Chapter 4 - The Missing Nurse
The label belonged to a powerful sedative stocked in the hospital’s surgical wing.
Claire had not been scheduled for surgery.
Detective Bell photographed the vial cap and asked the charge nurse to print Claire’s medication record.
Three minutes later, the nurse returned with a worried look.
“There’s a discrepancy.”
“What kind?” Bell asked.
“A dose was removed from the automated cabinet at 2:41 a.m. under Nurse Tracy Nolan’s credentials.”
“Did Nurse Nolan administer it?”
“She says she didn’t.”
“Where is she?”
The charge nurse hesitated. “No one can find her.”
Richard looked at Claire. “You said the document photo was at three twelve.”
“Yes.”
Bell wrote the time down. “So somebody accessed a sedative thirty-one minutes before Mrs. Mercer photographed a document she says she never agreed to sign.”
Grant, now seated in the hallway under officer supervision, called through the open door. “You’re building a fantasy out of hospital paperwork.”
Bell stepped into the hall. “Mr. Mercer, I strongly suggest you stop helping me.”
Vanessa stared at the floor.
Claire noticed.
“Vanessa,” she said.
Vanessa did not look up.
“You know the nurse.”
Grant snapped, “Don’t answer that.”
Bell turned slowly toward him. “Interesting choice of words.”
Vanessa lifted her chin. “I know a lot of people.”
Claire remembered something. A Christmas party two years earlier. Vanessa laughing beside a woman in navy scrubs. Grant introducing her as “an old family friend.”
“Tracy came to our house,” Claire said. “Twice.”
Grant’s eyes flicked toward her.
That tiny movement confirmed it.
Richard saw it too.
“Why would your employee’s friend be visiting my daughter’s home?”
“She wasn’t my employee then,” Grant said.
Vanessa closed her eyes.
Bell’s phone rang.
He answered, listened, and walked to the far side of the room.
When he came back, he spoke quietly to Officer Collins.
“Lock down the east stairwell.”
Claire’s pulse jumped. “Why?”
Bell looked at her.
“Because Nurse Nolan’s badge was just used on the fifth floor.”
“This is the fifth floor,” the charge nurse said.
Bell nodded.
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Then the lights in Claire’s room went out.
SOFT PINK
