Chapter 2
Chelsea raced into the hospital, still adjusting her uniform. Her supervisor looked up and frowned. “I do have a good excuse,” Chelsea began immediately.
“I don’t care how good—”
“I was asked to identify a murdered man, so I’m hoping that will change your mind.”
Gladys dropped a file on the counter of the nearby nurses’ station, then looked up at her, doubt all over her expression. Chelsea quickly explained, and Gladys shook her head. “You’re just a glutton for punishment, aren’t you?”
“I hope not,” she muttered. “I’m really just trying to get through my training.”
“Showing up on time will get you there a lot faster.”
Chelsea winced at that because Gladys was correct.
Chelsea didn’t really need the rebuke on top of everything else she was dealing with right now, but her super was nothing if not a hard-ass.
Still, she came with a good reputation and prided herself on the quality of nurses she turned out.
They were counted on as knowing their jobs.
Simply because of that, a good reference from Gladys meant a good job in the near future, a job Chelsea needed badly.
Chelsea got to work immediately, but it was really hard to keep focused, with her mind wandering back to the picture of the dead man. He really did look familiar, but she couldn’t place him. By the time her first break came along, she was exhausted.
Gladys told her to take her break and added, “Maybe try to put all that out of your mind so you’re not so distracted.”
Chelsea turned back to her. “Am I being distracted?” When Gladys nodded, Chelsea asked her again, “It’s that obvious?”
Gladys shrugged. “I can’t imagine that something like that isn’t distracting,” she noted, “but it’s showing in your work, and that’s all I care about.”
Of course it was all she cared about, but it was still a hard thing to stomach because a man was dead. Even though Chelsea wanted to work in the medical field, she didn’t want to lose her humanity, and that made it even harder to deal with her job at times.
As soon as she went into the lunch area, the other nurses and some more trainees looked over at her. One of them asked her, “Is it true?”
She looked at them in confusion. “What?”
“Super told us that you were questioned about a dead man.”
“Well, yes, but only if I could identify him,” she clarified. “So, yeah, that part is true.” She shook her head, taking a seat. “Apparently murder is rampant in town, and that’s why I was late. Not that it let me off the hook.”
“Nothing lets you off the hook for work,” quipped one of the others, laughing. “You know that as well as we do. If she can get you on it, she’ll do it.”
Chelsea groaned. She quickly poured herself a cup of coffee, pulled her lunch out of the fridge, and sat down.
She was gulping down the food when one of the women reached over and whispered, “Hey, take it easy.”
Chelsea saw the bulk of her sandwich already gone and groaned. “I guess I’m really stressed, aren’t I?”
“It sure looks like it, and we get it. Just don’t let Gladys get to you.”
“How do you not? I mean, she holds our future in her hands.”
“No, she doesn’t. She likes to have everybody sucked into believing that, but she must have a hell of a good case for failing us at this point.”
“I don’t even want that to be part of the question though,” Chelsea said immediately. “I’ve worked hard to get here.”
“In a way you’ve worked way harder than everybody I know,” her coworker stated, “but I still don’t want you to kill yourself in the process.”
“No, that wouldn’t be good either.” Chelsea slowly rotated her neck and finished eating her sandwich at a snail’s pace compared to how she had been earlier. “Has anybody ever failed here?”
“Yep, absolutely,” she stated. “I’m not sure we can even blame Gladys for that. When you show up drunk, under the influence, if you steal, if there’s a big-enough screwup, you can wash out in a lot of ways.”
“Not everybody makes it,” another woman added, and her tone was somber.
“Well, all of those sound like pretty-good reasons,” Chelsea admitted.
“They are. Absolutely they are, but it still sucks if you have a bad night, and it all blows up on you,” one of the women pointed out.
“And do you know somebody who that happened to?”
“Yeah, I sure do, and nursing is not always for just anybody,” she added. “So don’t let this be the be-all and end-all of your world.”
“I’m trying not to,” Chelsea said, “but it’s hard when I’ve had so many setbacks already. I keep trying to get back on my feet, and something drops me down again.”
“Which is another reason I’m concerned about you,” said her worried coworker, “though you really are doing great.”
Chelsea looked over at her, gave a wry sigh, and muttered, “I really appreciate the compliment, but I don’t think our super agrees with you at all.”
She smiled. “She’ll never let it be known one way or another. However, if she didn’t like you, she wouldn’t have given you such an easy pass today.”
“Yeah, but I had a reasonable excuse.”
“Sure, I know that, and you know that. However, I also know that, when it comes to her, it’s not always quite so simple. She can be far more than a hard-ass when she wants to be.”
There was so much truth to that, which made Chelsea smile.
She nodded, wondering if maybe she was doing okay after all.
It wasn’t like her to have all these doubts and second thoughts, but everything in her world had flipped with the revelations about her mother.
Even now she was very concerned and unsure how anything would play out.
She knew that she’d lost the farm property, but then it wasn’t ever hers to begin with.
Thankfully her cousin was more than happy to have her stay there, which would go a long way in getting her caught up on her bills.
But she still had a way to go, and there was absolutely no way to get out of debt very quickly.
By the end of her shift, the extra worrying and the stress of being late and trying to make it back up again had her absolutely exhausted. She couldn’t remember the last time she felt this bad. As she headed to her vehicle, it was all she could do to not stumble in place. She was done.
She just wanted to go home. As she stepped toward her vehicle, she heard a sound, but it didn’t register right away.
By the time she turned and saw a vehicle barreling down on her, it took her a moment for her to realize what was happening.
With a squawk she threw herself off to the side as it raced past her and out of the parking lot.
All she saw was a large black truck. She lay here on the ground for a moment before slowly picking herself up.
Reaching for her phone, she automatically called Joel, never questioning why.
“Hey,” he greeted her, his tone cheerful. “Does this mean you’re off work?”
“I’m off work,” she began, trying to level her voice, but her chest was heaving, and she was gasping audibly. “I think somebody just tried to make sure I was off for good.”
“What do you mean?” he asked, his tone sharp. “Explain.”
Feeling shaky, she quickly described the black vehicle.
“And it almost ran you over?” he asked in concern.
“Yeah, no honk to get out of the way, nothing like that,” she stated. “It was literally just hearing that last-minute roar, seeing it barreling down on me, and then boom, it was right there. I scraped my knee pretty well, and I’m feeling a little shaky, but I think I’m okay.”
“Crap,” Joel muttered. “I don’t want you going home alone. If it was deliberate, he could follow you there.”
“I don’t know that this is connected to the dead man,” she pointed out, “but I’m trying not to freak out here.”
“Yeah, let me know how that works for you,” he quipped, his tone skeptical. “I’m freaking out for you. That’s not a position I want you in.”
She smiled at that. “And you have no idea how that makes me feel,” she said in such a warm tone. “After everything in my life recently, it feels like nobody’s been rooting on my side at all.”
“And that’s all changed,” he told her. “You also have Sterling, and you have Lindsey.”
“Yes, I do,” she agreed, “and, for the first time, it actually feels like I have family.”
“Good,” he said, his voice warm. “Now let’s just make sure nobody interferes with that. You need to tell Richard. Head for the police station. No criminal will risk being seen at a cop shop.”
“No, no, no,” she argued. “Richard will keep me in the damn office, and I won’t get home until later, and I won’t get any sleep. I am unbelievably exhausted and cannot be late again tomorrow. I cannot do that. I already got reamed out for being late today.”
“After what you went through?” he asked in surprise.
“Yes, my supervisor is nothing if not hell on wheels about making sure we all show up when we’re supposed to. Gladys is a hardass.”
“Well, there’s showing up when you’re supposed to, and then there’s having a legitimate excuse,” he exclaimed in outrage.
She laughed. “I appreciate the fact that you’re on my side over this one, but I can tell you the person in question doesn’t like sides, won’t take sides, and—as far as Gladys is concerned—we’re all in the wrong, all the time, no matter what.”
“Wow, she is a hard-ass,” he muttered. “Are you sure you aren’t in the military?”
She burst out laughing. “I’m not, and honestly, if that’s what it’s like, I’m not sure I would want to.”
“Well, it can be, but we like to think it’s a little fairer than that, but I can’t guarantee it. Still, that’s not the kind of behavior we like to see.”
“No, it’s not the behavior I like to see either,” she noted. “Yet I’m not sure I have a choice in this anymore.”
“No matter what, you need to talk to Richard, even if you don’t want to. I’ll make a phone call and have him contact you.” When she groaned, he added, “I know you don’t want to, but we need to know if this attack could be related.”
She was silent for a long moment. “You really think it is, don’t you?”