The Pain Nurse - страница 48

At the house, the garage door stayed open as long minutes passed. Then she saw Judd Mason emerge on the driveway, still wearing only his scrubs. He stood at the top of the long driveway, seeming to survey the street. She unconsciously slid down further in her seat. He walked down the driveway. In his hand he held a plastic bag. He looked around again, then deposited the bag in the trash hamper sitting by the curb. With quick, long strides he walked back to the garage and the door closed behind him. She tracked him through the house as lights came on in the front room, then went off, followed by the lights turning on in the second story.

Cheryl Beth sat in the car as the cold infiltrated the windshield, came through the door, took control of her feet. She tried not to breathe so deeply. The windshield was starting to fog up. She could hear herself lightly wheezing and she took a puff of the Combivent. Cincinnati was hell on asthma. Sinus Valley. Anxiety was hell on asthma, too. She pulled out the bright red Tylenol lanyard that held her ID and her yellow pain card and started fiddling with it. She had been a nail-biter in high school. Now she pried at the lamination on the yellow card showing the Wong-Baker faces pain rating system. It started with a circle with bright eyes and a smile and moved up the scale to a circle with tears and an inverted U as a mouth. She had felt that way lately.

What happened next was pure impulsiveness. She started the car and crept down the road with the headlights off until she was in front of Judd Mason’s house. His upstairs lights went out. She took a quick look around-all the houses on the street were asleep-and opened the door, stepping out into the chill. She counted the steps to keep herself calm: eleven. Then she was in front of the heavy plastic trash hamper. The lid came up easily and the plastic bag was right on top of a pile of white, tied trash bags. She grabbed it, set the lid down carefully, and walked back to the car, only ten steps this time, her throat tight with tension. Then she was safe in the car and moving. She didn’t turn on the headlights until she was another block away.

She came out on Galbraith Road alone. Or she thought she was, until she saw headlights appear out of the same side street. Her stomach tightened. Surely Mason couldn’t have seen her and given chase. She accelerated and left the headlights far behind her, then she was around more cars as she neared the freeway. At the red light, she turned and picked through the trash. There it was: the white envelope with Christine’s name written on it. She had stolen it. Was it stealing if something had already been thrown away? Was it stealing something that had already been stolen? What was this nurse doing with an opened envelope belonging to Christine?

She turned back toward the city and merged into the fast lane, exhaustion starting to make her body feel heavy. Now she was really looking forward to home, and hoping that everybody could make it through the night without a page to return to the hospital. The heater was a relief after sitting so long in the cold.

The rearview mirror was irresistible. Was that the same pair of headlights that had followed her out onto Galbraith? Now she was just tired and guilty and paranoid. She would decide tomorrow what to do about the letter. She would read it tonight, though. She plucked it out of the trash and slipped it in the lab coat pocket that held her other notes from the day. Then she settled in the seat and drove as the freeway made its gentle descent toward downtown and the Ohio River.

She eased off the interstate and turned onto Taft, the one-way that would take her home. She crossed Reading and it turned into Calhoun. The bundle of buildings of Pill Hill blazed with lights, dominated by the vast University Hospital complex. Farther to the east was the imposing deco tower of Cincinnati Memorial. Soon she would be passing the University of Cincinnati on the right, as she did every night. But her stomach was folded in on itself. She was sure the same car had followed her off the freeway and was just a few blocks behind her. She cursed each red light, but it gave her a chance to look back. The car was right behind her at Vine. It wasn’t the Accord. But it might be the black sedan that had passed her back in Kenwood. There was only one occupant, but she couldn’t see more because of the glare of the headlights. When she looked forward again the light was green.