Chapter 93
[ 519 words ]
Chapter 93:
She pulled a small vial of clear liquid from her pocket, the same kind she had used to frame Caroline once before, and stared at it, her lips twisting into a sick, manic smile.
“If I can’t get her fired for assault,” Melanie murmured, “I’ll make damn sure she gets arrested for something else.”
At ten-thirty in the morning, the hospital was running at maximum capacity. But Caroline wasn’t running rounds. She was sitting in a hard plastic chair outside the Human Resources office on the administrative floor, waiting.
Her mandated leave status had been made brutally clear by Jarrod before he dropped her off. She was not supposed to be on the clinical floor. But the formal complaint Melanie had filed required an official HR intake interview, and Cromwell, desperate to keep the process contained before it reached the police, had scheduled it for this morning. Caroline had been summoned. So here she sat, still wearing her civilian clothes from the morning, the heavy encrypted phone a cold weight in her coat pocket.
The door to the HR office opened. A weary-looking administrator waved her in.
The interview took forty minutes. Caroline answered every question with flat, unemotional precision. Yes, she had been in the locker room with Nurse Corbett. Yes, words had been exchanged. No, she had not touched Melanie’s throat. No, she had no idea how the injury occurred. The administrator took notes behind a desk cluttered with files, her expression unreadable.
When it was over, Caroline walked out into the empty hallway. She was exhausted. A dull ache throbbed behind her eyes. She needed coffee. The administrative floor’s break room was closer than the cafeteria, and she knew the code.
She pushed the heavy wooden door open.
The room was dim. The fluorescent lights flickered slightly. Melanie and Tammy were sitting on the worn-out fabric sofa in the corner. The moment Caroline walked in, their quiet whispering instantly stopped.
Caroline didn’t even look at them. She treated them like invisible dust. She walked straight to the coffee station on the far wall, grabbed a thin paper cup, and poured from the steaming carafe. Hot, dark coffee filled the cup.
𝖩𝘰𝘪𝘯 t𝗁е 𝗰оm𝗺𝘶ո𝘪𝗍𝘺 𝘢t 𝗀𝘢𝗹ո𝘰𝘷𝗲l𝘴.𝗰𝗼m
She stood with her back completely exposed to the room.
Melanie stood up from the sofa. Her rubber-soled shoes made absolutely no sound on the linoleum floor. She walked up right behind Caroline. Her neck was still wrapped in the thick bandage, a prop she had worn all morning to sell her story.
“You think you’re so much better than everyone else, don’t you?” Melanie sneered. She deliberately raised her voice so Tammy could hear. “You think spreading your legs for a doctor makes you special? How did your little HR interview go? Did you cry and tell them you were innocent?”
Caroline’s finger didn’t move from the carafe. The hot coffee overflowed the rim of the paper cup, spilling over her bare skin. She didn’t flinch. She didn’t blink.
She released the lever and slowly turned around.
Her gray eyes were completely dead. It was the terrifying, emotionless stare of a woman who had endured interrogation rooms far worse than anything this hospital could conjure.
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