Club Prive: Sweet Escape (Kindle Worlds Novella) (13 page)

He raises a hand to his forehead in a mock salute, a smarmy smile on his face.

“Not bad work for day two on the job,” he says as I walk closer to the door. “But personally, I’d go for the roommate. Maybe we could double some time? Switch out?”

I stop and turn to him, looking pointedly at his fingers, where the cigarette’s ash is billowing smoke. “Careful,” I tell him, meeting his eyes again. “Those things will kill you.”

Chapter Sixteen – Avery

“I found this in room five.”

Looking up, I see the custodian holding out a necklace to me and I recognize it instantly. It’s the cross pendant I’d seen Mrs. Landon holding in her hand almost constantly since her stay here. The stay that ended less than an hour ago when her heart simply couldn’t pump any longer. As are many of our elderly patients, she was a “do not resuscitate” so I could do nothing but hold her hand while she took her last breath.

“Thanks, Tyler,” I say and he drops it into my palm. “I’ll take it down to the morgue and put it with her belongings.”

A man of few words, he simply nods and heads back to room five to do the thorough disinfecting needed between patients. Because there’s always another sick person needing a room.

“Tab, I’m heading downstairs. I’ll be back in a few minutes, then I’ll break for a late lunch.”

“Another smoothie?”

I freeze, the cross in a death grip in my hand. Slowly, I turn to see Dr. McGill’s smirking face.

He plays the innocent. “What? I was just kidding.”

In my periphery, I see that Tabitha is mortified and near tears, her head bowed over her tablet, trying to look busy. Compassion and fury dance through me, sparring with each other.

“Actually, that’s a great idea. Tab, did you make any smoothies today?”

Every person in the ICU stands still and time seems to slow as Tabitha looks up at me. McGill’s jaw drops a little, then his arms cross his chest in a silent challenge.

“Well, I did, but only enough for—”

“I’ll take it,” I say brightly to her as I slip my hand in my pocket to make sure my EpiPen is in there. No more lectures from Dr. Atwood, thank you very much.

Slowly, she stands. “Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure, Tab. Never been surer of anything in my life.”

She walks to the break area and reappears with the smoothie, pulling off the lid with a little pop. I honestly think everyone in the room is holding their collective breath when I say, “Cheers,” and gulp.

I’m an idiot.

No, I’m not.

Yes, I am
.

Stop it!
I scold myself. I’m going to have a hypochondriac reaction just from thinking too much.

I smile at Tabitha, who’s squeezing her fists against her jaws, her anxiety ringing loud and clear. I realize I’m in love with the sweet fifty-something nurse with a heart of gold who has taken me under her wing.

Seconds tick by and I take another drink, smiling bright as the sun.

“It’s absolutely delicious, Tab,” I say, my voice strong, my vision clear. On cue, everyone exhales with a whoosh. Except McGill. His face is red and his fists are clenched. He turns on his heel and marches off, muttering something I probably don’t want to hear under his breath.

I hang out a few more minutes, finishing the drink, but really waiting to make sure I don’t have any delayed reaction. An ICU is really the best place for one of those.

When McGill is gone, Tab comes over and wraps me in a hug. “You didn’t have to do that, Avery.”

I hug her back. “I adore you and trust you with my life.”

She laughs. “Well, you must after that little stunt.”

I narrow my eyes at the door McGill went through. “I can’t stand his pompous ass.”

She squeezes my arm. “Well, maybe your cute doc will can it for him.”

I peek up at her through my lashes. “He’s not
my
doctor.”

I’ve never seen a more dramatic eye roll in my life. “Avery, sweetheart. If you could have seen what I saw while we were treating you, you’d know that he is, in fact,
your
doctor.”

Keeping my lips firmly shut, I let her pull me closer to her and resist laying my head on her kind shoulder.

“He was frantic, Avery. And not just the kind of frantic I was. He kept calling you ‘baby’ and it was like he was
willing
you to be okay. I think if he could have crawled into you and given you his life, he would have.” She sighs loudly. “The other nurses were talking about it later. About how they’d never seen a man look at a woman the way he looked at you.”

I pull back an inch. “Really?”

She strokes my back and gives me another squeeze. “Really. It was so romantic. Well, it was after we knew you were breathing again. And afterwards, he wouldn’t leave your room. He just sat there and held your hand, watching over you even though we had you hooked up with every wire in the hospital.”

“Do you think it would be, uh, inappropriate to have a relationship with him?” I ask her. “After all, he’s my boss’s boss, and I barely know him and…” I can’t think of any more reasons.

“Avery, it would be inappropriate for you to not have a relationship with someone who so very clearly finds you special.” She bumps my hip with hers. “And who I think you find special too. To hell with what anyone says. Now, you can’t be making out in a janitor closet, but being together outside of the hospital isn’t against policy.”

“You won’t think badly of me?” I realize her opinion matters very much.

“Oh, honey. I would be thrilled for you.” The hand on my back resumes its stroking up and down. “I don’t ever hear you talk about family, so I don’t know what that looks like for you. But you’re part of my family, this hospital’s family. And I’ll tell you just like I’d tell my own daughter. Follow your heart. Be smart, but don’t let anything stand in the way of your happiness.”

She pulls back and looks at me. “Oh, honey, don’t cry.” In seconds, she’s pressing tissues into my hand.

“I’m sorry,” I mutter as I wipe my face. “I’m just emotional right now.”

As I try to gather myself, I feel another hand on my shoulder, then another one on my arm. It’s the other nurses I work with, caring for me, comforting me. Not saying a word.

I’m full out sobbing as they circle around me, wrapping me in a cocoon of acceptance and love. The ICU doors swish open and a gruff, “What the hell is going on here?” fills the room.

Dottie.

Soon, eight wrinkled hands join the others circling around me.

***

“Here, honey, let me take that down for you,” Tabitha says, indicating the necklace still in my hand.

I sniff, still feeling emotional as I shake my head. “I’ll go. I need to walk a little bit anyway.”

She gives me an understanding smile and a bottle of water. “Okay, see you in a few minutes.”

I haul ass out of the ICU, pass the elevator, and go for the stairs, blowing out a deep breath. I’m embarrassed for breaking down so completely but am still warmed by what just happened. It’s been an overwhelming couple of days.

Jogging down the seven flights of steps to the basement gets my blood flowing and I make a deal with myself to jog back up when I’m finished with my task. When I open the basement level door, I poke my head out into the hallway, looking right and left.

I hate it down here.

The entire hospital’s electrical, plumbing, and HVAC systems are down here, and their humming and gurgling surround me as I step out into the hall. The overhead lighting competes with the noise, but other than that, there’s nothing else down here. If I saw someone, I’d probably start screaming my head off.

Oh, stop it.

Pulling my shoulders back, I stride down the hall, pretending that ghosts and scary things won’t attack a woman projecting confidence.

“Then why are you holding the cross like it’s a crucifix?” I mutter to myself, releasing my tight grip on the necklace and toss the empty water bottle into a blue bin.

Forcing myself not to look behind me, I stop at the door marked “Morgue.” Sliding my keycard, I step into the cold.

Unlike the morgues on TV, this one is more of a cold room. It doesn’t have the wall of drawers for bodies. Instead, they lay on gurneys, draped with white sheets. Which is even creepier. I have flashbacks of Jason Voorhees or Michael Myers every time I enter this room.

We have three bodies right now, lined neatly in a row. I jump when the door clicks closed behind me.

Stop it.

I head to the feet of the last body, hoping it’s Mrs. Landon. I check the tag. It isn’t and step over to the next. Bingo. I lift the sheet up to her knees and open the bag between her calves, carefully placing the necklace inside and adding its description to the notecard listing her possessions. I zip the bag closed and pull the sheet back down, glad to have this grisly task complete.

Turning, I reach for the doorknob and pull. Nothing.

Taking a deep breath, I turn it and pull again. It won’t budge.

Panic seizes me and I grip it with both hands, pulling with everything inside me, trying not to feel the imaginary fingers on my neck, the phantom claws reaching for me from behind.

The door opens so quickly, I fly backwards, my back slamming into a metal gurney, the bones in my spine screaming in protest, my mind screaming even louder as a shadow falls into the room.

“So the ice queen visits her lair,” McGill says. “Appropriate.”

He steps inside and closes the door behind him.

“Wh-” The word begins as a squeak and I clear my throat and try again. “What are you doing?”

“I think you and I got off on the wrong foot, Avery. And I think we should try again. Especially now that I know you like to fuck doctors.”

I open my mouth to say something, but he holds up his hand.

“Imagine my surprise when I saw you get out of our new chief of staff’s car this morning, then kiss him. After only one fucking day on the job.” He clicks his tongue at me. “Think I should go examine our good chief, maybe see if he got some frost bite on his dick?”

He takes a step closer and I look around, searching for a weapon, anything. There’s nothing, so I sidestep the gurney behind me.

“Oh, come on, Avery.” He smiles at me as he takes another step. An actual full on smile. “Give me a taste. I need to know if the reality is as delicious as it is in my imagination.”

“Leave me alone.” I can’t go forward, so I back up until I hit the wall. Reaching for the gurney, I push it in front of me, putting the dead body between me and the doctor.

He smiles. “I like to play games too.”

I jump when he suddenly grabs the bottom rail, wrenching the bed from my hands. I try to rush him, going on the offensive, ducking under his arms as he lunges at me.

I’m at the door, screaming for help, turning the knob, almost getting it open when I’m hauled backwards by my hair. Then I’m on the floor and he’s on top of me, his hands around my wrists, holding me down.

“Stop fighting. I know you want this too.”

I evade the mouth coming down on mine and his lips slide over my cheek instead, not stopping until he’s kissing my neck.

“Don’t do this,” I beg him, bucking my hips, trying to twist away, but he’s so heavy and he has all the leverage.

“Is that what you told Atwood?”

He’s pushing my shirt up, my pants down.

“Or did you beg him to fuck you harder?”

“Please, don’t.”

I’m ashamed that I’m crying again.

“You’ll like it, I promise. I’ll make you feel real good. I’ll—”

He freezes, his mouth opening in a silent scream. His body convulses on mine and I scramble backwards, pushing him off me, not knowing what is happening until I see it.

A knife.

Its handle is protruding from McGill’s back, a pool of red spreading on his white coat.

I look up, and standing over him is Tyler. The custodian smiles at me and reaches down, pulling the knife out of the physician’s back. He wipes the blade off, one side and then the other.

When he’s standing again, holding the knife down by his leg, he takes a step closer and I see what I hadn’t seen before. The blank face. The madness behind his eyes.

“Hello, Avery. Paisley told me to tell you that you’ve been a very bad girl.”

Chapter Seventeen – Gray

“Let’s plan on me spending the day shadowing you next week,” I tell the doctor I’ve been meeting with the last hour.

Dr. Rhodes shakes the hand I extend and gives me a warm, friendly smile. This doctor is old enough to be my father, but he doesn’t seem the least bit put off by me being in a superior role.

“I look forward to it, Dr. Atwood.”

“Gray.”

His smile broadens. “Very well. I look forward to working with you, Gray. I see nothing but good things coming out of you being at the helm of this program.”

At the juncture of the hallway, he goes left and I go right. Directional signage for the ICU is in front of me and it’s tempting to take that detour. Forcing myself to walk past the door, I don’t even allow myself a look through the glass.

“Dr. Atwood!”

I turn to see Tabitha rushing toward me. “What’s wrong?” The look on her face puts me automatically on alert.

She runs a hand through her hair. “Probably nothing, just me being a mother hen, but have you seen Avery?”

My spine stiffens. “Since when?”

“Since in the past fifteen or twenty minutes?”

“No. Why are you worried?”

She pulls me to the side of the hallway so a gurney can go past. “A little bit ago, Dr. McGill made a snide remark about her drinking another smoothie. Well, Avery can be hard headed, so she made me give her another one and drank it right in front of us all.”

“And…?”

“Well, nothing happened, and she stayed on the unit a good five minutes or so before heading down to the morgue.”

The hair prickles on my arms. “Why was she going to the morgue?”

She waves a hand as if it’s not important. “A patient left a necklace. But she’s been gone longer than necessary and we have two new patients coming into the unit and—”

“Let McGill take them.” I start walking toward the elevator.

She grabs my arm, stopping me. “I can’t find him. He’s disappeared and Avery isn’t back and…” My stomach churns and I walk faster, Tabitha trotting beside me. “I’m afraid she might be having a delayed reaction to the smoothie.”