by Hamel, B. B.
I snorted. “I remember.”
“What about you?”
“Joshua Tree by U2.”
“Beautiful, another band that used to be good and now is kind of—” She spread her hands out.
“Jumped the shark?”
“Exactly.”
I grinned. “Favorite TV show?”
“Easy. House.”
“Weird, that’s mine. And The Wire.”
“I think every doctor loves House.”
“Probably. We all like to think we’re as smart as he is, but the truth is, nobody is as smart as he is—because he doesn’t exist.”
“Wow, that’s almost admitting that you’re not a genius doctor.”
I held up a hand. “Easy there. Not going quite that far.”
She smiled and tapped a finger on her glass. “Why do you live in Philadelphia?”
“That’s an interesting question.”
“You’re a smart guy, young, single, doctor. You could live anywhere. Why here?”
I glanced down at the table for a second and composed my thoughts. I didn’t know how I’d say this without sounding awful—how I’d explain that Philly was the last place my family landed, back before my dad had his heart attack and lived out his last years as a ghost of the man he used to be, a specter still haunting my life. Philly was the first place that felt like home, even if nowhere was really home, not when I moved around so much.
“My mother lives here,” I said. “And I like the city. It’s walkable.”
She tilted her head. “That’s true.”
“What about you? Why here?”
“Grew up in the suburbs, so I guess Philly’s always been it for me.”
“I moved around a lot as a kid. Dad was a military man and he dragged us all over the country.”
“Must’ve been hard.”
“Sure, parts of it were. Sometimes I wondered why he had a family.”
She raised an eyebrow at that. “What do you mean?”
“He was distant. Controlling. Demanding. Borderline abusive.” I should’ve said, straight-up abusive fuckface, but I couldn’t bring myself to go all the way. “Wasn’t a pleasant man to be around. Sometimes I wondered why he had a family.”
“Huh. Is that something you want?”
I shrugged. “I think so. Wife, children, white picket fence. That’s the dream, right?”
“Sure,” she said, looking away with an odd expression on her face. “Children. House in the suburbs. The dream.”
“Do you want kids?”
She jerked her arm a little almost as if I pinched her shoulder. Her wine glass tipped from her fingers and spilled all over the keyboard of my laptop.
“Oh, shit,” she said, standing up and knocking the chair back.
I jumped up and grabbed the computer. I went to turn it off and flipped it upside down to drain—and hesitated, staring at the spreadsheet that was open on the screen. The numbers still didn’t make sense, not exactly, but I noticed a pattern, a few recurring numbers and letters that were scattered all throughout the space, something I wouldn’t have noticed if I hadn’t flipped it around. But I couldn’t think about that too much. I turned the laptop and wiped as much of the wine off with a towel as I could before turning it upside down to dry out. Fiona paced back and forth, wringing her hands and making a horrified face.
“It’s okay,” I said, “it’ll be okay. It’ll dry out.”
“Oh my god, I’m so sorry,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m so stupid and clumsy. I’m so sorry, I’ll buy you a new one.”
“Seriously, it’s okay.” I laughed a little and took a step toward her. “You must really hate kids, huh?”
Her face turned red. I blinked in surprise as she gulped down the last swallow of wine in her glass and turned away from me. “I should go,” she said.
“Wait, hold on.”
“Really, I’m sorry, but I should go.”
“Fiona—”
She marched to the door. I followed, but not too close as she pulled it open and stepped outside. I wanted to tell her to stop, to grab her wrist and pull her against me, but she didn’t hesitate as she hurried away.
I sighed, watched her step out the main door and onto the sidewalk, then shut my apartment.
“Damn,” I said softly.
Something about kids set her off. I wasn’t sure why or what exactly it meant—but something about children put her on edge.
I walked back into the kitchen and stared at the laptop. I could picture the spreadsheet again, and the pattern remained in my mind, but the letters and numbers were gone. I couldn’t risk turning it back on, not until the alcohol dried out and dripped out of the computer, which meant I’d have to try to hold on to whatever I saw until it was safe to boot back up.
In the meantime, I cleaned up, saved the leftovers, and tried to figure out how the hell I fucked that up so badly.
9
Fiona
Unfortunately, I didn’t die of embarrassment as soon as I left Dean’s apartment that night, so I spend the next shift awkwardly trying to avoid him.
It’s not too hard. He doesn’t come to my floor often unless he has a patient, and fortunately he doesn’t have any nearby. I drift from room to room, doing my usual thing, keeping half an eye out on the hallway for any hint of him.
Mary noticed, of course. Bless her heart, but that lady can’t keep to keep herself to herself, no matter how hard she tried—although I sort of doubted that she tried at all.
“What’s with you this evening?” she asked as I sat down after checking in on a patient and kept craning my neck to stare down the hallway.
“What? Uh, nothing.” I leaned forward to stare at the monitor.
She made a face. “Don’t give me that. Something’s up. You’re jumpy.”
“I’m not jumpy.”
“You’re sitting there, ready to get up and run away at any second. Don’t try to tell me you’re not jumpy.”
“I’m fine.” I took a deep breath and gave her a look. “Really. I’m fine.”
She didn’t believe me, of course. The woman was a professional gossip first and a nurse second, which meant she could smell someone trying to hide something from a mile away. She leaned toward me, eyebrows raised with a look of pure innocence in her eyes, and took on a concerned tone.
“You can tell me if it’s one of the doctors,” she said. “You’ve been spending a lot of time with Dr. Coarse.”
I grimaced. “It’s got nothing to do with him.”
“But it’s something.”
I stood up abruptly and glared at her. “Mary, I swear, if you—”
I didn’t get to finish that sentence, because the monitor began beeping like crazy, and I shifted into crisis mode.
That was how it happened in a hospital. One second, you’re talking with a coworker, minding your own business, going through the motions of a perfectly normal evening—and the next you’re sprinting to a patient’s room, ready to save a life.
He was an older man, presented with tachycardia and pale lips. We gave him oxygen, got his heart settled, but the doctors wanted to keep him overnight for observation. He seemed to improve throughout the day, but for some reason, his heart decided to give out.
I didn’t think much. My training took over as we got the crash cart and worked on him, Mary moving with practiced precision, knowing what I’d need and when I’d need it as the doctor got called in. I managed to bring the man back in under two minutes, which was good—and we spent the next ten minutes stabilizing him as the doctor ripped through his chart, trying to figure out what the hell happened.
It was strange, working a job that teetered on the edge at all times. I saved a life, brought a man back from death, and I wouldn’t win any awards for it, wouldn’t get any thanks, any bonuses, any medals—only the satisfaction of knowing that if I hadn’t acted when I did, that man would be gone.
I returned to my station, sweaty and trembling from the adrenal
ine. Mary put a hand on my shoulder and sat down next to me, leaning back in her chair and closing her eyes. “Funny how that goes,” she said.
“I know.”
“You did good in there. I think he’d be gone without you.”
“Thanks, Mary. Same goes for you.”
“We make a good team.” She laughed and stretched. “Why don’t you go and get cleaned up? You look exhausted. I saw you’ve been pulling a lot of late shifts and overtime, huh?”
“Can’t help myself, I guess I just love it here at Mercy.”
She laughed again and waved me on. “Go ahead, get cleaned up, I’ll hold down the fort.”
I stood and nodded my thanks. “I’ll be back soon. I appreciate it.”
The hospital seemed quiet as I made my way toward the staff lounge bathroom nearby. It always felt that way after an emergency: the wild, incredible intensity of saving a life, of doing everything possible to keep a person alive, contrasts with the otherwise mundane existence of a hospital.
Fact was, a lot people healed on their own. We kept them stable, but the human body is pretty amazing about recovering. For the most part we make people comfortable, make sure they’re not getting worse, and give them time. Some need aggressive intervention; many don’t. That’s not exciting, or flashy, or loud, and so mostly my days are spent in quiet boredom, punctuated by moments of incredible, intense action.
I reached the lounge and put my hand on the knob—but heard someone call my name.
I looked over and spotted Maria coming toward me. She had a placid smile on her face and worse a smart, comfortable black pantsuit. I went completely still and felt my blood run cold with fear.
Saving a life didn’t make me freeze up. When a man’s existence hung on the balance, I did what I had to do and didn’t think twice. But staring down the barrel of Maria’s politician-smile, I wanted to turn and bolt, but couldn’t make my legs move.
“Fiona, how are you?” she asked, stopping nearby.
“Doing fine,” I said. “How are you?”
She shrugged. “Not too bad. Funny running into you again. Weren’t you just up on my floor recently?”
“Oh, right,” I said, pretending like I forgot and doing a horrible job. “That’s funny.”
“Of course, you were with Dr. Coarse last time. How is he doing? He’s a very busy man, or so I hear.”
I shook my head. “I wouldn’t know. We don’t work together often.”
“And yet the two of you made a visit to my office the other night.”
My mouth fell open and she kept smiling at me like nothing was the matter. I felt a scream sit on the edge of my lips and nearly force itself out but I pushed it back and swallowed it down. I smiled back like my life depended on it, like she’d open up her jaws and eat me whole if I couldn’t pretend like this was no big deal.
Maria was a snake. She had to have a little reptile in her if she wanted to be able to reach the heights she’d reached. People didn’t become the head administrator of a large urban hospital without a little bit of ruthlessness in them. She had to play the game, the political game, and manage to win more often than not—and that made her a scary, formidable person.
I hadn’t thought about it before, and I wish I had.
“I’m not sure what you mean,” I said. “We were on that floor to—”
“I have a camera on my bookshelf.” The words came out and her smile faltered, only a little bit, but enough to show the rage lurking behind her fake grin. “It’s motion-activated.”
“Oh,” I said. “Right. Okay. That. I can explain that.”
She stepped closer. I wanted to step back, but I was too close to the door. I looked around like someone might come and save me, but the hallway was empty and the building seemed almost cavernous and immense.
“I want you to think very carefully before you answer me, Fiona. I want you to take a deep breath, and think about this.” She stared at me, eyes dead and cold. “What did you find?”
I took a deep breath, like instructed, and let it out. “Nothing,” I said. “We were looking—”
“Don’t lie to me,” she hissed, and in that moment, I realized what was happening.
She was scared. She didn’t know what we found, and that freaked her out. If she was innocent, there was no way we’d be having a conversation right now. She would simply show the video evidence to HR and have me fired on the spot—and maybe press criminal charges. Instead, she was worried about what we found, and she hadn’t done any of that yet, because she probably thought we’d release any damning documents if she tried to get rid of us.
I almost laughed. I couldn’t help myself. I thought she had the upper hand here, but in fact I still had some cards up my sleeve.
“I’m not lying,” I said, trying to talk to her like she was an unruly patient. “We went in, looked at your financial records, copied everything from your laptop, and then we left. Not much in there.”
Her eyes went wide and her smile fell away. “You stole from my laptop?”
“Oh, well, of course,” I said, shrugged like it was no big deal. “You keep your password in your desk drawer.”
Her face drained of color and went a strange, sickly pale. “You copied my documents. From my computer.”
“I’m sorry, I guess I should’ve mentioned that right away.” I shrugged a little and beamed at her. “Is there anything else I can do for you, Maria?”
She seemed to gather herself and managed to stand up straight. Her face was still pale, but the anger slipped back into her eyes, and I caught a glimpse of the python there wrapped around her heart, waiting to slither around my throat and squeeze.
“I want you to understand something,” she said, speaking softly. “You broke into my office. You stole documents from my computer. You should be in handcuffs right now.”
“And yet I’m not, which is strange, don’t you think?”
“The only reason you’re not is that I feel bad for you. I get it, Dr. Coarse is very convincing. But whatever he said to make you think you should follow him, I’d really think twice about that. If you come clean and tell me what you took—”
“It wasn’t his idea,” I said, shaking my head. “It was mine.”
She blinked rapidly. “Excuse me?”
“I know what you’re doing, Maria. And I’m going to prove it.”
“You stupid girl,” she hissed.
I faced her, gathering my courage. “If I were you, I’d get the hell out of this hospital before we come forward with everything. Do you understand?”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“Then I guess we’ll see how this all shakes out, won’t we?”
She stood still, glaring at me, then shook her head once and turned. “You’re making a mistake. You have no clue who’s involved here.”
“I know more than you think.” I opened the door to the lounge. “Have a nice day, Maria.”
She walked off without another word. I watched her go for a moment, then stumbled into the lounge, found the bathroom, and puked into the toilet.
I knelt there breathing hard, sweat dripping down my back and under my arms. I felt horrible, like someone scraped the inside of my stomach with a steel wool sponge. I got to my feet, splashed some water on my face, and looked at myself in the mirror. Bags hung under my eyes and my skin was blotchy from stress.
She knew—she knew and she hadn’t done anything yet, which meant she was guilty.
But we couldn’t prove it yet. And now it was a race to see who could make something happen first. Maria would try to discredit us as soon as she could, and when that happened, we needed to be ready with the proof that would take her down.
I nodded to myself then turned and went to find Dean.
10
Dean
I was so deep into the spreadsheets that I didn’t hear her knock at first. I jumped when she banged on my door again and stood up, only getting halfway there before she threw it open and came insid
e.
Fiona looked freaked as hell as she stared at me. Her face was pale, her eyes bloodshot, and she trembled slightly, like a cold breeze blew through the window. I took a step toward her, reaching out, but she flinched away.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Maria knows.”
Those two words made my heart stop. “What?”
“She came to me—she said she has a camera in her office—she knows, Dean. She knows.”
I didn’t move and stared at her for what felt like forever. My mind raced as I tried to make sense of this, and I had a hard time fitting all the pieces together. Maria knew that we broke into her office, but that didn’t make any sense. If she had proof that we were in there, and that we stole from her, then she should’ve gone right to the police and gotten us arrested.
I gently moved toward Fiona again and steered her over to a chair. She sat without much resistance and I sat in the chair next to her. I leaned over and put my hands on her legs, staring into her eyes.
“Tell me exactly what she said.”
She gave me a rundown of their conversation as best she could. When she finished, I stood and paced across the tight room before stopping near the desk, hand resting on the edge of my laptop.
“She’s afraid,” I said.
Fiona nodded. “I think so too.”
“Which means I’m right.” I laughed a little, shaking my head. “God damn her. She’s clever.”
“What are you talking about?”
I looked back at her and hesitated. “I’ve been staring at the numbers since last night.”
“I thought we agreed it’s all gibberish.”
“And it still is, but I started to notice some patterns.” I turned the laptop toward her and pointed at the first row. “Three letters. Always three. And look, you see some of them occur over and over again, see that?”
She nodded. “LMR and DCK keep coming up.”
“A few others too. Each series of letters is linked with a few different numbers in these columns, and the numbers and letters seem totally random, right?”
