by Forester, TJ
He was silent for a long moment and then said, “Maybe you have been working too many hours and dreamed that you lost a patient—” he crossed his arms “—it does happen you know.”
Offended, Sherena left his office and walked back to the ER. Dr. Waite was leaning back, feet on the desk, with a cup of coffee in his hand.
“Dr. Waite”— she caught him off guard and he nearly dropped his cup —“do you remember the patient we lost last night.” She had told him herself at shift change.
He sat up straight, and looked puzzled. He pursed his lips and finally said, “I remember that you said you had a patient who came in with a migraine—” he spoke more slowly “—I don’t recall you having lost a patient last night.”
This was unbelievable, she had explained to this man the whole story, in detail, only a few hours earlier. Sherena let out a frustrated sigh and then walked to the computer to pull up the online chart—they had no paper filing system—there was no Jenny Carian in the computer. Sherena tried various spellings in case of a typo, but there was nothing.
She turned to Dr. Waite, “Do you remember the name of the patient with the migraine?”
He furrowed his brow and shook his head. “I don’t believe you mentioned her name.”
Just then, the elevator opened and it was Bob. Odd that he would be there after having worked the night shift.
“Bob”— she practically accosted him —“you remember that we lost a patient last night, right?”
He hesitated and looked over at Dr. Waite, and then back at Sherena. “I’m not sure what you are talking about—” he sounded sincere “—I didn’t work last night.”
She swallowed hard. How could she have dreamed the event? Could I have? “I’m sorry—” embarrassed and confused now “—I’ve been working too many hours. I guess I had a nightmare.”
She would get to the bottom of this, but not then and there. She was making too much of a scene, but the next time she saw Logan she was going to get some answers! She went home, took a Xanax, and went to bed. She was certain of one thing, she had not dreamed that bizarre death, and there must be proof somewhere.
***
Sherena was wandering through the halls of the small, Triogenix hospital facility. Clearing a corner, she nearly ran into Jenny Carian.
“I’m sorry”— Sherena grabbed her by the arms—“are you all right?”
“You killed me!” the woman accused. Her eyes were glazed over, the way they get twenty-four hours after death.
“I tried”— Sherena screamed —“I tried, I tried!”
She awoke suddenly, drenched with sweat—breathing as if she had been running a marathon. The nightmare had been so real, so incredibly vivid that for a few moments she began to question if the whole death had been a dream, or worse—a hallucination.
She got out of bed and splashed water on her face. She stared at her reflection in the mirror. Jenny Carian was standing behind her, reaching out her hand. Sherena spun around, now Jenny had blood running down her face—from her forehead, eyes, and mouth, and her skin was peeling.
“You killed me! —” Her cloudy eyes glared at her “—you killed me!”
The phone rang and jarred Sherena awake. She had dreamed that she was dreaming. The only thing real was her own sweat. She focused on the ringing phone and finally picked it up, slightly out of breath. It was Logan.
“Logan”— her voice was desperate —“thank God. I think I’m going crazy. Can we meet?”
“Sure”— he sounded concerned —“what’s wrong?”
“I don’t want to talk about it on the phone.”
“Okay, any place in particular you want to go?”
She thought for a moment. “Just come here, please; as soon as you can.
“Be right over.” He hung up.
She let out a breath that she didn’t know she was holding. She wanted to wash the sweat off but looking at the bathroom door made her feel sick. Maybe she had dreamed the death, but she had never walked in her sleep. She had most certainly been at work when the event happened—whatever it was.
Chapter 6
“Sometimes it is more important to discover
what one cannot do,
than what one can do." Lin Yutang
~
“Hey”— Logan pulled Sherena into his arms —“you sounded terrible. What happened?”
“Honestly—” she shrugged and shook her head before practically falling onto the sofa “—I’m not sure. I had a nightmare, of a nightmare, about something I may have dreamed, or it really happened.”
“You lost me—” he turned her face to look into his eyes “—start back at the dream.”
She was quiet for a moment. “Where do you work?” she asked before answering his question.
He cocked his head, “What does that have to do with anything?”
She took a deep breath, “Just tell me please.”
“I—” he hesitated “—work at Triogenix, same as you.”
“Dr. Soranto said that you don’t work there—” she met his eyes “—in fact, he acted as if he hardly knew who you were.”
His expression went dark just for a second before he answered, “I work in a different building. He hasn’t seen me very often. Probably just forgot me—so many researchers.”
She thought back to the week before when she had seen them talking. Suddenly, she wasn’t sure if she could trust him.
“If someone dies in the ER for an unknown reason—” she changed the subject “—who would do the autopsy?”
“I would”— he said flatly —“why?”
“Where is the morgue?”— She didn’t stop to answer him —“you said you work in a different building.”
He sat there quietly, “Why all the questions? I thought you wanted to talk about your nightmare.”
“I do, but first”— she shrugged —“just answer me.”
He let out a sigh, “I work in the building…the one I told you to stay away from. The morgue is there too. My work is…classified.”
“Okay—” she breathed “—so you can’t tell me much. Why is the morgue in a classified building? Can you at least tell me that much?”
“The morgue is there for convenience. My work is related to cellular death as I told you. I deal with a lot of cadavers, as you might assume. It’s just easier to have the morgue there I suppose. I didn’t design the setup for Triogenix.”
She thought about it for a moment and decided that he was being honest and probably telling her everything he could.
“Did you do an autopsy, or receive a patient for autopsy from the ER who died last night?”
“I’m sure I would have been told if someone died in the ER for any unknown cause.”
She noticed that he didn’t actually answer her question. “Yes—” she cleared her throat “—I’m sure you would, that is why I’m asking.”
He shook his head. “No, I haven’t had a patient come from the clinic at all.”
Logan sounded as if he were telling the truth, but none of it made sense.
She was silent long enough that he asked, “Why?”
“I—” she wasn’t sure she wanted to tell him “—I was working the ER shift last night. A young woman, Jenny Carian was her name. She came in complaining of a migraine. I treated her with some IV meds, and a few minutes later she seized, and died within seconds. I have no idea why and when I asked Dr. Soranto about it, he said that no one had died and I must have dreamed the whole thing.”
“Did you?” he asked.
Insulted, she shook her head. “Not you too”— she stood up and paced —“I didn’t dream anything!”
“Wait”— he backpedaled —“I thought you asked me to come over because of a nightmare. I’m lost here.”
She sat down and met his eyes. “Listen, I didn’t dream the death in the ER. I had a nightmare about it, that’s all. I’m sure the nightmare was because of the whole missing dead body thing.”
�
��Well—” he shrugged “—did you ask the nurse if he or she remembered?”
“Yes”— she threw up her hands —“Bob, Robert Danaher, was on. When I asked him, he denied working the shift with me. I checked the computer for her file and it’s missing!”
Logan was quiet too long and then finally said, “Are you certain that you didn’t dream it—” he spread his arms imploringly “—look, those shifts are long, and maybe…just maybe you dozed off?”
“So you don’t believe me either?” She turned to face the window and pursed her lips.
“I didn’t say that I don’t believe you—” he touched her cheek to get her to look at him “—I was only throwing out the possibility.”
“No”— she shook her head vehemently —“do you have any idea how long residency ER shifts are? You’re a doctor, didn’t you have to work thirty-hour shifts during your residency, or do pathologists get to skip that?”
“Well—” he shook his head “—we don’t get to skip residency, but it’s nothing like that…fourteen, sometimes sixteen hour shifts, but no, not thirty.”
“You get my point though”— she motioned with her hands —“don’t you? I mean, if I’m used to that…I’m certainly not going to doze off during a boring twelve.”
“Have you considered that part?—” He suggested “—like you said, it’s boring. Maybe you—”
She cut him off with a glare.
“—Okay, I’m with you a hundred percent. You were wide awake, a patient died, but you think someone is covering it up?”
“It’s not like a patient could get lost in the massive buildup of paperwork around here.”
He let out a long sigh. “Honestly, I’m not as much in the loop as you might think. I do have”— he scratched his head —“as you said, a higher clearance level, but I’m still just a peon. Dr. Soranto is at the top. If he says no one died, then…I think you should leave it alone.”
She was dumfounded. “Logan, we are talking about an unexplained death being covered up. How can you seriously tell me to let it go?”
“Look—” he put his hands on her shoulders gently “—I’m not suggesting you let anybody get away with anything nefarious. I’m only saying there are things that you don’t know about, which might create a perfectly valid explanation, but…you know we are working on some classified stuff and—”
She cut him off, “You do know about it!”
“—no, I don’t. I didn’t say that. I do know that there could be a good explanation.”
“For covering up an unexplained death?”
“I can’t talk about it”— Logan spoke somberly —“but I do trust Dr. Soranto. If he did cover something up, I’m sure there was a good reason.”
She stared at him blankly, unable to process what, or why he was saying the things that he was saying. She got up, stared out the window, and said nothing.
“Sherena”— his voice was soothing and he ran his fingers down her back —“trust me when I tell you that there are somethings going on around here that you are better off not knowing. That doesn’t make them bad things, just important that they remain classified. If this falls under that category then I do think you should drop it.”
She turned around and looked into his eyes. He seemed sincere, but—she had never been good at telling whether a man was lying. Her mind flashed back to her ex-husband. She had surely misjudged him and it had cost her dearly. Still, she wanted to trust Logan.
“I guess you don’t believe in the freedom of the press,” she said sardonically.
He gave her that crooked smile, and then his expression turned more serious. “If an asteroid was going to hit the planet and wipe out the human race—for certain—do you think it would be in the best interest of the people to know about it.”
“We aren’t talking about something that big,” she said flatly.
“What if we are?”
Chapter 7
“Penetrating so many secrets, we cease to believe in the unknowable. But there it sits nevertheless, calmly licking its chops." H. L. Mencken
~
Sherena was staring into her microscope, trying to estimate the speed of the cellular regeneration process of her sample in real-time, but her mind kept wandering back to her conversation with Logan. She had wasted five samples already. She needed to concentrate, but how could she. He hadn’t told her anything more, but he certainly implied that something big was going on in that mysterious, off-limits building.
She had to get in there, but that wasn’t going to happen. Knowing that she had a functioning RFID chip in her shoulder was putting a dampener on her wanderlust. She wished she knew if they monitored that in real-time or just used it for…whatever that was.
All she had was questions—why didn’t I read those papers more carefully—she had copies, but they were of little use now. She couldn’t take out the chip.
She had gone to lunch with Logan every day that week, but they had not spoken about his classified work, or the missing body. If anything, he had become more secretive than before. It bothered her, but she liked him more than she wanted to admit to herself. She had no desire to argue with him.
Maybe he is right, she told herself, but it didn’t sit well.
She decided to take a break and get some coffee, maybe it would help her focus. On her way to the doctor’s lounge, she passed medical records. The light was off, there was apparently no regular staff in there, but it started her thinking about the medical record file for Jenny Carian. Someone had erased it but—what if there were another copy?
She slipped into the room. No lock, no biometric sensors. She typed her login information into the computer. It gave her access, no problem—so far so good. She typed in Jenny Carian—nothing.
She decided to search by diagnosis. She typed Acute Vascular Headache. A few names and dates showed up, but none was recent. She drummed her nails, what about reason for discharge—death!
She laughed at her thought, certain that wouldn’t show up, but something did catch her attention. There seemed to be an unusually high number of AMA—against medical advice—discharges. While it was odd, she couldn’t see any relationship.
Let’s find out which doctor the patients so dislike—no correlation. That seemed a bit strange. In fact, there was a nearly perfect distribution of AMA patients per doctor—too perfect! Exactly seven doctors on night shift, each covered one twelve hour shift per week. Each doctor had exactly one AMA patient each month for the past two months, except for her!
She looked at it more closely; the dates were also in a perfect pattern. Her missing patient died on the date that she should have had a patient leave AMA. If this were indeed a pattern, why didn’t her patient just leave, like the rest?
Okay, this makes no sense—patients don’t go AMA on a schedule unless it’s staff related and the doctor is different every time. She looked again and then she saw it, Bob. Robert Danaher was the RN on shift each night a patient left AMA. Her first thought was that they must really dislike him, but he was friendly enough.
She sat there thinking about that night. She sent Bob in to administer IV pain meds, and then—what happened?—then she told him she was leaving to go to the doctor’s lounge, otherwise she would have missed the whole death. However, she hadn’t been in the doctor’s lounge.
It happened so fast that—
Her mouth dropped, and she quickly shutoff the computer and ran back to her office. She locked the door before she allowed herself to put it together—the thought trying to emerge. If she had been in the doctor’s lounge when she was supposed to be…where Bob thought she was…he could have—
No, not Bob, nice Bob, she couldn’t finish the thought but there it was. What if all the other doctors—were in the doctor’s lounge when the patients left AMA? Maybe they didn’t leave AMA at all—maybe they left...dead.
That wasn’t possible, was it? Bob was the only one who could have—wait, could he have hacked the computer and erased Jenny Caria
n’s records.
She went over it again and again. Bob went in the room and gave the patient an injection and then she died.
He’s killing them and covering it up—she thought.
The other doctors could have just come back later, and Bob could have simply told them that the patient left AMA.
Wait, the orderly took the body. No, he wasn’t an orderly. She strained to remember. He was wearing gray coveralls with the Triogenix logo on them. At least two people are in on it, but who, where, and why. Her heart was pounding. Who else knows? The biggest question of all is does Logan know?
***
Sherena sat waiting for Logan at the diner where they were meeting for lunch. She hadn’t decided what to tell him, if anything. Could she trust him?
He touched her on her back and she nearly jumped out of her chair.
“Hey”— he leaned over and kissed her on the cheek before setting flowers down in front of her —“you all right?”
“Uh—” she sounded unsure “—yeah, of course.”
Should I tell him? Her head went in circles. Her mind was conjuring up all sorts of paranoid thoughts. If he were in on it—if there was actually anything going on—sinister. She made up her mind to wait a while…see if there was anything else she could dig up first.
However, she would ask him if he had found out anything and wait for his reaction.
He sat down. She hesitated for a minute, to try to act more natural and then asked. “Did you find anything about my mysterious missing body”— she cleared her throat —“I’m trying to drop it like you said, but just in case. I thought I’d ask.”
For a split second, she thought his face darkened, and he made a barely perceptible motion with his eyes—maybe that’s my imagination.
“No”— he answered nonchalantly —“nothing, I wish I could be of more help.”
She wasn’t sure that he was being truthful, but she just didn’t want to believe he could be in on something evil. Maybe there was a legitimate explanation that he simply couldn’t tell her, but she found it hard to believe that there could be an innocent explanation.