When Janet reached Helen Cabot’s room, she paused. The door was propped open by a rubber stopper. Stepping inside, Janet gazed around. She didn’t expect to find any drugs there, but she wanted to check just the same. As she’d expected, there weren’t any.
Having recovered her composure, Janet headed back toward the nurses’ station, passing Gloria D’Amataglio’s room on the way. Taking a moment, Janet stuck her head through the open door. Gloria was sitting up in her armchair with a stainless steel kidney dish clutched in her hand. Her IV was still running.
When they’d chatted the day before Janet had learned that Gloria had gone to Wellesley College just as she herself had. Janet had been in the class a year ahead. After thinking about it overnight, Janet had decided to ask Gloria if she’d known a friend of hers who’d been in Gloria’s class. Getting Gloria’s attention, she posed her question.
“You knew Laura Lowell!” Gloria said with forced enthusiasm. “Amazing! I was great friends with her. I loved her parents.” It was painfully obvious to Janet that Gloria was making an effort to be sociable. Her chemotherapy was no doubt leaving her nauseous.
“I thought you might,” Janet said. “Everybody knew Laura.”
Janet was about to excuse herself and allow Gloria to rest when she heard a rattle behind her. She turned in time to see the housekeeping man appear at the door, then immediately disappear. Fearing her presence had interrupted his schedule, Janet told Gloria she’d stop by later and went out into the hall to tell the housekeeper the room was all his. But the man had disappeared. She looked up and down the corridor. She even checked a couple of the neighboring rooms. It was as if he’d simply vanished into thin air.
Janet headed back to the nurses’ station. Noticing she still had a bit of break time left, she took the elevator down to the second floor in hopes of getting a glimpse at one or more of the missing charts. Helen Cabot was still undergoing pheresis and would be for some time. Her chart was unavailable. Kathleen Sharenburg was undergoing a biopsy at that moment, and her chart was in the radiology office. With Louis Martin, Janet lucked out. His biopsy was scheduled to follow Kathleen Sharenburg’s. Janet discovered him on a gurney in the hallway. He was heavily tranquilized and soundly sleeping. His chart was tucked under the gurney pad.
After checking with a technician and learning that Louis would not be biopsied for at least an hour, Janet took a chance and pulled out his chart. Walking quickly as if leaving the scene of a crime with the evidence in hand, she carried the chart into medical records. It was all she could do not to break into a full sprint. Janet admitted to herself that she was probably the worst person in the world to be involved in this kind of thing. The anxiety she’d felt in the pharmacy locker came back in a flash.
“Of course you can use the copy machine,” one of the medical record librarians told her when she asked. “That’s what it’s here for. Just indicate nursing on the log.”
Janet wondered if this librarian was the mother of the woman in public relations who’d been in Sean’s apartment on the night of her arrival. She’d have to be careful. As she walked over to the copy machine, she glanced over her shoulder. The woman had gone back to the task she’d been doing when Janet had entered, paying no attention to Janet whatsoever.
Janet quickly copied Louis’s entire chart. There were more pages than she would have expected, particularly since he had only been hospitalized for one day. Glancing at some of them, Janet could tell that most of the chart consisted of referral material that had come from Boston Memorial.
Finished at last, Janet hurried the chart back to the gurney. She was relieved to see that Louis had not been moved. Janet slipped the chart under the pad, positioning it exactly as she’d found it. Louis didn’t stir.
Returning to the fourth floor, Janet panicked. She hadn’t given any thought to what she would do with the copy of the chart. It was too big to fit into her purse, and she couldn’t leave it lying about. She had to find a temporary hiding place, somewhere the other nurses and nursing assistants would not be likely to go.
With no break time left, Janet had to think fast. The last thing she wanted to do on her first day of work was take more time off than she was due. Frantically, Janet tried to think. She considered the patient lounge, but it was currently occupied. She thought of one of the lower cabinets in the pharmacy closet, but dismissed that idea as too risky. Finally she thought of the housekeeping closet.
Janet looked up and down the corridor. There were plenty of people around, but they all seemed absorbed by what they were doing. She saw the housekeeper’s cart parked outside a nearby patient room, suggesting the man was busy cleaning within. Taking a breath, Janet slipped into the closet. The door with its automatic closer shut behind her instantly, plunging her into darkness. She groped for the light switch and turned it on.
The tiny room was dominated by a generous slop sink. On the wall opposite was a countertop with undercounter cabinets, a bank of shallow overcounter wall cabinets, and a broom closet. She opened the broom closet. There were a few shelves above the compartment that held the brooms and mops, but they were too exposed. Then she looked at the overcounter cabinets and her eyes kept rising.
Placing a foot on the edge of the slop sink, she climbed up atop the counter. Reaching up, she groped the area above the wall cabinets. As she’d guessed, there was a narrow depressed space between the top of the cabinets and the ceiling. Confident she’d found what she’d been looking for, she slipped the chart copy over the front lip and let it drop down. A bit of dust rose up in a cloud.
Satisfied, Janet climbed down, rinsed her hands in the sink, then emerged into the hall. If anybody had wondered what she’d been up to, they didn’t give any indication. One of the other nurses passed her and smiled cheerfully.
Returning to the nurses’ station, Janet threw herself into her work. After five minutes she began to calm down. After ten minutes even her pulse had returned to normal. When Marjorie appeared a few minutes later, Janet was calm enough to inquire about Helen Cabot’s coded medication.
“I’ve been going over each of the patients’ treatments,” Janet said. “I want to familiarize myself with their medications so I’ll be prepared for whomever I’m assigned to for the day. I saw reference to MB30 °C and MB303C. What are they, and where would I find them?”
Marjorie straightened up from bending over the desk. She grasped a key strung around her neck on a silver-colored chain and pulled it out in front of her. “MB medicine you get from me,” she said. “We keep it in a refrigerated lockup right here in the nursing station.” She pulled open a cabinet to expose a small refrigerator. “It’s up to the head nurse on each shift to dispense it. We control the MBs somewhat like narcotics only a bit stricter.”
“Well that explains why I couldn’t find it in the pharmacy,” Janet said, forcing a smile. All at once she realized that getting samples of the medicine was going to be a hundred times more difficult than she’d envisioned. In fact, she wondered if it was possible at all.
Tom Widdicomb was trying to calm down. He’d never felt so wired in his life. Usually his mother was able to calm him down, but now she wouldn’t even talk to him.
He’d made it a point to arrive extra early that morning. He’d kept an eye on that new nurse, Janet Reardon, from the moment she’d arrived. He’d trailed her carefully, watching her every move. After tracking her for an hour, he’d decided his concerns had been unjustified. She’d acted like any other nurse so Tom had felt relieved.