Chapter Twenty-Two
Monica walked… well limped, out of the human resources building with a pink slip and an attitude. She was half tempted to walk into the ER and ask Pat what the hell her problem was. Now that Monica was back in the States, a formal investigation would take place. Of course that took time to happen and it wouldn’t transpire until all parties involved could be reached.
All parties involved. Who the hell could they be talking about? On the surface the case had very little ground. Monica had covered her shifts. Except one of her colleagues had gotten sick and the shifts then defaulted back to Monica. It became her responsibility to have them covered. She wasn’t exactly around to fix the schedule, being knee-deep in shit on the island. The scheduling problem had taken place the first hours on Jamaica and there wasn’t a damn thing Monica could do to fix it.
It wasn’t proven yet, but it appeared that Pat had kept at least one nurse from coming in to help solidify the case against Monica. The whole thing was stupid.
Monica sat in with Mrs. Levine, the HR representative, who began with the facts, and then started to embellish them.
“It doesn’t help your case that you were on the island enjoying the sights.”
“Enjoying the sights,” Monica practically yelled. “What are you talking about? I worked my ass off the whole time I was there.”
Mrs. Levine, with a polished expression of disbelief, peered at Monica over her cheaters. “According to one nurse at the clinic, you left on more than one occasion with a local for a… an affair.”
Monica felt steam come out her ears. “An affair? What the hell?”
“We still need to obtain her statement, but she said it was well known that you slept in this man’s home instead of the accommodations provided by Borderless Nurses.”
“There weren’t any damn accommodations. I was transferred to a clinic far away from anything. Dr. Eddy and Dr. Klein were both there. They’ll vouch for me.”
Mrs. Levine removed her dime-store glasses from her nose and crossed her arms over her chest. “Are you saying you didn’t spend time with a man on the island? A man who wasn’t a colleague or a patient?”
Monica stood at that point and crumbled her pink slip in her grasp. “I feel like I need a f*cking lawyer.”
“Cussing at me will not change the facts. And that wasn’t an answer, Miss Mann. It’s one thing to leave your post with the intentions of helping others abroad. But to do so and use the good of our system for a free vacation with a lover…”
Monica wasn’t prone to violence, but she’d never wanted to punch someone so bad in her entire life.
She hobbled out of the building and practically ran into a familiar and unwelcome guest. “Dammit. What are you doing here?”
John tucked his hands in his pockets and peered behind her. “That bad?”
“They’re stupid. Have no idea what I’ve had to go through.”
“Wanna talk about it?”
Yes, but she didn’t think that someone to talk to about it was him. Her conversation with him held a whole different set of words.
In her haste to get out of the building she stepped down the stairs with the wrong foot and damn near ended up on her butt. John managed to keep her upright, his hand lingered on her arm longer than she wanted.
“Thanks,” she said as she stepped away.
“C’mon. I’ll buy you a drink.”
She rubbed a hand over her face. “John…”
“Just a drink. I know we have a lot to talk about. That can wait. Let’s just pretend we’ve only worked together and we’re shooting the crap after a bad shift. OK?” Some of the charm he’d held that encouraged her to go out with him the first time presented itself with his smile. She didn’t want to be his enemy, or the bitch in his life that he would judge all others against.
“Just a drink?”
His smile started to crack. “One cocktail. Or soda… your choice.”
Soda wouldn’t do for this day. “One drink.”
He smiled. “Want me to drive?”
Yeah, but she didn’t want to be without a car, or have an excuse to have more than one drink. “I’ll meet you at Joe’s.”
Joe’s was around the block from the hospital. The jukebox held some of the latest pop favorites and several from the eighties and beyond. The music wasn’t rap and filled with hate, which made it a decent spot for the staff to meet up after work. The last thing they needed after twelve hours was headache-inducing bass.
The cocktail waitress took their order and disappeared after leaving a bowl of salty pretzels on the table. Smart move. Monica started nibbling on them the minute she walked away.
“Pat’s been bad-mouthing you ever since you left,” John told her once their drinks arrived. Monica opted for a beer. It would take a while to get through and wouldn’t leave her hungry when she was done.
“I’m sure she had an audience with you.” Monica wanted to slap the words back into her mouth instantly.
John shrugged. “I wasn’t happy with you when you left, but I didn’t join her tirade. We had a really busy shift the day Shel called in sick.”
“I can’t help the fact that my replacement was ill. What was I supposed to do an ocean away?”
John tipped his drink back. “More than one person called Pat on her shit. Didn’t stop her from going to the DN.”
The director of nursing was Pat’s best friend. They’d known each other since nursing school, back in the Stone Age. “Great.”
“I wasn’t at work the day we heard you were missing. Deb called me at home.”
For once, Monica felt bad for John.
He took another swig of his drink, popped a few pretzels in his mouth.
“I survived.”
“Not before we all thought the worst. God, Monica, when I think of how our last conversation went—”
“Not our last conversation,” she reminded him. “I’m here now.”
He gave her a half smile. “Well. Pat seemed to have some remorse. Word got out that some of the fire guys took off to look for you, Pat didn’t even come to work. Then when she found out you were rescued… I don’t know, it’s like there was never any hitch in her plan. She went right back to bitch mode. Said if you were there only for work then what were you doing in a cave to begin with.”
For a minute, Monica thought of defending herself, her actions. Then she realized who she was talking to. She might not owe John an explanation, but she didn’t want to flaunt her behavior either. Especially since her lapse of judgment nearly got her killed and the guy involved didn’t stick around for a proper good-bye.
Maybe it was karma for the Ice Queen, a taste of her own medicine.
“It was hell on that island. I hardly ate, barely slept. When all this is hashed out it’s Pat that’s going to look like the witch she is.” Monica finished her beer.
John placed his hand over hers.
Monica slipped away. “John?”
“No. We said nothing more than work shit.”
She smiled and sat back for a moment.
“But I’m damn happy you didn’t die, Monica.”
She laughed at that. “Me, too.”
For a few more minutes, they talked about the hospital, about some of the gossip she’d missed while away. When she left, Monica felt a little less like an Ice Queen.
Monica shot out of bed in a cold sweat screaming Trent’s name. The panic didn’t start to fade until she turned on her bedside lamp and filled her room with light. As the terror of being back in the cave was still fresh in her mind from the part dream, part memory faded, the pain in her leg brought her back to reality in a flash.
Under the stiff, unrelenting cast, her leg cramped. A charley horse of monstrous proportions gripped her and didn’t let go. Tears instantly appeared. She jumped out of bed and tried to walk off the cramp but with the inability to flex her foot, the pain didn’t stop. In her bathroom, she fumbled with the bottle of muscle relaxers and swallowed one without the aid of water.
Everyone complained about the itchy and smelly part of having a cast restricting one’s movement. She’d take the itchy and smelly over the crampy every day of the week. Lighting her way into her kitchen, Monica found a banana and ate it. She knew the potassium would help ward off more cramps, but probably wouldn’t make this one go away any faster.
She leaned against the counter and forced the banana down. She considered the peel, the color… and thought of the bananas Trent had cut from the tree right before they descended to the beach and hidden cave.
“How can I miss someone I barely know?”
She did. She missed talking to him, seeing him… smelling him. Even in the dark he’d whisper in her ear and chase away the shadows.
Monica swiped away the tear on her cheek and realized the pain in her leg had eased.
The pain in her chest, however, grew.
Once the peel was in the trash, she moved into the living room. It might have been three in the morning, but that didn’t mean she had to sleep. Besides, ever since she returned, sleeping at night became more difficult. Maybe when her job was reinstated she’d ask for the graveyard shift. Then at least she could sleep during the day, where her room was never really black. She could roll over, peek through half-opened eyelids, and know she was safe.
She turned on her computer and opened her e-mail. A few online bills came through reminding her that her savings was dwindling. She’d accumulated some sick time, but the last of those checks had come the previous week.
Now that the medical bills were accumulating, her bank account had a hard squeeze around its neck.
She turned on Pandora radio and listened to her private station while perusing the inbox. She clicked on an e-mail from the Board of Registered Nurses. She assumed it was some kind of spam, some notice of pending changes within the organization.
Instead, she was faced with a direct e-mail to her.
Dear Monica Mann RN,
It has come to the attention of the Board of Registered Nurses that pending litigation and grievances have been filed against Monica Mann RN. Temporary suspension of Miss Mann’s license is in effect immediately.
Monica’s vision blurred. She kept reading, and at the same time found herself hyperventilating. The letter went beyond an internal issue between her and the hospital for unsubstantiated reasons for her termination. This letter accused her of acting outside her license and endangering the lives of patients. It took Monica three times reading the letter to recognize the name Shandee Curtina. Curtina meant nothing to her, but Shandee?
Nausea rose in her throat. How could this be happening?
All her life Monica only wanted to be independent. Helping people and finding fulfillment from it was a by-product of the profession she chose.
Fighting for her job at the hospital was one thing… this was entirely different. If she wasn’t a nurse, what was she? Who was she?
She needed help. She reached for the phone and realized the time. Up until that moment Monica had been willing to step back a little and let the wheels of the hospital investigation take place. Let the union hold court. Not anymore.
This was not happening.
Three hours later, Monica was on the phone with Jessie relaying all the shitty details. “I’d never ask if I thought I could do this on my own,” she told her sister. “I’ll pay you back.”
“Don’t be stupid, Mo. What they’re doing to you is wrong on a colossal level. How the hell will Borderless Nurses or Doctors ever recruit anyone to help if they get away with this?”
The anger in Jessie’s voice matched that boiling in Monica’s blood. “I know Jack and Gaylord have a team of lawyers.”
“Say no more.”
“I think I’m going to need character witnesses from the island. Shandee wasn’t happy with me at first, but I can’t believe she’d throw me under the bus.” Her name was on the actual complaint, so obviously Monica wasn’t a good judge of character.
“We’ll let the lawyers figure out who needs to be brought in. I’m so sorry you are going through this, sis. What else can I do?”
Hold her while she cried. “Just see if we can assemble a posse and make Pat and her minions shit their pants.”
“Oh, hon… we’ll do that. And I’ll call Katie, too.”
“OK.”
“How are you otherwise? Are you sleeping?”
Monica hesitated. “Ah, yeah. I’m… yeah.”
“Why don’t I believe you?”
“My leg hurts at night.” That certainly wasn’t a lie.
“When do you get the cast off?”
“Next week. Then I’ll start physical therapy.” She knew walking with the cast was easy compared to what she had to look forward to in the coming months.
“That’s something at least. I’ll bet you’ll feel better then.”
Yeah, her physical wounds were healing. That was something.
Trent huddled under his windbreaker, cursing the cold wind. His blood had certainly thinned in the last couple of years. That was proven as he stood on the private airstrip just south of SeaTac International shivering his ass off. He’d been introduced to the management of the Pacific Northwest team as TJ Childs. He wasn’t sure how far he could convince any of them that he was a pilot new to the company and considering a transfer to Seattle.
Trent circled around the Citation, inspecting the seven-passenger private jet. The hours logged into this aircraft exceeded what the flight log suggested. The FAA wasn’t happy about the discrepancy and it was going to end up an external investigation if Trent and his brothers didn’t find the culprit.
“She’s a beauty, isn’t she?” Frank was a hotshot thirty-six-year-old who’d flown for Fairchild Charters for a few years. He reminded Trent vaguely of the high school football star who always wanted to be the center of attention. After only a couple of days, Trent’s gut told him that Frank was their man. He had yet to prove he used the aircraft for anything other than work, so Trent kept his thoughts to himself as he acted the curious observer.
“She’s sweet. Take her out often?”
“Often enough,” Frank said. “We have a couple of execs that request her on a routine basis.”
The door to the hangar that housed the plane was open, whipping in the wind from outside. How did the locals handle the constant drizzle? He’d been there for only a few days and was already done with it.
Trent asked questions, though he knew the answers. “How long is her range?”
Frank told him the miles the bird would fly and the cargo weight restrictions. He knew his planes.
“It would be nice to have your own. Go anywhere… anytime.” Trent planted the seed and waited for Frank to bite.
Frank lowered his sunglasses over his eyes and looked up at the engine. Who wore sunglasses on rainy days? “We’d have to be doing more than flying them in order to own them. Besides, we have the privilege without the headache.”
“Oh, how’s that?”
“The cost of housing, maintaining… fuel. You know what that all adds up to?”
Yeah, he did.
“But you’re flying other people where they want to go.”
Frank shrugged. “Works out sometimes.” With that, he turned and walked away.
Trent removed his cell phone as Frank walked away with the intention of dropping Frank’s name on Glen. He noticed two missed calls, both from numbers with which he wasn’t familiar.
The callers didn’t leave messages so he went on to text his brother and then turned the ringer on.
Twenty minutes later, his phone rang. “Yeah?” he answered.
“Trent?”
“Jase, how ya doing?” He ducked away from any ears, stood outside the hangar doors, and watched the rain pelt the runway.
“I got your text and have Sally checking what we know on him.”
“Sounds good. It’s a hunch. I don’t have anything solid.”
Jason laughed. “Listen to you sounding all spy-guy.”
“Call me Bond.”
“How does it look up there?”
“Rainy. But the operation runs well. Management is efficient and the planes are in great shape.” He walked out in the rain and elaborated on the business.
“It sounds like you have it figured out,” Jason said. “Oh, another reason for the call.”
“Yeah?”
“I got a call from Jack Morrison. He’s looking for you.”
Monica!
Trent turned away from the wind. “Did he say why?”
“Something about his sister-in-law needing your help. Isn’t she the one you were in the cave with?”
“Monica… yeah. Is she OK?” Something inside tightened and felt as if it were going to snap.
“How would I know? I told him I’d pass on the message. He did say he wouldn’t have called if it wasn’t important.”
Trent thought about the missed calls on his cell.
“Do you know his number?” Jason asked.
“I got it. Thanks.”
His throat tightened when he dialed Jack Morrison’s cell. As the phone rang, Trent walked farther away from the building.
Jack answered on the second ring. “Morrison.”
“Jack? It’s Trent Fairchild. I hear you’re looking for me.”
“Yeah, I am. Can you hold on a second?”
“No problem.”
A few seconds passed before he came back on. “Sorry ’bout that.”
“It’s OK. What’s up?”
“It’s Monica.”
“Is she OK?”
“If you’re asking if she’s healthy, yeah. Much better than when you last saw her.”
Part of Trent relaxed. “That wouldn’t have taken much.”
Jack didn’t laugh. “She was fired.”
Trent wasn’t sure what that had to do with him. “Yeah, there was trouble before she left. I’m sorry to hear about it.” He was more than sorry, but shouldn’t the person holding her hand through this be her fiancé? “I’m not sure what I can do to help.”
“It’s more than her job. There’s a huge blowup, and investigation… they stripped her license.”
“What? How can they do that? And investigate what?” And why did he care?
“I have lawyers all over it, Trent, but what they need is your statement.”
“About what?”
“They’re accusing her of taking the assignment in Jamaica to obtain a free trip to see her lover.”
If the wind hadn’t chilled him to the bone, Jack’s words did. “Me?”
“That’s what they’re saying. They’re also accusing her of working outside her license. Rushed her job to meet with you.”
“I met Monica on the island. If she rushed to do anything it was to keep people from dying.”
“I know that. But my lawyers need to hear you say it. They want a deposition before she goes before the board.”
Trent rubbed the bridge of his nose. “That is seriously f*cked up.”
“I know. Monica’s not going to be happy that I called you. But I promised my wife I’d do whatever was needed to help Monica. It’s hard enough that Monica won’t take any money. She’s drowning in debt and refuses to let us help. I’ll pay for your flight down, hotel… whatever. Or I can have my lawyers come to you.”
“That’s not necessary, Jack. When is the deposition?”
Jack hesitated on the phone. “Yeah… uh, it’s tomorrow in LA. Sorry for the short notice.”
It didn’t matter. There was no way he’d be able to rest until he knew he dispelled any rumors about Monica’s reasons for going to Jamaica. Yeah, she’d probably be pissed to have her fiancé know the details about their brief affair, but it was better than losing her career.
Trent ended the call to Jack and called his brother back. “Hey, Jason.”
“Everything OK?”
“No, actually. I need to go to LA.” He glanced into the hangar at his ride. “And I’m going to blow my cover to get there.”
“Seriously? Must be bad… or good. You gonna be a daddy or something?”
Trent actually stumbled when he walked into the hangar. He hadn’t even considered the possibility.
“Trent?”
“Ah. No.” Shit… maybe. “It’s important.”
“Do what you gotta do. We have your back.” Jason hung up.
Trent opened the hatch to the Citation and jumped inside. He took in the cockpit, checked the hours, did a quick once-over, and then exited the plane. He noticed one of the airport mechanics and waved him down. After a quick instruction, he made his way into the pilots’ lounge and dispatch. The girl behind the desk smiled as he approached.
“I need the Citation fueled and a flight plan filed for a one-way to LA. I’ll be leaving in an hour.” He wanted to get out of Seattle before the storm that was following this drizzle set in.
She narrowed her eyes. “I didn’t get a call.”
Frank heard him and walked over. “Watcha doing, TJ?”
Ignoring him, Trent walked into the manager’s office. Frank followed and took his ridiculous glasses off his face.
The manager, Cornelius something or other, shared a confused look as Trent went to the logbooks to check the maintenance schedule. “I’m taking the Citation. Probably be gone a couple of days.”
“Excuse me?”
For the first time he realized he looked like a lunatic. Trent grabbed the book he needed and turned toward the boss. He extended his hand. “Trent Fairchild. Call Jason if you need a replacement.” He flashed a smile at Frank and took a brisk walk to his car. He could be at the hotel he was staying in, pack a bag, and be in the air within an hour.