“I will. I promise.” After saying their goodbyes, Jenna ended the call and exhaled slowly.
With the phone held loosely in her lap, she looked around her bedroom. For what, she wasn’t sure. A sign, maybe? Something to tell her she’d made the right decision.
She glanced at the armless accent chair in the corner of the room, her heart skipping half a beat from the memory that would forever be attached to it.
In her mind’s eye, she saw Adrian standing in front of it. He was stripping off her clothes before ridding his incredible body of his own.
As clear as if it were happening in real time, Jenna watched as Adrian sat down in that chair, guiding her until she was straddling his lap. What happened after was nothing short of spectacular.
Jenna blinked the memory away.
Lordy, I’m a mess.
So there it was. The sign she’d been looking for. Leaving the memories this place held, even temporarily, was absolutely therightdecision.
With renewed conviction, Jenna blocked out any further thoughts of Adrian Walker and stood. For the next hour, she moved about the apartment, packing and double-checking to make sure she hadn’t forgotten anything important.
By the time she went to bed—with her bags by the front door and her ticket tucked safely inside her purse—she still believed taking this job was the right choice.
The next day, as the landing gear touched the runway at Gulfside Harbor International Airport, any remaining slivers of trepidation had all but vanished.
After checking into the hotel where she’d be staying over the next three months, Jenna found herself standing around a large conference room making small talk with some of the other nurses who’d signed up for the same gig.
“My husband was all for it,” Shawna, one of the nurses, commented. Crossing her arms at her chest, the tall woman’s blonde ponytail swished from side to side as she spoke to the small group. “With three kids under four, we couldn’t pass up the extra money.”
“Same.” The woman next to Shawna—Amy, maybe?—nodded. “Except our kids are all teenagers and into every sport imaginable. That shit’s expensive, y’all.”
“Right?” Marie, a nurse from Kansas City, scoffed. “My two are in middle school. It costs an arm and a leg to keep them involved in all the crap they begged us to let them do. Baseball, soccer, dirt bike races…and that’s on top of everything else like clothes and food. I mean, I love my kids and all, but I swear some days it feels they’re like little parasites sucking my husband and I dry.”
A collective laugh erupted amongst the three women. Jenna chuckled and nodded, feeling like a total fraud since she didn’t have any kids, yet. Considering she didn’t even have a boyfriend, her chances of popping one out anytime soon were slimmer than slim.
Not that she was ready for a kid. Truth was Jenna wasn’t even sure she wanted kids. But it was awkward as hell standing around listening to the other women go on and on about theirs.
When they began pulling up pictures on their phones to pass around, Jenna opened her mouth to excuse herself but was interrupted when a short, middle-aged woman clapped her hands and addressed the entire room.
“Good afternoon,” she spoke when the room quieted down. “I’m Taylore Wood, and on behalf of Saje Staffing, I want to thank you all for being here. As you know, hospitals around the country seem to get busier with each new year, yet quality nurses are harder and harder to come by. That’s where Saje Staffing comes in. Each of you were chosen for this assignment because of your proven dedication for taking care of your patients, and we feel very lucky to have you on board. Now, if you’ll take a seat, we’ll go over the rules and policies you’ll need to follow while you’re in town.”
Marie leaned toward Jenna as they followed Amy and Shawna to a row of empty chairs. “This is where she tells us we can’t go anywhere or do anything outside the hotel.”
“What?” Confused, Jenna swung her head around. “What do you mean, we can’t go anywhere?”
“It’s true,” Amy whispered over her shoulder. “The agency enacted a lockdown policy after those two nurses went missing.”
Jenna felt her eyes grow wide. “Lockdown? Wait. What are you talking about? Nurses aremissing?”
Amy nodded but waited until they were seated to fill her in. With Shawna sitting between them, Amy leaned forward and spoke with a hushed tone from two seats down.
“It’s not an official lockdown,” she whispered. “Taylore won’t say anything about it. No one around here will. That’s why you haven’t seen it on the news. The first one vanished two weeks ago after she left the hospital to come back here after her shift. Five days later, another nurse didn’t show up for work. From what I heard, when Taylore went to the woman’s room to look for her, she found it empty. The bed hadn’t even been slept in.”
Shawna met Jenna’s blinking eyes. “I heard a group of men from Mexico had been kidnapping nurses and doctors from here and taking them back over the border.”
“That’s what I heard,” Marie nodded.
Horrified, Jenna looked around at the other women. “Why would they risk sneaking into our country to kidnap a couple of nurses and then have to getbackover the border with them?”
“Forced medical labor,” Marie answered for the group. “At least, that’s what I heard. But you never know.”
Oh, my god.“Did they ever find the two missing nurses?”