Chapter 42
Shannon was in the break room at the hospital, eating a dish of tapioca she’d rescued from a patient’s untouched lunch tray, and half-heartedly watching Days of Our Lives on the wall-mounted television, along with assorted other nurses and aides who made DOOL, as they referred to it, their daily guilty pleasure.
Mostly, they watched it because they’d always watched it, or because their moms or grandmoms had always watched it, so the room was buzzing with the usual low-key gossip and whining and bitching.
But then there was a news break, and Shannon looked up to see what appeared to be a press conference, with Traci Eddings standing just outside the Saint Cecelia gatehouse, speaking earnestly into a microphone about the investigation into her niece’s death.
She dropped a glob of tapioca down the front of her scrubs, and the dish went clattering onto the tabletop.
Shannon squinted up at the television, focusing on the figure of a young woman standing off to the side of the platform, gazing up at Traci and the local sheriff, who was saying something about a drug overdose, and she felt her pulse quicken.
“Shut up, y’all,” she hollered, and the room quieted suddenly, as all eyes turned to the television. She grabbed the remote from a table near the television and turned up the volume.
Now the sheriff was saying something about no sign of sexual assault, and Shannon’s heart rate flattened a little. But it was the sight of that girl, her daughter, Olivia, standing there that made the blood hum in her ears.
Then the sheriff was talking about a reward of $50,000 for tips leading to the apprehension of Parrish Eddings’s killer. The news break ended and now there was a commercial for weatherproof siding.
Shannon flipped around to the other channels, but couldn’t find any other news break mentioning what had happened at the Saint.
Briana, her best friend, who also happened to be her shift supervisor that day, was sitting at the table next to hers, working on a Sudoku puzzle.
“Bree, can you get someone to cover the rest of my shift?”
“But you get off in a couple hours,” Bree said, not bothering to look up.
“It’s about Livvy. And it’s life or death.”
“Go on.” Bree waved her away. “I got you. But you’re gonna owe me a batch of chocolate-chip cookies.”
“Two batches,” Shannon promised. Then she bolted for the parking lot with fire in her eyes and malice in her heart.
Traci had barely finished dealing with her brother-in-law when she got a call on her office phone.
“Mrs. E? This is Howie, up at the main gate. There’s a lady up here says you know her.”
Traci heard a familiar voice in the background.
“Tell that bitch she can’t hide from me. Tell her if she doesn’t let me in, I’m gonna set right here on the side of the road, and I’m not leaving ’til she comes out.”
“It’s okay, Howie,” Traci said, massaging the back of her neck, where the headache had decided to commute. “Tell her to leave her car at the gate, and bring her up here on a golf cart.”
“You sure you really want that?” The security guard lowered his voice. “She threatened to kick me in the balls if I didn’t call you ASAP. She’s kinda crazy-acting.”
“That’s not acting, that’s Shannon,” Traci said. “Bring her directly to my office, please. I don’t want her causing a scene in the hotel lobby. And Howie?”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Watch your crotch.”
Ten minutes later, Shannon charged into Traci’s office, with the wary-looking security guard trailing a few steps behind.
“Howie, I’ll give you a call when our guest needs a ride back,” she told him.
“So this is the seat of all the glory and the power,” Shannon said, pacing around the office. She was still dressed in her hospital scrubs, with what looked like a lump of mashed potatoes directly over her heart, and her hair pulled back in a severe ponytail. The freckles sprinkled over her nose reminded Traci of their carefree teen years spent at the beach or the rec center pool.
Shannon stopped in front of a framed color portrait of Traci and Hoke on their wedding day. She started to say something, but stopped short.
Next she walked over to a vintage black-and-white photo of the Saint’s fa?ade, taken shortly after the hotel was completed.
“Y’all should have kept it like this,” Shannon said, pointing to the photo. “Now this place looks like a cross between Cinderella’s Castle at Disney World and Barbie’s Dreamhouse.”
Traci waited. She turned to the console behind her desk, opened the mini-fridge, and removed an eight-ounce glass bottle of Coke. She held out the bottle, and the bottle opener, to her old friend—an unspoken peace offering.
Shannon snatched the bottle from her hand, uncapped it, and drank.
“God, that’s good,” she said, when the bottle was half-empty. “I don’t know when’s the last time I had a cold Co-Cola right out of the bottle.”
“What can I do for you, Shannon?” Traci asked, when the other woman finally stopped pacing and sat, abruptly, in the chair opposite the desk.
“You know what I want. I want you to either fire my daughter or encourage her to quit her job here.”
“I’m not gonna do that, and you know it,” Traci said. “Livvy is one of our most valued team members. She’s been promoted to guest relations and given a raise.”
“This place”—Shannon gestured toward the lobby—“is a snake pit. You can change the way it looks on the outside, but it’s just like it was when we were kids. Rich assholes parading around their privilege like it’s a badge. I don’t want Livvy exposed to people… like all of y’all.”
“Like me?” Traci gave a short, joyless laugh. “My husband’s family has money, yeah, I won’t deny that. I live a comfortable life. A bougie life, as the kids would say.”
She leaned across the desk. “But I work my ass off here, Shan. Twelve-, fourteen-hour days are the norm, and if I’m lucky, maybe I get an afternoon to myself in the offseason. I haven’t taken a vacation since Hoke died. I know you think I live in some mansion with hot and cold running servants, but I don’t. I live in the same little bungalow his parents handed down to us when we got married. Three bedrooms, two baths. I bet your house is bigger than that. In fact, I know it was. Remember all the nights I spent there when we were kids?”
“So what? I don’t want my daughter working here, especially since you’ve got a murderer running around loose. It’s not safe. You’ve got my kid living in some dorm, partying with a bunch of drinkers and druggies. I don’t want Livvy living like that.”
Traci fixed her old friend with a level gaze. “You mean, like we lived when we worked here when we were exactly Livvy’s age? I seem to remember you weren’t opposed to getting drunk or high back in the day.”
“It was different back then!” Shannon’s face was pink with agitation. “Nobody back then was lacing weed with fentanyl.”
“No, they were cutting it with other stuff, like rat poison, but luckily, neither of us ever ingested enough to get us anything worse than sick as a dog.”
“Fentanyl can kill you,” Shannon said. “You don’t see all the people I see coming into our emergency room, either DOA or near death if they’re lucky and somebody’s around with a can of Narcan when they overdose.”
Traci turned around and got herself a bottle of Coke, hoping that the caffeine would help her headache.
“I’m as terrified of fentanyl as you are. We’ve talked to all our employees about the dangers of buying or taking drugs from strangers, and we actually keep Narcan in the staff nurse’s office, just in case.”
Shannon’s lips were pressed together in an uncompromising grimace.
“I know you don’t believe me, but I am deeply, deeply concerned about the safety of Livvy and everyone else on this property. We’ve hired two additional security guards, stepped up patrols in every corner of the property, and tomorrow, we’re installing Ring cameras outside the staff dorm.”
“It’s too little too late. How do we know the same maniac who killed Parrish won’t come after my Olivia?”
Traci’s forehead was pounding like a bass drum. She took an unopened Tylenol bottle from her top desk drawer, turned it this way, then that, trying unsuccessfully to align the tiny white childproof arrows on the cap.
“We don’t,” she said bluntly. “There are no guarantees. Anything can happen at any time to any one of us, despite all the precautions we take. Remember that little kid who drowned at the pool here? There were two of us, lifeguarding, and we were good at it. But that kid died anyway. It could happen to any of us. We could get struck by lightning while out on the golf course, or swerve to miss a slick spot in the road and end up wrapped around a telephone pole.”
She got a letter opener and tried to wedge it under the cap of the pill bottle. “We could take a couple of Tylenol that some nutjob deliberately injected with cyanide. Or we could smoke a joint with fentanyl in it. Or go down in a plane crash on a perfectly cloudless day in June.”
Shannon stared at her, slack-jawed.
“Your daughter is an adult, Shannon. I’m thinking you raised her to make responsible decisions. So maybe you should let her decide if she feels safe and wants to continue working here. Maybe don’t poison her with whatever bizarre, personal feud you have with me and my husband’s family. Or just ask yourself—it’s been over twenty years—Isn’t it time to let this shit go? Can we just call a truce?”
Traci rummaged around in her bottom desk drawer and finally found a tack hammer she’d used to hang the wedding portrait. She placed the Tylenol bottle on its side and gave it a vicious whack. The plastic collapsed and capsules went spurting out of the bottle. She picked up three and swallowed them down.
Shannon reached out for the ever-present box of tissues on the desktop. She blew her nose loudly.
“Let it go? You have no idea what you’re asking me to do. None.”
“Okay, then,” Traci said. “I’ll tell Livvy you came by. It’s late. I guess she’s already clocked out for the day.”
“I’d rather you didn’t tell her I was here,” Shannon said stiffly. “She already thinks I’m a helicopter mom.”
“Hmm. Wonder where she got that idea.”