Lucky Stiff (38 page)

She nods.

“And I’d be most interested in the night position.” Twelve-hour shifts are tough sometimes, but it means only working three days a week as opposed to five, giving me more time to spend with Hurley. And if I work the night shift, I’ll be less likely to run into David.

Collette looks delighted and relieved. “Well, if that’s the case, you can pretty much consider yourself hired.” This isn’t surprising. Nights are the least popular shifts, and the hardest to fill. “How soon would you be able to start?”

“I need to check with Izzy. I don’t want to leave him in the lurch. But I’m thinking something like two to four weeks.”

“Fantastic! Get your paperwork started and we’ll get working on it. And welcome back.”

“Thanks.”

I leave, feeling comfortable with my decision. Yes, there will be some awkward moments to deal with; and yes, I’ll probably be the subject of whispered conversations in the hallways, lounges, and cafeteria for a while, but it feels like the right thing to do.

I head back to the office to prepare for Lisa Warden’s autopsy, feeling upbeat and positive. By the time I get changed into my scrubs and head for the autopsy room, Izzy is already there and has Lisa’s body on the table.

“I went ahead and started on the preliminaries,” he says. “Hurley called and said he won’t be able to make it, but to let him know if we find anything. He said he had some business to take care of.”

As always, I’m disappointed that I won’t get to spend time with Hurley, but I console myself with the knowledge that we have our whole future ahead of us.

“It’s just as well,” I tell Izzy. “I need to talk to you anyway. I’ve decided to go back to work at the hospital.”

He looks at me with a sad expression. “I figured as much from what you said this morning. Can’t say I’m not disappointed to lose you, but I’m also happy for you, if it’s what you really want.”

“They have openings there in the ER and I can start whenever you’re ready to let me go. But I told them I wouldn’t leave you hanging. I’ll stay on until you can find a replacement.”

“I appreciate that. As luck would have it, I have someone who’s interested.”

“Really? Who?”

“Jonas Kriedeman.”

“The evidence tech?”

“One and the same. He told me some time back that he had thought about applying when I had the opening you took. But by the time he decided to go ahead with it, you were already on board.”

“Well, that’s great.”

Even I can hear the lack of enthusiasm in my voice, and Izzy eyes me curiously. “You don’t sound very convincing,” he says.

“It
is
great,” I say. “I’m happy to know you have a ready and willing replacement waiting in the wings. And Jonas is a great guy. I’m sure he’ll do a good job.”

“I sense a ‘but’ in there somewhere,” Izzy says.

The man reads me like a book. “I guess I wasn’t expecting all of this to happen quite that fast. It makes it so . . . real all of a sudden.”

“Is that a bad thing? Because I’m more than happy to keep you on.”

“No, it’s a good thing. It’s just that I do like this job, Izzy, more than I ever expected to. I like what I do, I like the people I do it with, and it’s going to make me a little sad to leave it. I thought I’d have a little more time to get used to the idea, that’s all.”

“Well, if you really miss it all that much, you can always come for a visit.”

“I just might do that.”

With the difficult stuff out of the way, we get down to business. Two hours later, Lisa Warden’s autopsy is done. Unfortunately, we haven’t found anything other than evidence of the narcotic habit we already knew she had. Arnie pops his head in to let us know that the syringe we found in her arm tested positive for morphine and had only one set of prints on it: Warden’s.

“Well, based on what we have so far, I can’t rule out an overdose, though I can’t tell if it was accidental or intentional.” He looks over at me. “Do you want to deliver the news to Hurley, or should I?”

Since I’m anxious to let Hurley know about my work decision, I say, “I’ll do it.”

It takes me another half hour to clean up the autopsy room; and when I’m done, I head back to the locker room to change out of my scrubs. I discover a voice mail message on my cell phone and play it back, half-expecting to hear Hurley’s voice. But I hear the whispery, slight lisp of Nancy Molinaro, instead. All she says is “Call me.” I figure she wants to welcome me back to the hospital fold. I try to call her back, but her secretary informs me she has left for the day and won’t be back in until the morning.

Next I try to call Hurley, but I get his voice mail. Rather than leave a message, I hang up, figuring I can try again later. By the time I head out to the main office area, it’s going on three o’clock. Since our day started in the middle of the night, and we’re now back on call, Izzy decides we should both head home for the day.

Back at my cottage, I try calling Hurley again. Again I get his voice mail and I leave him a message about our findings on Lisa’s autopsy. I don’t mention anything about my job and life decisions, however, because I want to do that in person. Instead, I simply end my message with “Call me.”

Feeling groggy from my lack of sleep, I decide to lie down for a while. I manage to doze off for what feels like a short while. When I wake up, it’s dark outside. I look over at my clock and see that it’s almost six. I stumble out to the living room and dig my cell phone out of my purse to see if Hurley called back. But the phone is deader than Lisa Warden, because I forgot to charge it. I put it in the charger; and after freshening myself up a bit, I walk over, knock on Izzy’s door, and let him know about my phone situation.

“I’m headed over to Hurley’s place, so you can reach me there if a call comes in. Though, I imagine, I’ll find out when Hurley does.”

“No problem,” he says. Then, with a wink, he adds, “And good luck.”

I thank him, hop into my hearse, and head out.

I pull up in front of Hurley’s house a few minutes later and see his car in the drive and the lights on inside, telling me he’s home. Feeling both nervous and excited, I head for the front door. Halfway there I’m brought to a sudden halt.

The drapes on Hurley’s front window are open a crack and I can see him sitting on the couch, watching TV.

Cuddled up beside him is Tonya Collier.

Chapter 37

I stare at the tableau before me in disbelief, feeling as if someone has just stabbed a shiv through my heart. When I look back toward the street, I belatedly notice Tonya’s car parked on the other side.

Feeling crushed, I head back to my car and drive to the closest convenience store, where I purchase a frozen mac-and-cheese for dinner and a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Cookie Dough ice cream for dessert. When I get back to the cottage, I toss the mac-and-cheese into the microwave and treat myself to an appetizer of cookie dough chunks while the meal cooks.

I’m stress eating, and I know it, but I don’t really care. The animals seem to sense that I’m in a funk and they all keep their distance, watching me warily as I pace and mutter to myself. I can’t believe my crappy luck. Just when I make the decision to change my life in a huge way so I can be with Hurley, he hooks up with someone else.

I turn the TV on and plop down in front of it, scarf down my mac-and-cheese, and then finish eating all the cookie dough chunks out of the ice cream. There is a sitcom on, but what little of it my brain is following doesn’t seem at all funny. My mind keeps circling around the fact that Hurley has hooked up with Tonya. But then, what did I expect? How many times lately had I told him that nothing can go on between the two of us, that he had to move on? Well, now he has, damn it.

It’s just a first date, I tell myself. Maybe it won’t go anywhere. Maybe when I tell Hurley that I’ve quit my job and decided to submit myself to the humiliation of hospital gossip just so I can be with him, he’ll drop Tonya like a hot potato and hook up with me, instead. Or maybe he’ll look at me like I’m crazy and take out a restraining order.

I can’t focus on the TV, so I turn it off. I can’t do the same with my mind, however, and I sit there torturing myself, wondering what Hurley and Tonya are doing now. It occurs to me that I could go back to his house and break things up by dropping in on the two of them. Then it also occurs to me that I could go back to his house and simply spy for a bit, to see where things go. This last idea feels wrong, but irresistible. Before I know it, I’ve changed into dark pants. I dig out my black coat and hat and some dark blue mittens, and tuck my hair up inside the hat to hide it. Disguise in place, I grab my half-charged cell phone from the charger, in case Izzy calls, and head back to Hurley’s neighborhood.

The hearse is a dark midnight blue, but hardly inconspicuous, so I park a block away and then walk toward Hurley’s house. The living-room drapes are still cracked open in the middle; but as I skulk my way across the lawn, cursing the streetlights, I see that the couch is now vacant. Cripes, had they hit the sack already? They have to be inside, because both cars are still here. So where are they?

I creep around the side of the house, until I reach the kitchen window. There are no curtains here, so I have a full view of the room, which is fully lit. Tonya and Hurley are standing at the kitchen counter, side by side, talking and sipping beers. I feel a brief sense of relief that they aren’t upstairs in the bedroom, but it doesn’t last long. As I watch, Tonya sets her beer bottle aside and comes around to face Hurley. She leans in close to him and his free arm comes up and snakes around her waist. And then my cell phone rings.

I duck down because the ring sounds frighteningly loud in the quiet night air, and I’m worried Hurley and Tonya might have heard it. I reach into my pocket and clamp my hand over the phone to try to muffle the noise. Afraid of getting caught, I hop and hobble as fast as I can back toward my car. My injured ankle is still a significant impediment to any fast getaways.

I answer the phone on the fifth ring, just before it switches over to voice mail. I assume it’s Izzy; but after I say hello, I hear Nancy Molinaro’s distinctive voice.

“Mattie, do you have a minute to talk?” She doesn’t bother with any greetings, or even say who it is. She is a woman who is used to being treated with awe, fear, respect, and deference.

“Sure,” I say, a bit winded. I’m half a block away; and after a quick glance over my shoulder to make sure Hurley and Tonya aren’t outside looking for or following me, I slow to a walk.

“I understand you talked with Collette today about coming back to work at the hospital.”

“I did. She said there are a couple of openings in the ER.”

“Yes, well, there is a small problem.”

“What?”

“Your husband.”

“David? Technically, he’s not my husband anymore. We are divorced now.”

“And therein lies the problem.”

“I don’t follow you,” I say, coming to a stop as if the brainpower needed for walking might be enough to stump me. “What problem?”

“David said he doesn’t want you working here anymore.”

This momentarily stymies me. “I’m not asking to come back to the OR; I want to work in the ER.”

“I know.”

Silence follows for several seconds as I digest this. “Well, David will just have to tough it out,” I say finally.

“He was rather insistent. He said it would be too awkward to have you working here at all. It
is
a small hospital.”

“Are you saying you won’t hire me?”

“I’m sorry, Mattie. My hands are kind of tied.”

“You can’t do that, Nancy. It’s illegal.”

“We don’t have to hire you back, Mattie. You did leave with no notice when you were here before.”

“For a good reason,” I say, feeling myself grow angrier.

“And if need be, we can find enough issues in your old file to justify not hiring you back. Like that nipple incident, for instance.”

“That happened more than seven years ago,” I say in disbelief. “I can’t believe you’re doing this to me.”

“I’m sorry, Mattie. But your husband holds all the power at this point. And today he told me that if we hire you, he’ll leave. With Sydney Carrington gone, David is the only general surgeon we have on staff. We’ve been looking for a second one, but so far there aren’t any takers.”

“He’s bluffing, Nancy,” I say, thinking that the “MD” after David’s name stands for “Major Dickhead.”

“Perhaps, but it’s a risk I’m not willing to take right now. The hospital can’t afford to lose that kind of revenue.”

“That son of a bitch,” I seethe.

“I’m sorry, Mattie, I really am. It’s unfortunate that you and David couldn’t work things out. Best of luck to you.”

And just like that, she’s gone, taking my life with her. I stand there, staring into space, my mouth hanging open, my breath creating giant steam clouds in the air. My first reaction is a screw-you-I’ll-sue-you attitude. But when I think about the logistics of it all, I know it would be a lost cause. Molinaro would never admit to saying the things she just told me, and David would never admit to his ultimatum. It would end up being my word against theirs, and Molinaro could easily say that the reason they didn’t hire me back was because I quit without notice last time. She’ll use that and a few other minor transgressions I had over the years, and put it all together as a legitimate excuse. I’m screwed. And I’m mad enough at David right now that I could kill him.

I get in my car and start to pull out, when I see Hurley and Tonya come out of Hurley’s house and get into his car. At first, I’m relieved, thinking he is taking her home, but then I remember that Tonya’s car is here. Why wouldn’t she just drive herself home? As they pull out, I follow, keeping back a ways. Hurley drives to the Peking Palace, where they both get out and head inside. Great, they’re having dinner together.

Pissed, I drive home and drop onto my couch in a state of stunned disbelief, wondering how my life could have gone so wrong, so fast. I quit a job I know I love, so I could be with the man I think I love, but now he’s with another woman. I’m unemployed, unattached, and unloved.