The Nurse's Not-So-Secret Scandal

“Do you have any idea how many calories it takes to run this body?” she asked. “I skipped breakfast this morning. And, thanks to you, worked through my break.” She lifted a shaky hand to flatten her hair. “I’m fine.” Always fine. Fine. Fine. Fine.

“I’ll walk you to the lounge,” Fig offered.

She pulled her elbow out of his loose hold. “Don’t be ridiculous.” She exited the nurses’ station, her head feeling disconcertingly foggy. Maintaining focus on the lounge door, she took deep breaths, concentrated on each step and willed her body to continue moving forward. Passing out at work would not be a good thing.

Two bottles of chocolate milk and two bologna-and-cheese sandwiches on rye later, Roxie felt back to her usual self. And ready to tackle Victoria before returning to her patients.

Just outside the open door to Victoria’s office, Roxie heard Fig talking. “You have your proof right there,” he said. “You asked me to watch her and I did. She showed up to work with bloodshot eyes, forgot her stethoscope in the nurses’ lounge and misplaced her phone—which the pharmacy tech found in the med cart.”

A flush of anger heated Roxie’s skin. Fig was reporting her activities to Victoria, who had asked him to watch her? Why?

“And she almost passed out at the nurses’ station not fifteen minutes ago,” he went on. “I think it’s time to switch your focus from trying to find Roxie innocent to figuring out a way to help her out of this mess.”

Find Roxie innocent of what? Help her out of what mess? Exactly how much did they know about what was going on in her life? She walked into the office and with narrowed eyes looked from Victoria—sitting behind her desk, prim and professional—to Fig, looking all relaxed in the one chair across from Victoria. “What mess might that be?” she asked Fig. “And you hired him to watch me?” she asked Victoria. “Why?”

Victoria looked down at her desk at a lone cartridge of injectable Demerol.

Roxie slid her hand into her pocket and found only two of the three that had been there earlier.

Not good.

CHAPTER TWO

ROXIE withdrew her hand from her pocket and held out what Fig assumed were the other two missing doses of Demerol in her palm. He admired her calm.

“I was planning to tell you today. I asked Fig to relay the message I needed to talk to you.” She looked over at him.

He nodded.

Apparently Victoria didn’t care. She looked up at Roxie. “You altered the narcotic count,” she accused.

“Yes.” Roxie hung her head. “But I can explain.”

“You altered the narcotic count,” Victoria said again. A bit louder this time. “There is no explanation to justify what you did. This is grounds for termination, you know. And there’s not a thing I can do to help you. This will follow you around, Roxie. You could lose your nursing license. What were you thinking?”

“Whoa.” Panic flashed in Roxie’s eyes. “Can’t we keep this between us?”

“No, we can’t keep this between us,” Victoria snapped. “Because someone or a group of someones have been tampering with the narcotic-distribution system in the hospital. A pharmacist identified the inaccurate count as part of a hospital-wide investigation.”

That was a pretty important chunk of information she’d neglected to share.

Roxie looked ready to collapse.

Fig stood. “Here.” He motioned to his chair. “Sit.”

“Why, thank you,” she said sarcastically, looking ready to show her appreciation by slamming him into the wall and jamming her knee into his groin. “If you’d have come to me,” she hissed under her breath as she moved past him, “instead of tattling to the boss I could have fixed this.”

“No, you couldn’t have,” Victoria said. “And don’t be mad at Fig. He only did what I asked him to do.”

“A rare thing, a man who does what you ask him to,” Roxie said to Victoria. “Lucky me you found one.”

Fig felt like the low-life informant who’d deceived a friend. Because, in essence, he had.

“Tell me what happened,” Victoria said.

“Does he need to be here?” Roxie asked.

No he didn’t. Fig stepped toward the door, welcoming the chance to escape.

“Yes,” Victoria said. He stopped. “As an impartial witness to our conversation.”

Great. There was that word impartial again. The more he heard it, the more he realized he wasn’t impartial at all. He wanted to help Roxie, wanted to erase the anger, frustration and sadness he’d noticed in her expression since early that morning, and bring back the fun-loving woman with the beautiful smile and infectious laugh from the night they’d first met.

“Fine,” Roxie said, not looking at him. “The attending suspects my patient in 508B is a malingerer probably addicted to his pain meds. He reports intractable back pain yet all his diagnostic testing since admission has been negative or within normal limits. Every time the doctor tries to change over from IM Demerol to oral pain meds, the patient balks and is on the call bell every five minutes. Mention detox and he turns irate and verbally abusive.”

“I’m aware of the situation,” Victoria said.

“Late Friday night the doctor ordered the patient’s doses of IM Demerol to be alternated with a placebo of IM sterile normal saline. The next morning—when I came on duty—it didn’t take the patient long to figure it out and demand to see the syringe before I injected him. So I kept a Demerol cartridge in my pocket to show him. Then, each time he was scheduled to receive the placebo, I switched it out at the last second. It was not easy to do, I tell you.”

“And you forgot to put the Demerol back,” Victoria said.

Roxie nodded. “Luckily—” she looked between him and Victoria with sad eyes “—or unluckily, as it turns out, I was assigned to narcotic count Saturday night.”

“But incoming shift is supposed to count and outgoing shift records.”

“I can be very persuasive when I want to be.” Her lips twitched into a tiny hint of a smile. “Anyway, I knew the Demerol was in my scrub jacket, which was out at the desk at the time. I increased the number in the box of Demerol by one, planning to return it before I left. Then my mother called.” Roxie let out a breath. “And I had to rush home. Sunday morning I was running late, and I bolted out of the house, leaving it safely tucked away in my dresser.”

“So you altered the count again.”

“What else could I do?”

“How about talk to me?” Victoria asked, her anger evident. “Warn me the count was off so I wasn’t completely blindsided.”

“I’m sorry. I screwed up.”

“How did you wind up with the other two?” Victoria asked without acknowledging Roxie’s apology.

“More of the same. I was rushing. Then they got misplaced.”

“You misplaced three doses of Demerol?”

“No.” Roxie shook her head. “Only two.” Like that made it okay. “The third,” she went on, “was my mistake. I’d thought it was a normal saline in my pocket, but it turned out to be a Demerol.”

“What is going on with you?” Victoria yelled.

Roxie shrugged and looked down at her lap.

Both women sat in silence until Roxie asked, “What happens now? Should I finish my shift or clean out my locker and head home?”