Cheryl Beth thought about what Lisa had said, but couldn’t believe Christine Lustig could have slept with the man. She said, “So he was working with Christine.”
Bridget let the statement hang just long enough for Stephanie Ott to open her office door and beckon Cheryl Beth inside.
There are two kinds of nurses: scrubs and suits. Stephanie Ott, RN, MSN, emphatically fell into the latter category. Stephanie was even wearing a suit that day. Combined with her short dark hair and angular features, the suit’s red coat and shoulder pads gave her the appearance of a toy soldier, or, Cheryl Beth thought, a nutcracker.
Suits and scrubs. The best nursing administrators maintained the fine balance. Stephanie Ott, RN, MSN, seemed to have little interest in such esoterica. After five years as vice president for nursing, she had yet to visit many of the wards and departments at Cincinnati Memorial. Most of the nursing staff had never seen her outside the large meetings or video-casts that usually announced an unpleasant new policy or staff cutback. She probably hadn’t touched a patient in years, but her ability to reach out with vengeance was legend. One victim was Cheryl Beth’s friend Denise, who had kicked an obnoxious film crew out of the ICU. Denise was one of the best ICU nurses Cheryl Beth had known, and she couldn’t have cared less that the crew worked for an advertising agency owned by a member of the hospital’s board. Stephanie Ott cared, and the next day Denise was banished to the overnight shift on a patient floor.
Now Ott was leaning against an L-shaped desk covered with thick reports constrained by colored binders, blue, taupe, yellow, orange, sage. A small Christmas tree anchored one corner of the desk. As Cheryl Beth entered, she stood, crossed the carpet and took both her hands, leading her to a nearby sofa.
“How are you holding up?”
“I’m okay. It’s been a rough few days.” She sat and relaxed a bit.
“I can only imagine.” Ott sat precisely in a nearby armchair. “Finding her that way.”
Cheryl Beth’s native volubility deserted her. That had been happening a lot the past week.
“What in the world were you doing down there, at that time of night?”
The question was in the same conversational tone, but Cheryl Beth’s initial caution returned. She explained about Christine’s message, told more than was needed about the deserted hallway, the bloody body, the phone ripped from the wall and the inability of cell phone signals to escape that damned basement. Ott continued to look at her, but her attention shut off, as if on a timer. Cheryl Beth shut up.
