her hands, the gesture sheer frustration and helplessness. “I choked.”
“True.” A bitter pill, but I was in no mood for sugarcoating. She’d simply have to swallow it and move on, same as I would. “Next time, you won’t.”
“How do you know?”
“Because next time—and there’s always a next time, whether it comes in a month or five years from now—you’ll take a beat, you’ll remember last night, and you’ll tell yourself, ‘Never again.’” I shrugged as the doors to the ER lobby slid open. “And then you’ll get to work.”
“Never again.” Her expression shifted from distress to resolve, and she gave a short, sharp nod. “Never. Again. Thanks, Frankie.”
She headed toward the main elevators while Alejandro buzzed me through the ER security doors. The clock above the nurses’ station showed I was cutting it close, so I dashed to the lounge, stopping short when I saw the entire night shift assembled.
“Nice of you to join us, Stapleton,” Costello muttered as I edged my way into the room.
“Nice of you to be so welcoming,” I said sweetly. Apparently last night’s truce had an expiration date. He snorted and went back to studying a batch of test results. Esme, standing near the coffeemaker, waved hello.
“Did I miss an e-mail?” I asked as she scooted over to give me a scant few inches of wall. We normally began shift change clustered around the nurses’ station for a quick overview before assigning patients and reviewing their charts with the outgoing nurse. Despite the crowded lounge and late notice, this felt much more serious.
Before Esme could reply, the chatter in the room diminished from a hum to silence.
The source of the interruption was instantly clear. Grace Fisher, the hospital president, was making her way into the room, cool and elegant in a sage-green wool suit that made me acutely aware of every single wrinkle in my scrubs.
“We’ll start at seven on the dot,” she said in a clear carrying voice. “Everyone can relax until then.”
Despite her words, the tension in the room thickened. Hospital administration rarely visited the overnight shift. At Chicago Memorial, we didn’t see upper management unless something was very wrong—or unless you were engaged to a hotshot surgeon. Since I no longer fit the second category, I could only assume there was trouble on the horizon.
“Sale announcement?” Esme asked out of the corner of her mouth.
Consolidation was the name of the game in health care these days, and with the dearth of medical facilities in the area, Stillwater Gen looked like an excellent opportunity for big health care corporations looking to get bigger. But I’d seen enough hospital reorgs to know that the staff rarely came out ahead.
“I haven’t heard anything,” I replied. It seemed unlikely that the hospital could have been sold without my mother and her silver-haired intelligence network hearing about it. Before I could say anything more, Grace Fisher approached me.
“I understand you had quite an evening, Frankie.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said, wishing I hadn’t worn my hair in pigtails. Effective for keeping the short, wild curls out of my face when dealing with patients, but next to Grace’s cool polish, I felt like a ragamuffin.
“Rest assured that if the police feel any need to discuss matters with you further, hospital counsel—and the board—will support you fully.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
She nodded. “You’re settling in well otherwise? You and Dr. Costello have managed to iron out your differences?”
Nearby, Costello choked on his coffee.
She gave him a thin smile. “I’ll take that as a yes. Let’s begin, shall we?”
She strode to the front of the room, the crowd parting before her.
“As many of you know, we treated a high-profile patient last night. Katherine Tibbs was the wife of Steven Tibbs, an assistant district attorney and local resident who is running for Congress. While the te
am was unable to save Mrs. Tibbs, we were able to safely deliver her son, who is currently admitted to the NICU.”
A brief sympathetic murmur swelled, then ebbed as Grace continued. “Considering how close we are to Election Day, this has become a national news story, as you can tell from the media presence outside. However, it is also a very personal tragedy. The board and I expect that every member of the staff will maintain a strict No Comment policy when dealing with the press, even about matters not directly related to the Tibbs family. I will also reiterate that maintaining confidentiality is an expectation of all our staff, and violations relating to any of our patients will result in immediate dismissal and possible legal action.”
From behind me, someone said, “I heard it wasn’t an accident.”
The murmurs rose again, more persistent this time, but Grace pressed on. “The police are investigating the crash, and it is our intention to cooperate fully. Hospital counsel is sending out an e-mail detailing how privacy laws are applied during criminal inquiries, but if you have further questions, please contact them at any time. Our goal, as always, is to deliver the best possible care to our patients and to maintain the sterling reputation of Stillwater General. Thank you, and have a good shift.”
I sighed and filed out with the rest of the staff, eager to avoid any more conversations with Grace Fisher.
As we dispersed, I caught sight of Meg Costello in her purple hospital volunteer blazer. It never failed to amaze me that someone as perpetually cranky and bullheaded as Paul Costello could have raised such a sweet kid. Painfully shy, with clear hazel eyes and round cheeks, she was the kind of girl who, in ten years, would have finally come into her own. She’d be happy, confident, and stylish. For now, she was enduring adolescence with a heartbreaking stoicism.
“Hey, Meg! How are you?”
“I’m good,” she said, so quietly I had to strain to hear the words. “How are you?”
“I’m good, thanks.”
“My dad said you went home.”
“Just for a quick trip.” No doubt Costello would have preferred I stay in Chicago—and he hadn’t limited his commentary to the ER. “That reminds me, though …”
