I shake my head, and she says, “Frankie, and Frankie’s not here right now. I can let you in this once, but you’ve got fifteen minutes before Frankie gets back from lunch. If Frankie catches you, you’re shrimp.”
I frown as she pushes the door open for me, then hustle behind her down the wide, gray-carpeted hall. “Just out of curiosity, what’s shrimp mean?”
She shoots a menacing look over her shoulder. “It means you’ll get your head bit off.”
I follow her around two corners, and at this point, my heart is pounding. The hall has started smelling more like a hospital or nursing home—that smell of soiled linens, cleaning chemicals, and sweat. We pass a row of slender metal doors, Chiclets punched into the drab, white wall, and I want to turn and run away. Cross can’t be here. It was bad enough at his last place, but at least it had luxury trappings to blunt the horror. This looks like exactly what it is.
Olive stops before a metal door and nods at it. “Better hurry.”
I push through the door without taking time to calm myself, and the sight of a stained blue curtain dividing the room shocks me. There’s barely enough space for a hospital bed between the curtain and the wall, and as my eyes move over the bed’s metal rails, I know it can’t be Cross because this patient is lying flat on his back with his—or her—head wrapped in gauze, and he or she is intubated. The breathing machine looming beside the bed makes a noise that brings back memories of a childhood full of ICUs.
I’m headed for the curtain, hoping against hope that Cross will be sitting up in his bed, when the curtain parts and a freckle-faced nurse appears. She’s frowning like she’s confused, and her shirt is tugged halfway over her head, exposing a lacy, black bra.
My heart leaps in elation. Cross...you wicked thing.
Then I smell the vomit. The nurse is holding a garbage bag, I realize. I quickly notice that the pale pink scrubs shirt she’s pulling off is flecked with yucky stuff. Did Cross barf on her?
I frown as she pushes down the stained shirt.
“What happened?”
“Mr. Russell, next door.” She frowns, and I realize she’s holding a clean shirt in her left hand. “What are you doing in here? You the new hire here to audit?”
I nod behind her. “I’m here to see my friend, Cross Carlson.”
Her face scrunches, unreadable. “Oh.”
I try to see past her, but she’s blocking my view.
“Hun, this is the college professor.” She leans her head back. “Dr. Dottswold.”
I look from left to right. “So wait, this isn’t Cross’s room?”
“He’s right behind you.”
My chest winds tight as I whirl to face the bed. I can’t wait to tell Miss Black Bra she’s wrong.
That person who is obviously on life support is—
Oh fuck no.
A cry rises in my throat, and there it dies. It’s like a giant is stepping on my sternum as I whirl on Black Bra, finding the curtain in place. I can hear a rustling sound as she changes behind it. I don’t care. I snatch it open, watching as her face twists in shock.
“What the hell happened?”
I can tell by the way her eyes widen that she’s clueless, even before she presses her mouth into a line and says, “I don’t know, ma’am. You know, it’s a Saturday and we don’t—”
“No.” I grit my teeth. “I don’t care what day of the week it is, I want to know what happened to him.” My voice is raised, almost to a yell. “If you can’t tell me what happened, find me someone who can.”
She’s looking at me like she thinks I’ve lost my mind, but I don’t care. “How do you know nothing? Isn’t he a patient of yours? Just recently he was awake and talking!”
The nurse scowls at me. “I can’t share details with you. You’re not family. You’re not supposed to be—”
I whip out my phony ID, the one that says Elizabeth Carlson, and shove it in her face. Her eyes harden, and she practically spits, “He had a bleed.”
“He had a what?”
She nods, folding her arms. “He had a brain bleed during the transport over. He had a stroke.” A small sigh escapes her lips, and she gives me a tired look. “I don’t know much about it because I wasn’t here. They said he might have been experiencing some pain.”
“That caused a stroke? How the hell does that happen? Like, his blood pressure went up really high or something?”
The nurse is moving closer to the door and I am moving with her, fully prepared to block her way if she tries to leave without giving me the long explanation.
“I don’t know ma’am.” She shrugs. “I’m not the one in charge. The doctors are.” Her hand is on the door.