The Night Shift Warning

Chapter 4 The First c***k

I got the access logs on Friday night. It was not hard. I still had my badge. I still had access to the system. I went to the nursing station at 2 a.m. when the unit was quiet and I logged in and I pulled the logs and I emailed them to Marcus Cole from a secure account.

It took three minutes.

Then I went back to my patients and I finished my shift and I drove home and I went to bed.

The next morning, at 10 a.m., I got a text from Marcus.

Marcus: We have a meeting. Monday at 9. Conference room B. Come alone.

I did not respond. I did not need to. I knew what was coming.

On Monday morning, I walked into Conference room B. It was a small room on the second floor, the kind of room that was used for employee counseling and performance reviews and the kind of conversations that no one wanted to have. Marcus was there. So was a woman from human resources, a thin woman with a tight face and a voice that was too calm. So was a man from administration, the one whose name was on the top page of Marcus's folder, the one I had never met until now.

He was in his forties. He had gray hair and a nice suit and a way of looking at people that made you feel like he was doing you a favor by being in the same room.

His name was Jeffrey Holt. He was the vice president of something. I did not know what. I did not care.

"Ms. Reyes," he said. "Thank you for coming in."

I did not say anything. I sat down.

He looked at Marcus. He looked at the HR woman. He looked at me.

"I've read the report," he said. "I've read your statement. I've seen the logs and the signatures and the notebook. I want to be upfront with you. This is a serious matter. And I want to make sure we handle it the right way."

I still did not say anything.

"Now," he said, "before we go any further, I want to ask you something. Have you shared any of this information with anyone outside of this room?"

I looked at him. I thought about the board. I thought about the state. I thought about the daughter of Arthur Pendleton and the daughter of Harold Brennan and all the other families who had trusted us.

"No," I said.

He nodded. "Good. Because I want to make sure we can handle this internally. I want to make sure we can resolve this without anyone getting hurt."

I did not know what he meant by hurt. I did not ask.

"Marlene has been with us for fifteen years," he said. "She's a valued employee. She's a leader on North 4. And I have to say, I'm struggling to understand how someone with her record could be involved in something like this."

"She was involved," I said. "I saw it. I documented it."

Jeffrey Holt looked at me. His face did not change.

"I'm not saying you didn't see what you saw. I'm saying that there might be a different explanation. There might be a reason for the changes, for the signatures, for the medication orders. Marlene is a nurse. She has a lot of experience. She might have made decisions that she believed were in the best interest of her patients."

I stared at him.

"She forged a consent form," I said. "She changed a medication order without a physician's order. She put a patient's life at risk."

The HR woman shifted in her chair. Marcus Cole was looking at the table.

Jeffrey Holt leaned back. He smiled. It was a small smile, the kind that you give someone when you are about to tell them something they are not going to like.

"I'm not saying what happened was right," he said. "I'm saying that we need to be very careful about how we handle this. If we go public with this, it will affect the entire hospital. It will affect our reputation. It will affect the trust that our patients have in us. And I don't think that's what you want, is it?"

I looked at him. I looked at Marcus. I looked at the HR woman. I looked at the table in front of me and the coffee cups and the notebooks and the pens, the ordinary objects of an ordinary meeting, the kind of meeting that happened every day in hospitals across the country, the kind of meeting where people decided what was true and what was not.

"I want the truth," I said.

Jeffrey Holt nodded. He stood up. He looked at me.

"Then let me offer you a solution," he said. "We'll transfer you to another unit. Another hospital. We'll give you a recommendation and a severance package. You'll sign an NDA. And we'll handle Marlene internally. Everyone walks away. Everyone gets what they want."

I looked at him. I thought about the years I had spent on North 4. I thought about the patients I had cared for. I thought about Tyesha and the way she had looked at me. I thought about Harold Brennan and his daughter and the dose that would have stopped his heart.

"No," I said.

Jeffrey Holt's smile did not change. But something behind his eyes did.

"I'm sorry?" he said.

"No. I'm not signing an NDA. I'm not transferring. I'm not going to walk away and let this be handled internally. I'm going to make sure that what happened on North 4 is not covered up."

The room was quiet. Marcus Cole looked at me. The HR woman looked at Marcus. Jeffrey Holt looked at me, and his face was no longer friendly.

"Ms. Reyes," he said. "I would advise you to think very carefully about what you're doing. You're a nurse. You have a career. You have a future. And if you go down this road, you're going to find that it's a lot harder than you think."

I stood up. I looked at him. I thought about all the things I could say, all the things I had been holding back for six weeks, all the things that had been sitting in my chest like a weight.

"I've already thought about it," I said. "I've been thinking about it for six weeks."

I walked out of the room.

I walked down the hallway. I walked past the nursing station where I had worked for three years. I walked past the patients' rooms and the call bells and the medication dispensers and the hand sanitizer stations and the posters about patient safety. I walked past all of it and I did not look back.

When I got to my car, I sat in the driver's seat and I put my hands on the steering wheel. My hands were shaking. I did not know why. I was not afraid. I was not sad. I was something else, something I could not name, something that felt like the moment before a storm.

I started the engine. I drove home.

That night, at 8 p.m., my phone buzzed. I looked at it. It was a text from Marlene.

Marlene: I heard you were in a meeting today. I heard you said some things. I just want you to know that I'm sorry. I'm sorry for whatever you think I did. But I'm not the villain here. You'll see.

I read the text twice. I did not respond. I put the phone down and I went to bed.

But I did not sleep. I lay in the dark and I stared at the ceiling and I thought about the storm that was coming and all the things it would take with it.