Jon Talton - The Pain Nurse

And what of Will? She was growing too fond of him. But could he have killed Theresa in a rage? Was he capable of that? She had made mistakes judging men before, but it was hard for her to believe. It was impossible to believe he had killed the two other girls, and then somehow come right out of the ICU and murdered Christine.

It had to be Judd. Why else would he have retrieved the note and tried to dispose of it?

She leafed through the roster of the circulating nurses. Judd Mason had most recently spent two months in the pediatric ward. She grabbed her purse, turned off the lights, locked the door, and walked to the other side of the hospital, to the peds ward.

The hospital was emptying out for Christmas. Everyone wanted to be gone, and patients tried hard to get discharged. With visiting hours winding down, the normal crunch of people in the hallways was missing. The PA system, without its seemingly unending summonses of doctors and trauma teams, seemed more omnipresent by its silence. Only the most serious cases were here. Those, and the forgotten and abandoned. She waved and made small talk as she passed the nurses’ stations, but nothing could stop the constricting in her throat and chest as she neared the bright blue-and-yellow doors. She would walk in briskly, say hello, and look over some of Judd’s charts. If anyone asked, she would say one of the docs wanted her to double-check something. She would not look at the abundance of donated toys in the play areas and waiting rooms. She would not look into the rooms, or into the frightened, haunted eyes of the parents. She would avoid the doctors who had, as a matter of course, to tell mothers and fathers that their children were dying.

They had named her Carla Beth, after Andy’s mother, with Cheryl Beth’s middle name. After her, Cheryl Beth couldn’t have another child; it had been a difficult delivery, a wondrous result. She had the wheat-colored hair that Cheryl Beth had as a little girl, before it had darkened, and she had loved unicorns and the color yellow and laughing. And Carla Beth was dead before her fourth birthday. And it was a story she would tell no one. It belonged to her. The grief and guilt and bottomless sorrow, the lock of her hair, her last expression-hers alone. Andy returned to Corbin, remarried, and had three children. Cheryl Beth stayed in Cincinnati. When people asked if she had children, she would simply say no. Every person in this hospital had been stunned by calamity, and why should she be different? She had to make the decision between sitting in a chair, staring at a wall, and waiting to die, or returning to her life helping people. But she could not work peds. She could barely stand to be in the ward.

She leafed through the charts looking for one with Judd Mason’s signature. She found it on the fifteenth chart. The details of the case-she made herself skip over them. But the chart contained several pages written by Mason. The handwriting was not the same as on the note to Christine, not at all. She slammed the chart shut, shelved it, and nearly ran from the ward.

The Starbucks in the lobby was already closed by the time she got there. She was hoping to grab a cup of coffee that was better than the swill at some of the nurses’ stations.

“Hi, there.”

She knew she had jumped when she heard the voice, but she instinctively smiled as she turned and faced the young man. He was seated at one of the tables.

“I missed them, too,” he said. “Seemed like a good night for a hot latte.”

“Well, it’s always something.” Cheryl Beth stood there awkwardly. She knew this man. The young software millionaire. He had walked out of Stephanie Ott’s office that day she had received her dressing down. He still looked like a college student on a pub crawl, this time wearing black jeans, a black turtleneck, and a black leather jacket. That jacket reminded her of what Christine had worn the last night of her life. Stretched out in the chair, the man was compact, with an unlined face, sleepy blue eyes, and a crop of moussed sandy hair.

“You’re the one they call the pain nurse.”

She introduced herself and he stuck out his hand. “I’m Josh Barnett. Care to join me?”

“For a minute,” she said, curious. She still felt wobbly and was grateful to sit. “Not that anybody’s going anywhere until they get salt on those streets.” She nodded her head toward the front doors.

“I saw you at Stephanie Ott’s office,” she said.

“And I remember you as well.” He looked her in the eye.

“Why would that be?”

“Well, don’t be put off by this, but you’re a very attractive woman.”

She laughed and shook her head. He was nearly twenty years younger than she. But there was the irresistible allure of a compliment.

“Ms. Ott is quite the taskmaster,” he said. “The accreditation process has them all jumpy.” His expression was pleasant, but his eyes were deep like a friendly well; something moved far down, but she didn’t know what.

Cheryl Beth leaned back. “So you’re not from around here?”

“Oh, no,” he said. “Silicon Valley. I’m not used to this kind of weather. If you don’t think I’m out of line, could I ask if you were the nurse who found Dr. Lustig?”

Cheryl Beth sighed. “Now tell me how you would know that?” The edge was obvious in her voice.

“I’ve been working here, on a contract. People talk. I’d heard it was you. I was working with Christine.”

“I see.”

“It’s a terrible loss for us,” he said quietly. “And she was a wonderful person. Just a devastating loss.”

“Makes me wonder why the hospital moved her down to that basement office. Do you wonder about that?”

“Well, the office was private, and I imagine she needed the quiet to get the evaluation of the project software done. We were under a very tight deadline to complete it.”

He waited as a crowd of civilians walked past, bearing flowers and boxes in Christmas wrapping. “Did you know Christine, Cheryl Beth?”

She shifted in her seat, suddenly hot in her coat. “I did,” she said, and slipped off the coat. She pulled out two of the new consults and studied them, ignoring him. For a long time she thought he might just stand and leave.

“I know this sounds weird,” he said, a small smile lighting up his face. “But would you have dinner with me? I’ve been cooped up writing computer code for months and haven’t had dinner with a beautiful woman.” His eyes were different now. She had his full attention. “Maybe you’d show me your city. I’m not some weirdo Californian, I promise.”

Cheryl Beth stopped herself from laughing. She was rusty with a gentle brush-off. He was an attractive young man with a sly and sexy smile. But she was not looking, and in any case she liked tall, big men. Maybe when she was feeling better she would tell Lisa this story and chuckle about it. “I can’t,” she said. “But you’re sweet to say that, Josh.”

“I mean it,” he said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a business card. She could see the logo SoftChartZ. Another reach produced a pen and he wrote something on the back of it.

“At least take my card. I put my hotel number on the back. Just in case you change your mind.”

Cheryl Beth pocketed the card and turned away, eager to find Will so she could tell him about her sleuthing in the peds’ records.

Will had watched with apprehension as they neared the hospital, knowing his day out was ending. The hospital tower was illuminated by spotlights and it looked like a building from an old comic book, a perch for a superhero. It was just a box of the sick and dying, a base camp for perilous journeys and ascending prayers, and for now it was his home. He had watched Cheryl Beth walk away, seeing in those well-fitting civilian clothes her confident long-limbed strides, knowing she thought him a fool for giving her the Christmas card. Or she thought worse of him. And as she walked out the door, he felt the almost supernatural buoyancy that had kept him calm and functioning after the tumor was diagnosed, through the first days of dismal prognoses and dire worries, through the surgery and days of pain, through Cindy’s final jettisoning of him, through the murder investigation-he felt it disappear.