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“Call in Guardini and Vasi and let them know they fucked up. They need to answer for it.”
“And the women?”
In the video, they crept toward the door, the eldest’s face becoming clearer as she moved right under the camera. I reached out and paused the video just as she looked to her right, her face beautifully framed by the darkness around her. The classical lines of her face pleased the art lover in me. I stabbed a finger at her graceful profile.
“Bring her to me.”
3
CHARLIE
My classes today started after lunch. First, I had to get through an ER rotation at Camden Community Hospital.
My shift dragged while my thoughts swirled obsessively around Miguel’s phone and the missing drugs. I could recall every word uttered by the two men in the warehouse last night.
They talked about the Castillo cartel. I’ve never heard the name before, but it sounded like Miguel had been trying to get in with them through some dumb initiation, and he’d also been given product to sell? Where the hell was it? The cartel wouldn’t come after Lucy for it, right? She had nothing to do with it.I’d spent all day repeating my internal arguments to an unforgiving jury in my head.
“Burke, are you listening?” a deeply irritated voice snapped at me.
I blinked up at the speaker. Right. I was in the staff room, and Dr. Daniel Worthington, asshole extraordinaire, was deigning to speak to me. I had better listen. He seemed to think that all students were just waiting around for him to bestow some of his greatness upon them. He had no idea that every single one of us thought he was an asshole.
“I’m sorry, what?”
A deep frown lined his overly tanned brow. Doctor Dan was one of those guys who’d be as white as me and my Irish genes if not for regular tanning sessions and monthly trips to tropical locales. He was privileged, rich, and arrogant as fuck, and by far my least favorite person in the hospital.
“I said that the spina bifida benefit is tomorrow and asked if you’re attending.” His smirk revealed that he knew I wasn’t invited but wanted me to confirm it. These kinds of benefits involved buying a table for an astronomical fee and then selling off the seats, or giving them away to your friends, if you were rich as Doctor Dan.
I gave him a tight smile. “Not this time, I’m afraid.”
He nodded, expecting my answer. “Well, don’t be disappointed. My date pulled out at the last minute. Her husband is coming home early from his business trip. You’ll come with me instead.”
There was a lot to unpack in that sentence. I took my time sorting through it before giving him a strained smile. “Thanks for thinking of me, but I’m afraid I’m busy tomorrow.”
Doctor Dan snorted like he couldn’t believe someone lowly like me wouldn’t immediately cancel my plans for the chance to hang on his arm. “Exactly what kind of plans do you have that you can’t support a charity?”
I laughed; I couldn’t help it. I was too exhausted from the stresses of last night. “I wasn’t aware that being your date was an act of charity.”
His expression hardened at my flippant words.
Crap! Get it together, Charlie.Pissing off the resident doctors was never a good idea.
“I mean – I’m busy with my sister, and I also have work. She’s going through a hard breakup, so I have to be with her. You understand, right?” My placating tone was flimsy at best, and we both knew it.
“Your sister? You act more like a mother to that girl,” Dan sneered, his curled lip conveying just how trashy he found that idea.
“Anyway, I’m sure there’re about thirty women at this very hospital who’d be thrilled to take you up on that offer.” A little ego stroke was usually enough to get Dan to ignore the occasional jab I aimed his way.
“Hmm, probably, and no doubt ones who’d fit in better at such an event,” Dan said, turning away dismissively.
His casual put-down stung, but there was nothing I could do about it. The truth was that he was the doctor, and I was the nurse. He was rich, and I was poor. He’d gone to Princeton, and I was struggling my way through community college on a roller coaster of student loans that I couldn’t imagine ever being able to pay off.
We were not the same. It might hurt my pride to admit that, but it was true, and being resentful of men like Daniel Worthington would only cause me stress and make my life more difficult.
Life was already hard enough without that kind of complication.
I finished my shift and headed home, Doctor Dan and his unsubtle insults melting into the miasma of anxiety swarming inside my head.
By the timeI got home after three back-to-back classes that had thoroughly exhausted my brain, I’d decided that Lucy and I needed to get rid of the phone. Smash it up and drop it in the sea or something. No good could come of having it, and hopefully it was the only thing tying Lucy to Miguel.
