Chapter 12 Clocking Out
Chapter twelve
Clocking Out
Lynnette knew in her gut that being summoned back to the nurse manager’s office barely halfway through her scheduled shift could only mean her day was about to get worse. Somehow. She paused outside the closed door, drew a deep, steadying breath, and tapped.
“Enter,” Gayle called immediately.
Lynnette held tightly to the stupid clipboard with her other hand and let herself into the room.
She maneuvered with practiced ease out of the door’s swing so that she could swiftly close it again, her mouth opening to offer a greeting before she noticed Claire sitting in one of the chairs in front of the desk.
Her entire body stiffened and the words she’d intended died on her tongue.
Claire offered her a cold smile.
“Step closer, Garver,” Gayle said without rising from her desk. “I don’t feel like shouting across the room.”
I don’t particularly feel like standing within arm’s reach of a woman who’s decided to make an enemy of me.
But she couldn’t say that. More than likely, Claire was playing another bullshit game.
Lynnette would have to be calculated with her pushback.
So, she strode forward. When she was facing Gayle more directly, able to meet the older woman’s eyes from over the top of her desk items, she came to a stop.
Not quite centered enough to be able to drop into the open chair.
“What did you need from me?” She spoke the words directly to Gayle, not looking at Claire or in any other way acknowledging her.
Just as Claire had demanded.
Gayle held out her hand. “Clipboard.”
Alarms ringing in her head, Lynnette passed over the clipboard. It wasn’t like it was hers to keep, anyway.
Gayle set it down without looking it over. “It’s come to my attention that one of our patients threw you out of his room today.”
Nerves twisted Lynnette’s stomach, but she didn’t flinch or allow herself to avert her eyes.
“He did,” she confirmed. It wasn’t a secret.
“I reported it to the nursing desk as soon as it happened, so the note could get into his file more quickly. But it’s also documented there.
” She dipped her head to indicate the stack of ignored papers.
Gayle’s expression didn’t crack. “And do you know why he did that?”
Lynnette gave a small shake of her head. “No, ma’am. It caught me completely by surprise.”
Claire scoffed roughly. “Sorry, excuse me,” she said, a smile in her voice, when Gayle cut her a look.
She shouldn’t be here for this conversation. Still, Lynnette held her tongue. Accurate though the fact was, it wasn’t an argument she gave enough of a crap about to make more waves over.
“Hm.” Gayle leaned back in her chair, eyes narrowed up at Lynnette behind her glasses. “Do you have anything else to add to that?”
Lynnette hesitated. “Anything else?” Again, she shook her head. “Other than my concerns about his mental state, which are documented, there’s nothing else to add. That’s all that happened.”
“So, you’re telling me that a patient we’ve had in our care nearly two weeks, without incident, suddenly went senile and threw you out of his room as if you were some sort of … how would you describe it? Threat? Did he seem as if he felt threatened?”
Chest tightening with anxiety, Lynnette replied, “That could be a word for it, yes. He recoiled from the sight of me and insisted I leave, insisted he would comply with another nurse but not me, and declared if I did not leave, he would press his call button and scream for security.” All of which she’d noted, but Gayle hadn’t bothered to look.
“He was definitely frightened, for some unfathomable reason.”
Gayle tapped one trimmed nail against her arm. “Thank you for answering my questions, Garver.” She paused, her tone and expression as inviting as a shell of armor. “Unfortunately, we have a very different story from the patient.”
Lynnette’s brows flew up her forehead.
“Claire herself took the complaint,” Gayle continued, motioning to the woman who had no business in their conversation.
“We have an elderly patient, too frail to leave his hospital bed, specifically accusing you, Nurse Garver, of making inappropriate advances toward him and violating other patients’ privacies by gossiping to him in what he believed was an attempt to wear him down. ”
Horror washed over Lynnette as Gayle’s words assaulted her ears.
No such thing had ever happened. It was appallingly ironic that such an accusation was coming from the man who couldn’t keep his dick covered—which all the nurses on the floor were aware of—but suddenly she had made inappropriate advances?
Gayle’s glare sharpened to a razor-fine point. “He even said you put hands on him, over his gown, and offered to ‘relieve him’.”
Lynnette would have gagged at the mere suggestion if she weren’t too busy struggling to breathe beneath the weight of the unprovable lie. The notion, the mere suggestion, horrified her. It infuriated her that anyone would even entertain the thought that those words were true.
She’d never done anything to offend the man so terribly as to prompt him to destroy her in such a way.
But Claire’s here for a reason. And while the reason probably was, actually, just to watch her lose the fight Claire had started, there would need to be a more solid one for Gayle to justify having this kind of conversation in front of a third party. Claire was the source.
Claire was the fucking puppet master.
Lynnette curled both hands into fists at her sides and held her head steady, letting the anger show on her face. “I have never, and I would never, do something so reprehensible.”
“Are you calling our patient a liar?” Gayle challenged.
“No.” Yes. But she imagined he’d been bribed or baited in some way, and deserved less of her anger than the real culprit.
Because he was frail, and ailing, and that made him malleable.
So, she pointed firmly to the side, index finger crudely extended toward Claire’s smug face, without turning her head to look at the bitch. “I’m calling her a liar.”
Gayle’s lips thinned. She was unimpressed and unsurprised.
“Get your nasty finger out of my face before I catch whatever you’ve caught in those bar fights of yours,” Claire snapped.
Lynnette turned her head in Claire’s direction without lowering her arm.
“The silence is either mutual or nil. Pick one.” She held Claire’s seething glare for a second, then rolled her focus forward and let her arm drop to her side.
“Did Claire offer any sort of proof to those atrocious claims besides hearsay?”
Gayle laid her arms on the armrests of her chair and raised her chin. “Here at Klamath Community Hospital, we take the word of our patients very seriously. That patient has never given us reason to believe him dishonest before. To the contrary, you were already on thin ice, Garver.”
Are you fucking kidding me?
“Go finish closing out Blackburn, his paperwork should be ready by now. Then come back to my office to pick up your final check. Do not look in on any other patients, under any circumstance.”
Lynnette’s eyes flew wide. “You can’t fire me on word-of-mouth.”
Gayle’s brows narrowed. “I listened to your side of the story first,” she countered. “You offered no evidence to defend yourself.”
“Evidence?” Lynnette exclaimed. “How the hell am I supposed to prove something didn’t happen? The point is proving something did!”
“It’s decided,” Gayle snapped. “Finish out the soldier’s paperwork, then straight back here. You don’t need even the clipboard for that.” The spark in her eyes made it clear the decision had been made before Lynnette had ever stepped into the office.
Lynnette’s hands curled again into fists and she turned her own glare back to Claire and that damn smug smirk on her over-glossed lips. “This is slander,” she said, so angry her voice was nearly a growl, “and I will not drop it.”
“Wow, bitter much?” Claire returned, her eyes widening in a mockingly shocked expression. “I don’t know how you ever got a license at all. Come after me and I might have to challenge you for that next.”
“Out, Garver,” Gayle said firmly.
Lynnette let her glare linger on Claire for another second before spinning on her heel and striding from the room. Only ingrained manners kept her from slamming the door.
Her heart raced wildly as she made her way down to see if Lance’s discharge papers were ready. As if she needed one more nail in the coffin of her day. I suppose I was losing him today, regardless. The thought was supposed to help, but it only added to the agitation.
Fired. Over a bullshit accusation. What the hell did Claire even hate her for?
Was it because Lynnette had corrected her terminology in the breakroom on Monday?
Or was this all because Lynnette had interrupted Claire’s irresponsible flirting and the literal damage it had caused?
That would make a tad more sense, but the bitch had already been being catty to her.
It wasn’t like Lynnette was even expected to be a permanent addition to their unit, so jealousy didn’t seem likely.
She blew out a heavy breath and forcibly unclenched her hands.
It didn’t matter why Claire hated her. The bitch had played her hand at the perfect time, and Gayle, who was apparently pro-Bishop, had latched onto the opportunity to rid the hospital of Lynnette altogether. Gayle had the authority to do that.
That didn’t mean Lynnette wasn’t within her rights to sue the shit out of them. Just as soon as she could find and afford a decent lawyer.
She dropped her forehead to Amy’s desk with a sigh that was far too honest.
“Well, that doesn’t seem good,” Amy said, speaking more quietly than usual. Most likely because her afternoon coworker had arrived.
Lynnette forced herself up to her elbows. “Is Lance’s paperwork ready?”