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And I stood there in a corridor in a maximum-security hospital with a man’s hand on my hip and had a thought so ugly and so instant that it stopped my breath.

What my ghost would have done to that hand.

Thankfully, after that I had the next two days off to do nothing but laundry, get groceries and clean my small space, which admittedly took me about ten minutes. After that I binge-watched TV while eating pizza getting my first look at Roz’s crush and I had to say, he wasn’t my type, but I could see the appeal.

Although my type since Ashlock had changed considerably and in a way that would no doubt carry itself with me everywhere I went for the rest of my life.

But after two entirely ordinary days had passed and after one sleepless night which ended with me playing a very old game on a very old handheld until my thumbs ached, it was time to get back to work. I walked in that morning with nothing on my mind at all except a full med pass and a man in bed nine whose blood work I was still chasing.

Roz got to me before I even had my lanyard on.

“Okay, so, you missed everything.” She said excitedly.

“I was gone two days, what could have happened… oh, tell me Sandy didn’t choke on checkers pieces again?”

“No, no… although he did eat some paint chips from his window frame,” she said shaking her curls around her face.

“Of course he did… okay, so what is it?” I asked as she fell into step beside me with that particular walk she does when she is carrying something she can’t hold in any longer.

“We got a transfer. The day you left. Straight into the end room, no notice, and Erin, oh my god, I have never seen anything like it, not once, not ever.” I frowned at that and for some reason actually stopped walking.

“Like what?” I asked cautiously.

“Like nothing. That is the whole point. He has not said one word to any of the men since he got here. Not one. He’s not agitated, he’s not responding to anything internal, he just sits there like a man waiting for a bus… it’s… unnerving and trust me, I have seen some shit in this place but this guy… he gives me the creeps the way classic horror movies do.” She gestured with both hands like she was trying to shake water off them.

“The doctors have done their assessment, and nobody will tell us what came out of it, which is a first, and it is driving Karen completely insane, which I am enjoying enormously,” she said, grinning this time, because Karen was her archnemesis. Her word, not mine.

“What’s he in for?” I asked as now I couldn’t help but be intrigued but then I also remember the last time that happened and how that worked out for me.

“Nobody is saying that either.” I jerked back a little before asking the next obvious question.

“What’s his name?”

“Ah.” She actually laughed at this.

“So that’s the other thing. The chart came down with a room number on it and then a blank.” And this was the exact moment that something went along the back of my neck like frozen fingers.

No… it was impossible.

You are being paranoid, Anna, I told myself at the same time swallowing hard. It’s not that unusual, I tried to convince myself this time. It happens. Paperwork gets held up, people arrive without files, the file follows on behind them. It’s happened before and everybody complains about it in handover and then it turns up a week later.

No big deal.

That was what I told myself, standing in a corridor, with my thumb already finding the alarm on my belt without asking me first.

“So, the staff have named him,” Roz went on cheerfully. “Because obviously we have. The techs are calling him the Monk.” I laughed at that and felt myself ease. Because if there was one thing nobody would ever call a man like my ghost, it was a fucking Monk.

“The Monk.” I repeated now I was able to breathe steady again.

“On account of the silence, and because Danny thinks he is funny.” She swiped us through the first set of doors. “Anyway, there is a reason I am telling you all this before you have even got your coat off.”

“Go on.” I pushed as we made our way to the locker room.

“He won’t have the men come near him.” I frowned again but didn’t stop walking this time.

“He’s not aggressive about it,” she said, keeping up with me and going on to say,

“That’s what’s so strange about it. Danny went in to do his vitals, and he just looked at the wall until Danny left. Same with the two techs. Same with the doctor, apparently, until they sent the other one in. He doesn’t shout, he doesn’t get angry and he doesn’t touch anybody. He simply will not acknowledge anything at all if there is a man in the room with him.” Okay, well, that made me feel better as this wasn’t sounding anything like my ghost at all. I mean I never heard him shouting, but I knew for a fact he was violent, and that most people didn’t walk away from it.