“Did you wash behind your ears?”
“Beth.”
She laughed again. “Speak to you tonight.”
It was a good forty-minute commute to work that morning. With autumn in full swing, she could have used the heat in her Honda but it had given up the ghost a month ago. She still hadn’t had a chance to get it into the garage.
Once she had passed through numerous security checks, Morgan, the head of security, escorted her onto the hospital grounds and up to the building. He picked up on how nervous she was because she kept fiddling with the personal alarm on her hip. Like a rookie cop making sure a gun was in its holster, she kept checking to make sure it was secure.
“Be careful not to touch that unless you need to. Those things go off at least twenty times a day, four or five are always staff who have accidentally activated them.”
“Right,” she said. “Thanks.” Hanna took a deep breath as her gaze washed over the yard and tall security fence.
Led into the main building, she was taken down to Unit C. An overwhelming sense that she was trapped came over her. Soulless eyes stared back as they passed through one doorway after the next. One patient reached out and lifted her long dark hair and smelled it before Morgan shoved him back. “Hands off!”
“It’s okay,” Hanna said.
“It’s not and I would put up the hair unless you want to be dragged around the corridors on your first day.”
“Yeah, I… uh… I planned…” she trailed off as she noticed a patient running around in nothing but a pair of underpants on his head. “Is he…?”
Before she finished, two psych techs wrestled the man to the ground, covering him with a blanket. Morgan didn’t bat an eye or explain. He was middle-aged, black, a heavyset guy with a take no bullshit attitude. Morgan mumbled to himself, she caught a little, something about stupid. She assumed he was referring to her.
After a brief introduction to Dr. Chapman, she was handed off to RN Caroline Byrd. She was a thin girl in her twenties who looked as if she could be blown over with one breath. Why they’d hired her was a mystery. Everyone else she’d seen so far looked as if they spent hours in the gym pounding iron.
Huddled into a cramped, windowless room with an oak table and eight chairs were the rest of the staff. They were already discussing patients in detail and the care plan for the day. It was common procedure that she’d been through countless times.
“Wayne, this is the new nurse-in-charge,” Caroline said, holding the door for her.
“Ah yes, fresh meat.”
“Pardon?”
The others laughed. “Forgive him. He does it every time we get someone new.” A tall, good-looking guy with a crew cut extended a hand. “I’m Bryan French, the psychologist here. That’s Lola Brannigan, one of our social workers.” Lola was a Chinese woman with short dark bangs that she kept pushing out of her face. “Then of course we have the lovable Wayne Vaughn.”
Wayne tipped his head. He was perched on the edge of a table with a chart in hand. He tossed it down and then picked up a blue binder. A few seconds after, three techs entered. “Everything go okay?” Wayne asked.
“He’s utterly mad. I don’t know why we even bother to give him clothes. He keeps taking them off,” a bald guy with glasses said. He scowled at Hanna before slumping into a seat. “All right, let’s get this over and done with, I’m exhausted and need coffee.”
“That’s Jenkins,” Caroline whispered in her ear. “And the small stocky one beside him with the cleft lip is Porter. Whatever you do, don’t stare at it.” She smiled and leaned back against the wall.
Vaughn opened the binder. “Club Med. We need to clamp down on this. Oliver found two jars of it last night hidden in the linen room. That’s meant to be locked. Jenkins, you were on last night. Care to address this?”
“It was locked when I checked. No idea,” he replied without even looking at him. There was something very shifty and careless to his demeanor. It was to be expected. Every shift in the ER had one bad apple among the bunch — one staff member who complained all the time, took extra breaks and passed the blame the first chance they got, and yet they were always the first out the door at the end of a shift.
“Anyone else?”
No one answered.
“Great. Well, we need to…”
“Where did they get it from?” Hanna asked, chiming in.
All eyes were on her as if she’d spoken out of turn.
“It’s moonshine. Made from a concoction of meds and orange juice.”
“So someone’s not taking their meds?”
Jenkins chuckled. “Give this lady an award. Who are you anyway?”
“That’s your boss,” Vaughn replied to which Jenkins cleared his throat and looked down at the floor. She wasn’t exactly his boss. Though RNs tended to be treated a little higher up in the hierarchy system, the truth was there were some things that psych techs handled that RNs didn’t. Her job mostly involved assessments, clerical, supervising techs, giving injections, taking blood and at times supervising the unit.
“They have their ways,” Caroline said. “Patients around here are very creative at not taking meds. It’s not just those who tuck it under their tongue that we have to keep an eye on, but we have those who use sleight of hand, and patients who nudge others or create a distraction. You’ll soon see it in action. I’d like to say it’s not hard to miss but when you’re tired, there are those that manage to slip through.”
“Right. Can we proceed?” Vaughn said looking at Caroline. Jenkins snorted. “The other issues I wanted to discuss concern joints, cigarettes and gambling. Seth smelled ciggies last night and found a group in Mr. Ramone’s room.”
“Cigarettes? How do they light them?” Hanna asked as she knew there was a rule against lighters and cigarettes on the unit. Even if
