Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
KATERINA
“ W hat do you mean, he didn’t turn up for his shift? I need him in here now. There’s no way I’m letting you touch this patient again,” I bark at Nurse Henshaw, who’s screwed up yet another one of my charts. The first thing I did when we realised that Danny wasn’t my stalker, was swap him back on to my service. Not for any other reason than he’s a phenomenal nurse, but unlike Nurse Henshaw, he rarely fucks up my entire day by letting me resuscitate a DNR by switching the charts on my patients.
This day has gone downhill from the minute I stepped onto the surgical floor.
“I’m so sorry, Doctor Mancini. I don’t know what happened.”
“What happened is you spent more time discussing the age difference between me and my fiancé than you did focussing on your fucking job.” She blanches at the harshness of my words, but as fuck-ups go, this is a big one.
“That’s not tru?—”
“If you think your judgemental-as-fuck voice doesn’t carry, then you are sorely mistaken, Nurse Henshaw. Had you been doing your job and not telling everyone who’d listen that I’m ‘too busy fucking an old man these days’, then this would never have happened.” I raise my voice and don’t miss the growing audience or the way their eyebrows climb higher and higher with each cutting barb I throw out.
“What the hell is going on in here?” the Chief of Surgery bellows, his voice carrying into the room before he enters. “Both of you. In my office. Now.”
The meeting with the chief went about as well as I’d expected and resulted in my spending most of the afternoon with our legal department, assessing our liability. The long and the short of it was Nurse Henshaw being fired and my being put on administrative leave until a settlement could be reached with the next of kin.
I’m not upset. It’s the right thing to do, but there’s a part of me that wants five minutes alone with Nurse Henshaw for putting patient care at risk. I’m more than happy to own up to my mistakes, but it sits like a bag of rocks in my gut knowing that my error is as a result of her incompetence.
This never would have happened if Danny had been running my service. That realisation stirs feelings of guilt for ever having suspected him of being capable of sending me all those notes. Maybe I would have taken them more seriously if I hadn’t assumed they were from him. How big is my ego that I thought his friendliness equated to an unhinged stalker?
I head straight to my locker after getting the standard spiel from our lawyer. Don’t talk to the next of kin, don’t discuss this with your colleagues, and go home until they clear me to come back to work . It doesn’t take me long to grab my stuff, but it’s still bugging me that Danny hasn’t turned up for his shift. It’s not like him, so I dig out my phone and sift through my contacts until I find him. There’s another twinge of remorse when I remember he’s blocked.
The call rings off to voicemail but I don’t leave a message. I have no idea what I want to say anyway, I just want to make sure he’s okay and it’s not like I have any right to know. However, there is someone else who might have an idea, and they pick up on the second ring.
“I thought you were in surgery?” Marcus questions, like it’s personally offending him that my plans have changed.
“Long story but I’m about to head home. Anyway, that’s not why I’m calling.”
“Really, because that would be super helpful. You know, being informed of a change relating to the person you’re supposed to be watching. If you’re going to ban us from the surgical floor then we need to be kept informed, Doc.” There’s a lightness to his voice, so I know he’s teasing me, but he’s not wrong.
“Fine, I’ve been put on administrative leave for the next few days so watching me just got a whole lot easier. I’ll be sitting on the couch with a good book for the foreseeable future,” I say with equal flippancy.
“What happened?” he asks, his voice now gruff and hard, like he’s about to march into the hospital and go to bat for me.
“Down boy. There was a patient error, not my fault but it needs to be investigated. That’s not why I’m calling you.” There’s a begrudging grunt on the other end of the line and I smile a little at the idea that Marcus would be upset on my behalf. “Danny Costello?” I prompt.
“What about him?”
“He’s MIA.” I reply.
“I’m gonna need more than that Doc.”
“He hasn’t turned up for his shift. Please tell me we haven’t done anything to him?”
“Of course we haven’t. We dropped surveillance on him weeks ago.” There’s a pause before he continues. “But it is odd. I followed the guy for weeks and if there’s one thing I know about him is that his routine is everything. Like obsessively so. Skipping out on work doesn’t sound like him.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“I don’t have anyone free right now,” he’s quick to reply. Trying to shut down the suggestion he knows is coming.
“I’m literally on my way home. Can’t you go and check it out?”
“No. Stefano would gut me.”
“He’d also gut you if you didn’t look into this.” My counter is weak at best. True, but still weak. “What if I agreed to stay here at the hospital until you got back?”
“The answer is no, Doc,” he snaps, but he quickly offers me a compromise. “Once you’re home safe, then I’ll check it out.”
“Deal.”
A sense of relief washes over me and I end the call so I can gather my stuff to leave. As I make my way through the hospital, it’s obvious word has spread about the mix-up. I’m greeted with half a dozen platitudes, telling me I’ll be back in no time, and how the suspension is just a formality, but it strikes me that I’m not sure I care.
I’m entirely unbothered. Which I know I probably should be. Shouldn’t the Chief of General Surgery be at the very least a little angry at being suspended? Even if it is only temporary.
But I’m not. I’d even go so far as to say I’m glad to be leaving. If the last few months have taught me anything, it’s that it’s not what I do that brings me joy, it’s helping the people I love. And after everything the Bianchi organisation has been through, we’re all owed a break. I’m looking forward to curling up on the sofa with a glass of wine and formulating a plan to jump Stefano the minute he steps through the door.
I wait patiently for the elevator to the parking garage and when the doors finally open there’s just enough room to squeeze in at the front.
Pulling out my necklace from under my collar, I unhook my new ring and place it on my finger. I hold out my hand and inspect it, like a magpie distracted by shiny things, and smile as the fluorescent lights reflect off the facets. I’m too caught up in its beauty to pay attention as the people get off the elevator on each floor.
The first time I realise there’s something wrong is a shuffle and scrape of shoes behind me. It’s sudden and startles me. I’ve barely had time to turn my head when there’s a sharp prick in my neck. It pinches for a second before a warm sensation spreads over me. I feel like a TV screen about to go into standby, only I can’t find the remote to press a button and stop it from happening. I don’t want to shut down. But as my eyelids grow heavy, I can’t seem to fight it.
As I fall back into someone’s arms, I struggle to make sense of what I’m seeing. My head lolls to the side and my vision is obscured by a swath of green fabric. I try to lift my head and the last thing I see before darkness takes me is a pleated surgical mask and a pair of familiar dark eyes, brimming with a terrifying and malevolent joy.