Except he hadn’t felt it in weeks, not since Phillip’s death. He hadn’t had any insomnia since then either. Grief, it seemed, was a terrific sleep aid.
Michael stood and stretched, digging his bare toes into the thick nap of the runner next to the bed. He yawned, grabbed his sweat-pants from where he’d tossed them over the footboard and pulled them on.
He felt the old restlessness, that itch inside his head that told him he needed to get to his laptop, get his fingers on the keys and his head in the story. How long had it been since he felt that? Too long. Not since long before Phillip’s death.
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Ignoring the chill in the air, Michael padded barefoot and bare-chested into the hall. He paused briefly at the turn of the stairs. He could go down and make himself some tea, or he could go up to his office, boot the laptop and find the threads of the story, the threads he’d thought might be lost forever. He went up.
He settled in front of his laptop and pressed the power button.
All the years he’d been writing and he still had yet to figure out where the inspiration, if you wanted to call it that, came from.
He preferred thinking of it as the muse, an entity he pictured as an actual person, a character name Sam from one of his earliest efforts at romance writing, a story he’d never share with anyone. Until this moment he’d been sure Sam had taken off for Barbados, leaving him alone in the dust and cobwebs of half-baked ideas, hastily jotted notes and his stubbornly incomplete current manuscript. But it seemed the fickle bastard had returned after all.
“Windows screen reader ready.”
Michael opened his draft, then the spreadsheet he used to track his progress and began to work.
Alan picked up the stack of folded pillow cases and set them on the cart with the sheets. He had just closed the door to the linen closet when he heard the shout.
“What the hell have you done with him?” There was a crash and glass shattered. “Goddamn it!”
Alan ran toward the sound. It came from the nurse’s station at the opposite end of the hall. The voice was male but as he came closer Alan could hear other voices, female voices, also raised though they sounded more upset than angry.
Alan rounded the corner and skidded to a stop, nearly colliding with someone else who was also racing toward the commotion.
Two female nurses who he thought were Carol and Jodi, were struggling with a male figure.
“Please, Mr. Hale,” Carol shouted. “Please, let me—”
Freddy Hale? The maniac was Lee Dallas’s partner. What the hell?
Alan launched himself at the trio. “Carol, get back. Let me.
Freddy, what the hell, man?”
Alan grabbed Freddy Hale’s arm just as a fist glanced off his jaw. Without stopping to think, he swept Freddy Hale’s feet out from under him. The two of them crashed to the floor. Someone screamed and Alan heard running feet. They rolled over and over. Glass crunched under them and something sharp sliced into Alan’s arm before he managed to pin his assailant with his body. Still Freddy bucked and struggled. Damn, he was strong for a little guy.
“Freddy, for Christ’s sake, stop it! Stop it!”
Underneath him Freddy went still. He turned his head. “Alan?
Oh, it’s you. Alan, they took him. He’s gone, and they won’t tell me where.”
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Freddy’s face was mottled, streaked with dirt and the cut above his left eye was bleeding like a sonofabitch.
“What are you talking about? Who took who?”
“Lee,” Freddy wailed. “Who do you think? They took him and they won’t tell me where he is.”
Freddy’s voice broke and he burst into tears.
Alan rolled off him and got to his knees. His arm was bleeding and shards of broken glass clung to his scrubs. He got slowly to his feet and reached down to help Freddy up.
Shit, he was too old for this crap.
Freddy took his hand and let Alan pull him to his feet.
“Thanks, Alan. But where is Lee? What have they done with him?”
“I don’t know.” He glanced around at the small group gathered around them. “Jodi? Carol?”
Both nurses shook their heads, but he saw in their eyes that they knew something.
Alan turned to the two nursing assistants who hung back, eyes huge and mouths open. “Go back to what you were doing.
I’ve got this under control.”
One of the CNA’s, a new girl whose name Alan couldn’t remember, turned to Carol. “Do you still want me to call security?”
Carol glanced at Alan who shook his head. In turn Carol shook her head. “No, I think it’s over. Go on back to work, both of you.”
As the two girls left them Alan turned back to Freddy. “Let’s get that cut taken care of.”
But Freddy stood his ground. “No, not until you tell me where he is.”
“I don’t know, Freddy. But I promise you, I’ll find out. Just let’s get cleaned up. Okay?”
After more persuading and negotiating, Freddy let himself too soon FoR Love
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be led away by Jodi while Alan went with Carol to have his arm seen to.
In one of the treatment rooms he removed his bloody shirt as she turned on the faucet. Alan held his arm under the flow and let the blood wash away.
“So, Carol, what exactly happened?”
Carol grimaced as she examined the cut on Alan’s forearm.
“Well, you knew they were planning to move Lee Dallas to another facility, right?”
“Yeah.” Alan hissed at the sting of antiseptic. “But I hadn’t heard when it was going to happen.”
“It happened last night.”
“I was here till seven.”
“It was after that.” She drew the cut together and covered it with a gauze pad. “The family wanted it done quietly. Given how well known Lee is.”
“Where was Freddy when this all went down?”
“Not here, I guess.” Carol taped the pad in place. “Do you have another shirt?”
“In my locker.”
“Well, you can’t go parading through the halls like that.” She walked to a cabinet, opened it and took out one of the paper gowns they kept there. She turned and handed it to him. “Put this on.”
Alan took it. “Thanks, I’ll be the height of fashion.”
After changing his shirt and discarding the paper gown, Alan returned to the nurse’s station on his floor. Mary Ellen from housekeeping was just finishing the job of cleaning up the broken glass and spilled flowers, while Jodi was on the phone. As he approached the desk Alan heard the tail-end of her conversation.
“I’ll tell him,” Jodi said into the receiver. “Right. Okay.” As she put the phone down her gaze lifted to meet Alan’s. “Ross
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wants you in his office.”
“When?”
“Now.” She touched his sleeve. “Are you okay? You got cut, didn’t you?”
He nodded. “Carol fixed me up. It bled a lot, but it wasn’t bad.
Where’s Freddy?”
“In Ross’s office, I imagine. That’s where security took him, I think.”
“Were you here when they moved Lee Dallas?”
She shook her head. “I’m on days all week. Serina’s been pulling doubles so she was probably here.”
“What does Ross want, did he say?”
Again, she shook her head. “Only that you should go up there right away.”
When Alan reached Ross’s office, he found Ross’s administrative assistant, Diane was not at her desk. The outer office was deserted and silent except for the soft trill of the telephone on the credenza. The inner door stood slightly ajar.
Alan walked to it and knocked.
“Come.”
It sounded like a summons from on high, which was, no doubt, exactly what Ross intended.
Alan pushed open the door and stepped inside. Freddy Hale sat in one of the uncomfortable visitor chairs positioned on the non-Ross side of the desk. His pale hands were clenched in his lap. Blood stained his shirt and the bandage above his eye glowed very white against his skin. His gaze met Alan’s for a split second then darted away and refocused on his hands.
Alan saw misery there and his heart went out to him.
“Alan, good, you’re here.” Ross’s chair squeaked as he leaned forward. “Have a seat.”
Ignoring Ross, Alan walked to Freddy and laid a hand on his shoulder. “Are you all right?”
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Freddy’s gaze lifted. He nodded but said nothing.
Alan wanted to ask Ross what the hell was going on, but he held his tongue. He knew better than to try and start the conversation. A move like that would not be well received.
Ross took a breath. “We need to talk about what just happened here, before the police arrive.”
“The police?” Alan straightened in the uncomfortably low chair, glanced at Freddy then returned his attention to Ross.
“What are the police coming for?”
“Security called them.” Ross spread his hands in a what-can
I-do gesture.
Well, fuck that,
Alan thought.
“I understand you moved Lee last night.” Alan leaned forward. He hated these chairs. They positioned the visitor so low to the ground that you were stuck staring up at Ross from across the desk.
Some unreadable expression crossed Ross’s face. “That’s right. It was what the family wanted. They said—”
“And they didn’t even tell me, Alan,” Freddy broke in, the words spilling out in a rush. “They waited until I was gone, then they sneaked him away and didn’t even tell me.”
“Why was it done that way?” Alan directed the question to Ross.
Ross hesitated then glanced at Freddy. “Would you excuse us a moment?”
Ross rose and gestured for Alan to follow him. And what was up with that? Ross never left his own office when he wanted privacy. Alan had seen the man toss out a half dozen people so he could take a personal phone call. Yet now here he was, leaving his inner sanctum so he could have a private word with a lowly nurse’s assistant.
Ross led him to the outer office and pulled the door closed after them. He turned to face Alan. “Dallas was moved last night because the family and I thought it was better to do it when there
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was no one here to make a fuss.”
“You mean when Freddy wasn’t here.” But how had they known when Lee’s partner would be gone. The man had hardly ever left the room let alone the building since Dallas had been admitted.
“We didn’t want any trouble.” Ross grimaced. “Of course that’s what we got anyway. But can you imagine if he’d been here when the move was happening?”
“Who was here? Was the family here? Did Lee’s brother come up for that?”
Ross shook his head. “There was no need for that. We handled everything.”
“So you just spirited him away in the night, then when his partner gets here, he’s gone. What kind of bullshit is that, Ross?”
Christ, he was only a nurse’s assistant and here he was swearing at the administrator. Bad move, pal. But right then he couldn’t have stopped the words even if he’d wanted to.
Ross’s face flushed and he opened his mouth, no doubt to rip Alan a new asshole.
Whoa, losing his job wasn’t going to do anybody any good.
Alan held up a hand. “I’m sorry, Ross. I just, I mean I can’t believe it was done this way.” He took a calming breath that did nothing to calm him. “What did the family say when you spoke to them about the possibility of not moving Lee?”
“That wasn’t an option.” Ross’s gaze shifted away.
“That’s what they said? Not an option? What about Freddy?
Did they tell you not to tell him? Because that’s Lee’s husband in there, not some stranger, no matter what his legal status is. And they have no right—”
“They have every right.” Ross cut him off. “Freddy Hale is the one who has no rights here. And it was my decision, my recommendation, that he not be told until after the fact.”
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ever heard.”
So much for grabbing a little control.
“Keep your voice down. I didn’t speak to the family. That would have been over-stepping.”
“Over stepping what?”
“I can’t, as an administrator of this facility—”
“But you promised Freddy you would.”
“I told him what he wanted to hear. I gave him hope.”
“False hope.”
“Don’t be melodramatic.”
“You lied to him.”
“I didn’t lie. I said I would do what I could, which wasn’t much. Look, families do not appreciate interference in their private affairs. They do not want some stranger coming in and telling them what to do with their—their loved one.”
“What were you going to say?”
“When?”
“Just then. Before you said loved one. What were you going to say?”
Ross shook his head. “Nothing. Anyway, why I wanted you here—”
“I was sort of wondering about that.”
“Why I wanted you here was because you seem to have some sort of relationship with Hale, some kind of rapport. You’re friends or … something.”
“I don’t know that I’d say friends.”
“But he talks to you. You have some influence with him.”
Alan shrugged.
“I want you to talk to him. He was making noises about a lawyer, and that’s the last thing we need.”
“How much time do I have before the cops get here?”
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“Oh, that. The police aren’t coming. I just said that to shake him up.” Alan shot him an incredulous look, but Ross shook his head. “Don’t start with me, Alan. It was the only way to calm him down. I was just doing what was best for everyone.”
“For everyone? For you, you mean. I’m not lying for you.”
“Who said anything about lying? I just want you to talk to him, make him see reason.”
Alan shook his head. “No.”
Ross laughed. “No? You’re kidding, right?”
“No, I’m not. I can’t do what you’re asking me to do.”
“I’m not asking. I’m telling you to go in there and talk to him.
As your boss, I’m telling you. Settle him down and make him see reason. I don’t care what you say to him.”
Alan said nothing. It was definitely the wiser move. He had already said way too much.