The Pain Nurse (Will Borders: Cincinnati Casebook 1)

“What?”

Cheryl Beth picked the card off the floor and read the handwritten message on the back: “Westin, room 560. I’m on West Coast time so am staying up late. I’d love to have company.” She turned the card to the front, which introduced Josh Barnett, Chief Executive Officer, beneath a SoftChartZ logo.

Lisa had been hovering, watching. “Way to go, Cheryl Beth! You will have such fun, and you’ll have that wonderful funny walk in the morning that happens after…”

“Stop!” Cheryl Beth nearly shouted. “You don’t understand. Now I remember. This is the guy you said was sleeping with Christine.”

“Young and strong.” Lisa’s smile was so broad it nearly broke her face in half.

Cheryl Beth held the card in a shaking hand, the paper nearly searing her skin.

“Don’t be afraid,” Lisa said. “It’s no questions asked, rules of the road…”

“His handwriting.” Cheryl Beth was almost talking to herself. “It’s the same handwriting as on the note in Mason’s car. I swear it’s the same.”

“What are you talking about?”

Cheryl Beth tried to explain as Lisa cocked a hip and rested her hand on it, looking at her as if she were a crazy woman.

“This was never some random murder,” Cheryl Beth said. “Christine somehow…” She tried to work through it, feeling light-headed. It seemed impossible that the baby-faced tech executive could be a killer. But so many millions of dollars were at stake, and the hospital was already in trouble. “This is why Stephanie Ott was so strange, why the hospital tried to keep this quiet. Why they moved her office down to the basement. Now I understand why Christine was so crazy that night…” To herself, she thought, now I know why she held me so tight and kept asking, “Can I trust you, Cheryl Beth? Can I trust you…?”

Lisa put an arm around her. “You need to go home, babe, or take a cab to his hotel once the roads clear.”

“Ladies.” Dr. Carpenter sidled into the room, his voice booming. “My two favorite healers.”

They moved apart and greeted him. Cheryl Beth stared into the face she had known for so many years and wondered, who can I trust now?

“Is my timing bad?” he asked. “Sorry if I interrupted.”

“Just women stuff,” Lisa said.

Cheryl Beth stuffed the card back in her pocket just as her pager buzzed: the main switchboard.

“You have a call from Detective Dodds, to meet him down in Dr. Lustig’s office, uh, former office.”

“Now?”

“The call just came in.”

Cheryl Beth put the phone back in the cradle. She was excited, but she was also afraid. Why did Dodds suddenly want her? And why there? Maybe she would ignore the page, try to make it home through the ice. Then she would, what? Think it through… Maybe… She shook her head. It wouldn’t work. It wasn’t right. Just then, she saw one of her favorite guards pass on an intersecting hallway.

“Don!”

She ran and caught up with him. “Could I ask a favor? Would you walk me down to the basement?”

“Now?”

She said now, and they headed to the main elevator bank, talking about the ice storm. He said the radio was reporting wrecks and impassable streets all over the city. “We’re pretty much cut off for awhile,” he said. “I guess the ambulances have chains. But I haven’t seen one of those for an hour, either…” She was barely listening. The downward movement of the elevator was making her ill. As it left the fifth floor, as the car deviated from its normal run to the lobby, the lighting seemed to change and darken, the buttons looked filthy and worn, the walls pocked with stains and creases, gravity making her feel heavy, as if her body would crumple in on itself.

The elevator car settled and a deep mechanical thud came from somewhere far above them. Don just shook his head and they stepped into the hallway. The single bank of fluorescent lights was starting to go out. Its insistent flickering made them look like characters in a silent movie. It made the beds and big supply carts parked against the walls cast trembling, diabolical shadows. Her body was wound tight and her lungs felt small and fragile. She finally used the inhaler.

“You sure somebody called you down here?” he asked.

Then they saw the light streaming out of the office. “I guess so.” Twenty more steps and she looked inside to see Dodds and Will. At the sight of Will, she smiled spontaneously.

“It’s okay, Don.”

“You’re sure?”