What she wanted to say didn’t fit into sentences a burner phone was built for.
She put the phone on the nightstand and lay down on top of the covers.
Sleep didn’t come.She stared at the ceiling fan and tried not to see the woman’s face.The way her hands had gripped the bedrail.The way she’d said,They always dowith the certainty of someone who had stopped being surprised by the worst.
Maren rolled onto her side and pressed her face into the pillow.
* * *
The phone rang at 9:12.
Not the burner.Her personal cell, buzzing on the nightstand with a number she recognized.She sat up and answered it.
“Maren, it’s Peg.”
Peg Landry did not call on Saturday mornings.Peg worked her shifts, went home to her husband, and maintained a strict boundary between hospital life and personal life that twenty-two years of nursing had taught her was necessary for survival.
“What’s wrong?”
“I need to tell you something.About the schedule change.”
“Denise already called me Thursday.I’m on days starting Monday.”
“I know you know.That’s not why I’m calling.”Peg’s voice was lower than usual.Careful.“I’m calling because of what comes next.Because this is the second time in a week they’ve changed something around you, and there won’t be a third.The third one isn’t a schedule change.The third one is HR sitting you down in a room with two people you’ve never met and a separation agreement that says you resign voluntarily in exchange for a clean reference.I’ve seen it happen.I watched it happen to Rose.”
“Peg.What happened to Rose?”
“She resigned.That’s the official record.That’s what I know.”
“I’m not asking about the record.”
The silence stretched so long that Maren thought the call had dropped.Then Peg exhaled—a sound that carried the weight of something she had been holding for a long time.
“Rose came to me the night before she left.Eleven thirty at night, end of shift.She was shaking.She told me she had seen something she couldn’t unsee, and that she had tried to report it, and that the people she reported it to were the same people doing it.She asked me if I would back her up if she went to the state board.”
“What did you say?”
“I said I needed to think about it.I told her to give me twenty-four hours.”Peg’s voice cracked on the last word.She caught it, steadied herself.“When I came in for my shift the next night, her locker was cleaned out.HR said she’d resigned that morning.Effective immediately.No forwarding address.”
“Have you heard from her since?”
“No.”
Maren sat down on the edge of the bed.
“Peg.Thank you for telling me.”
“Don’t thank me.I should have said yes when she asked.I should have backed her up.I didn’t, and she disappeared, and I have to live with that every shift I work in that building.”Her voice hardened.“Don’t make the same mistake I did.”
“Which mistake?”
“Thinking you can do this alone.”
The line went dead.
She picked up the burner phone and typed.
Peg called.She told me what happened to Rose Embry.And she warned me—the day shift move is step two.Step three is a separation agreement.