Maddy's Floor (8 page)

She sat across from him. "Now, what can I do for you, Dr. Chandler?"

***

Several files sat open on Gerard's desk, applications under consideration. Another bed had just opened up on Maddy's floor. Perfect. Who had money and who would be willing to pay handsomely for a chance to move up in life?

His office phone rang. Damn, now what?

"Hello. Oh, hi, John." Gerard rolled his eyes and sank deeper into his high-backed wing chair. "How are you doing?"

"Getting impatient. When is my transfer going through?"

"Soon. I haven't gotten the forms from your doctor yet. Being in a different facility means there's a mess of paperwork to complete."

"If that's the only thing holding you up, I'll take care of it." John's tone made it clear there'd be hell to pay if his doctor didn't move on the issue – and fast.

Gerard smirked. Better to have John target someone else for a change. "Go easy on him. He's probably swamped with work. And it's likely to be his nurse taking care of the paperwork. You may want to check before you snap at him."

John's snort blasted through the phone. "Like hell. It'll get done today."

Gerard pinched the bridge of his nose and did something he rarely did – he excused himself. "John, I'm rushing to a meeting. I'm sorry but I have to run."

"Right. No problem. I have someone else to chase now. Have a good one."

Gerard stared at the phone as he replaced it. Given a new target, John sounded positively perky. That man must have made his department hell for any lollygaggers. Still, he was off Gerard's tail for a bit. Thank God.

Sandra walked into Gerard's office, a large stack of opened letters in her arms. "How bad is it today?" he asked.

"It's an interesting mix. The bulk of them are applications, requests for applications and questions about The Haven, all of which are good things." She dropped the stack in front of him. "And they give me confidence that I'll still have a job at the end of the year."

"Yeah," he growled, "but you may have to take a pay cut."

"Not going to happen, so don't go there." She turned to leave. Before she reached the door she turned back as if she'd forgotten something. "Although, speaking of pay cuts and the employment issues in today's world, I thought I saw Dr. Chandler walking the halls this morning, heading upstairs."

Gerard glanced up at her, his mind already immersed in the morning's mail. "Who?"

"Dr. Chandler. You know the physician with that leading-edge-technology-stuff from Madison House."

Gerard's eyes widened. "What?"

She looked over her glasses at him and frowned. "Is that a big deal?" The glint in her eyes said she knew it was.

He pushed his chair back and stood. "Do you know why he was here or where he was going?"

"Nope. Haven't a clue." She pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose and walked toward the door again.

Jesus, Sandra had been here since forever. Nothing much happened here she didn't know. Damn it. He sat back down and tried to refocus on the morning mail. He didn't see the words on the page. What the hell would the head of the most expensive, most prestigious hospital want with anyone upstairs?

Upstairs? His head snapped up.

Maddy.

Oh, Christ.

***

Drew pulled his scratchpad closer. He had several pages full of notes so far, but he was a long way from done. He hadn't been able to resist a closer look at the kids' cases – on his own time. Wilson had explained that wall was a reminder page, a memorial so to speak, rather than a current case.

He remembered more the deeper he delved into the case. His uncle had spoken about the raging argument among the members of his department as to whether it was a criminal case – or a case at all. He couldn't resist trying to find out. The mystery behind it was addictive. He'd stayed late last night to catch up on the details.

In all six cases, the cause of death had been listed as inconclusive. No evidence left behind and no links between the children – none that anyone had found, at least. He picked up the folder and flicked through old detectives' notes, results and timelines. The first victim, Sissy Colburn, had been sitting at her kitchen table doing homework when she'd fallen to the floor dead. The last victim, Stephen Hansen, was found in the backyard of his home, fully dressed, backpack hanging off one shoulder and a half a chocolate bar in his hand. Dead. As if his last breath had just left his body and he'd collapsed on the spot.

Odd. For some unknown reason, all six healthy kids had just dropped dead, under what seemed ordinary circumstances.

Even odder was the tiny bruise on the base of the spine on all six kids. The doctors had no explanation, the autopsy hadn't shown a cause for them, and none of the parents knew anything that would indicate how each bruise had occurred.

The intriguing thing was that each victim had the same bruise. Six victims within a four-month span of time. No similar cases could be found before or after, according to Wilson's research.

He studied the old photos. The bruises looked insignificant, like an everyday small bruise.

The hairs on the back of his head rose. Spooky stuff.

Could he contribute anything to the case? Was there anything, any evidence that could be processed again with today's technology?

He set the boxes, four of them, off to one side and sorted through the swabs and clothing samples. It took the rest of the afternoon to determine that the detectives on the case had been thorough. Their notes spoke of their frustration with the lack of evidence.

Many cops expressed their doubts that a crime had even occurred, suggesting these were medical deaths – sad, but not their problem.

Then there was the evidence box full of diaries. Small, feminine diaries chronicled the years prior and the twenty years after the death of Darcy Durnham, the second victim of the six. According to Wilson, the father, Scott Durnham, had started dropping the diaries off a good ten years ago after the writer, Darcy's mother, passed away, in the hopes the police could find something helpful in them. Wilson had put them in order to find that there was no diary for the period covering Darcy's death. He'd expressed doubts that it had existed, but Drew figured it probably just hadn't shown up yet. Compulsive writing like Darcy's mother had demonstrated with her diaries rarely stopped one day to the next…and started again just as abruptly.

Scott showed up once in a while through the years when he found another one in the house. As always, it was logged in and added to the pile. So far, Wilson hadn't found anything of value in them.

Now it was Drew's turn.

Not an easy job.

***

Bed 232 smiled. No, not bed 232, she'd be Sissy today. She did feel so much better. She shifted slightly in bed. Mornings were always better. 'Good drugs,' the docs would say.

The long-term care aide stepped up to her bedside. "How are you feeling, my dear?" Bending over, she searched Sissy's gaze for a long moment as if trying to see who she really was. Satisfied, she pulled back with a decisive nod. "My goodness, Sissy, your color is so much better today. You're positively blushing. Is this a special day for you?"

Sissy eyed her slyly. "Maybe. One never can tell. I'd like to have breakfast out of bed this morning."

"Well, you certainly do look nice today. That's great that you are feeling well enough to get dressed. Shall we choose something special to wear? And how about your makeup, would you like some lipstick on today?" The aide bounced around the room, chattering happily and pulling out various pieces of clothing. "Let's try the pink sweater, and if you're feeling up to it, how about slacks?"

Sissy gave a graceful nod in thanks. "Pants and a sweater sound lovely, and maybe the Summer Blush lipstick to match."

Collecting the clothing, the aide walked over and laid everything on the bed. "Here we go."

With a fat smile, Sissy said, "Thanks." It had been awhile since she'd been in such good spirits. There was nothing like getting out of bed first thing in the morning to make life brighter and the day more positive. She could get used to this.

Of course, the buzz of excitement helped.

A new bed on Dr. Maddy's floor had opened. A flurry of excitement drifted through Sissy's ward. She sniffed. Like any of the old biddies in her ward had a chance at that rare lottery. She watched and listened as they all dreamed about moving up to that floor. As if that would change their lives. They weren't doing anything to help themselves. Hadn't they understood this whole concept? A bed had opened up because someone had died.
Died.
As in people died upstairs just as easily as downstairs. Stupid twits. Didn't they think at all?

A transfer upstairs for them would be a waste.

They weren't like her. She needed to do some serious thinking about the next step in her healing process. Sometimes, the days went by so fast, she had trouble keeping up. Probably her medication. Her old doctor had kept her so drugged out, no wonder she'd had trouble adjusting to the world around her.

It was his fault, not hers.

But he'd paid for that one.

***

Adam Lenning lay still, frozen in his bed as the first morning light warmed his corner of the world. The nurses hadn't noticed anything out of the ordinary. He'd closed his eyes to appear asleep. It had fooled them but there was no fooling himself.

He had seen something…wrong. Horribly wrong.

Yet, he couldn't say exactly what he'd seen.

The patient in the next bed had died last night. Adam knew the exact time. He'd been woken in the night by the cold. After growing up in Alaska, he understood cold. This part of Oregon did get chilly, except it was late summer, not the dead of winter. Last night, well, he'd have sworn the temperature on the floor was below freezing. Surely the furnace had quit unexpectedly? Although, given the time of year, there shouldn't have been the need for it in the first place. This eluded logic.

He'd tried to snag the blanket at the foot of his bed to spread it over himself, only the shivers that wracked his frame had made that virtually impossible. It's when he'd been lying there, shivering, that he'd noticed the shadows through the curtains surrounding Jansen's bed at the end of the open area.

Unlike the rest of The Haven, where you could barely walk for the people, Maddy's floor wasn't crowded. This floor didn't have private rooms, but each person had privacy through partial walls and curtains, making the areas individual, homey, yet accessible in an emergency.

He liked it. The place offered companionship and medical care without cloistering each person in their own room for hours on end. There was room to walk and be social and yet, there was privacy.

Footsteps approached, the sound mingling with the gentle whisper of a small cart rolling forward. A cheerful voice called out, "How are you doing, Dr. Lenning?"

"Cold," he muttered, his teeth chattering uncontrollably. "So cold."

The nurse frowned and immediately pulled out a thermometer from the medicine cart. She checked his temperature, before returning to a small computer on the cart to make a notation on the file. "I'll be right back."

She took her cart back down the hallway. It seemed to take forever before she returned, but then she wrapped his shaking body in heated blankets. She put a second one over his shoulder and neck.

"Ohhh," he moaned, sinking into the welcomed heat. He turned his face into the blanket, feeling the warmth on his cheeks and against his eyes.

"It's okay. Let's give your body a chance to warm up. I'll come back in a couple of minutes."

The nurse disappeared again.

He didn't care. For the first time in hours, heat was seeping into his old bones.

Warm and feeling safe, he succumbed to fatigue and his eyes drooped closed. His sense of balance reasserted itself. He almost believed he'd imagined the whole thing.

Almost.

***

Maddy moved through the morning, trying to ignore the sense of foreboding hanging over her head. Not an easy thing. Something had warped through her world, leaving a trail of unease and confusion in its wake and she didn't know what it was or where it had come from. What she did know is that she couldn't let fear or unrest take over her thoughts.

Moving through the floor, she checked on each of her patients.

At Beth's bedside, she spent a few minutes with the sixty-four-year-old woman. The patient had a zest for life that Maddy admired. Today, that spirit had disappeared. Beth lay curled up in a ball, the covers pulled to her neck. Tiny already, she looked like a child now.

"Bad night, Beth?"

Beth shuddered, her pink scalp showing through her sparse white hair. "Horrible. I had nightmares about death and dying. Nasty stuff." She lifted her liver-spotted hand and reached out for Maddy. Though she tried to smile her lips had a tired droop.

Maddy sat on the side of her bed. She noted the pallor of the woman's skin and the tremors shaking her hand.

It was obvious, Beth, along with every other one of her patients, had been disturbed last night.