Page 62 of Careless Whisper

“Okay, fine.” I flung my hands up in exasperation. “I should’ve listened to Cindy and everyone else and not fucked up like I did with Reggie.”

“Good.” He smiled at me like I was a toddler who’d finally managed to walk straight without tripping. “We talked about this when I hired you. You avoid conflict like it’s airborne. And this”—he gestured between us—“is what that avoidance costs.”

I didn’t say anything—saying,yes, I know I fucked upevery five seconds was getting a bit repetitive.

“You let the best surgical nurse in this hospital get pushed out. The woman you’re in love with, by the way—don’t bother denying it.”

My mouth twitched.

He kept going. “Now, the woman you don’t love is telling everyone you’re picking out rings, and your boss hasn’t had this much entertainment in months, so yes—I’m fucking with you a little. You earned it.”

I let out a slow breath. “That’s fair.”

“Damn right, it is.” He rubbed his hands together and slouched back in his chair. “So, what are you going to do about it?”

“I’m going to investigate Dr. Loring.”

“That's a good step one,” Dr. Cabrera agreed. “Now, don’t forget to read in Mrs. D. You know how she loves investigating us.”

Mrs. Erin Doherty was a badass administrator who ran Harper Memorial with the efficiency of a five-star general and the charm of someone who didn’t need it. People said she knew where all the bodies were buried—mainly because she put them there.

Less than a week after I first met with her about Maren, Mrs. D summoned me to her office— the hospital's control tower—which was three floors above mine.

“Dr. Graham,” she greeted without looking up from her tablet. “Join us.”

She waved a hand to her left. To her right, as she sat at the head of the conference table in her office, was Dr. Kirk Agar—junior cardiology attending and author of the third official complaint against Reggie. He sat stiffly, hands folded like a med student about to flunk an oral exam.

“Alright, Dr. Agar, tell us why we’re here,” she ordered.

The poor man looked like he was about to go into cardiac arrest. He cleared his throat, face flushing. “I…I think I need to withdraw my complaint against Nurse Sanchez.”

Mrs. D arched an elegantly curved eyebrow. “You think?”

Dr. Agar looked at me and then Mrs. D like a deer caught in several headlights. “I…don’t think?”

“You know,” she suggested sharply.

He released a shaky breath. “Yes, Mrs. D, I know.”

“What do you know?” she demanded with the ferocity of a schoolteacher addressing a wayward student.

“I…I shouldn’t have filed it. It wasn’t based on anything concrete. Nurse Sanchez… she didn’t do anything wrong,” he babbled, his words vomiting out of him like he’d just downed a whole bottle of Ipecac.

Mrs. D’s eyes flicked toward me. “Dr. Graham, you have thoughts?”

I tipped back slightly in my chair and steepled my fingers. “Why’d you file the complaint in the first place, Dr. Agar?”

“I…I…made a mistake?” he repeated, looking at Mrs. D like she held a lifeline for him.

“Come on, Kirk, grow a spine and tell us what you did,” Mrs. D admonished.

He glanced at Mrs. D, then me, and thencrumbled. “Maren—Dr. Loring—suggested it. She said she was concerned about Nurse Sanchez’s behavior and that if I backed her up, she’d help me get named on the upcoming paper…for her trial.”

Mrs. D tapped her stylus on her tablet once, her face bored, as if this kind of thing happened all the time.

“She offered you co-authorship inexchange for filing a complaint?” I couldn’t believe that Maren could be so reckless.

“She didn’t put it like that,” Agar hedged. “She just said that if I…supported her, she would help…you know mentor me and recommend me…that sort of thing.”

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