IN MY OFFICE BETWEEN meetings, I pulled up Elyse’s employment file. I hadn’t been involved in the hiring process, not since I’d taken on my full-time role.

But this was all information at my disposal. If she’d gone home, as Bennett suggested, I might find another contact number in her file—to put my mind at ease. To stop seeing the image of her staring out my window, frowning.

If my mother could see me now, I was sure she’d laugh. Call me, in an offhand way, the powers that be. That unseen, unnamed force that determined her fate each time she was removed from a position or reassigned. The powers that gave her shit hours, or denied her employment, or ignored her situation. The powers that be were unwavering and unsympathetic. Robotic assholes, I think was her preferred term. And now here I was.

But I was nothing like she’d imagined us to be. I wanted to make a difference. Fix a broken system from the top down.

The small thumbnail photo with Elyse’s ID badge was up on the screen, grainy to the degree of blurry, along with her original application. Elyse Ferano was twenty-five and had three different places of employment before landing here, including a few months’ gap in between, noted as a medical leave. I remembered she’d mentioned a bad accident, and I wondered if she had follow-up issues. It had been the same for my arm.

But still. She had moved around a lot in the time allotted. I wondered who had hired her, how she’d gotten through the referral calls. She’d listed previous jobs from all over the state. Her most recent referral was from a rehab facility near the coast, at least four hours away. I couldn’t tell which place she might consider home.

On impulse, I called the most recent contact name.

“Henry Masters,” he answered on the first ring.

“Hi, my name is Olivia, and I’m calling in regard to a referral for a previous employee of yours.” I’d opted against giving away my information unless specifically asked.

“Hold on,” he said. Then, “Go ahead,” like he was pulling up the files on his own end, waiting for a name.

“A nurse by the name of Elyse Ferano.”

“We are not able to comment at this time,” he said without even a moment’s pause. Those were the types of lines we gave instead of putting a name on blast. There were repercussions for that, for saying the wrong thing and keeping someone from getting a job. What some called honesty, others called slander. So we stuck to the neutral comments, speaking in code, but we all knew what it meant.

“Oh, I’m surprised, I was under the impression that you referred her in the past?” Unless the hiring committee had failed to follow up, which was really unacceptable.

“Yes, sorry, we’re in the midst of an internal investigation, which has put all referrals on hold.”

So it may not have had anything to do with her at all. Except he’d asked me for her name first. He’d acted like he would answer. He’d made a mistake.

“Can you share the specifics?” I was grasping at straws here, and I knew it.

“I cannot, as it’s ongoing.” I could hear his chair squeaking in the background, like he was twisting his seat back and forth.

“What sort of investigation?”

A sigh. “A previous issue that’s just recently come to light during an inventory audit.”

Dammit, Elyse. “Thank you for your time,” I said, my voice sounding small even to me. I placed the phone gently in the cradle.

Bennett had mentioned things going missing from the medicine room. I thought back to when he’d caught me in there, laying in to me, borderline accusing me, before apologizing after for the overreaction. Someone had been taking things. He’d mentioned it casually; maybe he wasn’t sure. But he was keeping an eye out. Had he been suspicious of her?

I wondered if this was what had sent Elyse on the road so quickly. The police lingering around my house? Seeing Detective Rigby in the hospital?

Sean Coleman’s death had nothing to do with her, but she’d spooked when she saw the detective at the hospital after she showed up in the middle of the night; she’d seemed uncomfortable with the police activity outside my house, watching out my window.

And then she’d gotten into a fight with Bennett.

Even now I didn’t want to believe it, didn’t want to see the worst in people. Especially someone I’d really cared for. But people were like that—often you only got to see the shell. The surface calm. The charm.

Even the manager at the bar had hinted at it—that she’d hung around a lot. Maybe he was referring to things I wasn’t aware of, a crowd of people other than my own. Maybe that was what she and Trevor had been discussing and why he’d been so cagey on the phone.

She’d been skimming from our inventory. Possibly to use or possibly to sell.

And now she was gone. Not returning to a safer haven. But off to the next place, no forwarding address, no notice, no goodbye. Like she could feel the net closing in on her and had to escape it first. How many of us were outrunning something?

I stared at my computer screen, unsure what to do next. Protocol said I should report this to Bennett, but it could wait. There was no urgency any longer. And I still felt some allegiance to her. I didn’t want to be so wrong about people—again.

I looked to the empty couch and debated checking out, attempting a nap. It was lunchtime, but without Bennett or Elyse, I didn’t want to brave the whispers in the cafeteria. I leaned my head back and closed my eyes, settling on something close to meditation instead.

A few moments later, there was a shuffling of fabric from out in the hall. I opened my eyes, thought I saw a shadow under the door. I stared at it, wondering if it was someone pausing in the hall, checking their phone, when the doorknob began to faintly turn. It barely made a sound, and I held my breath, watching it move.

My heartbeat grew louder, and I looked for a way out: the windows behind me that I could crank open, but I was three floors up, over the parking lot; the phone on my desk, though I didn’t know whom to call.

I pretended to make a call, hand on the receiver, just in case. “Hello, this is Olivia Meyer,” I said loudly. The door handle dropped. The shadow left.

I waited, listening, before leaving the phone and walking around my desk. I opened my office door, peered down the hall. Expecting maybe someone lingering, waiting to talk to me. But it was empty from the stairwell entrance on the left to the locked double doors on the right. Whoever had been out there was gone.

My ringing office phone drew me back inside.

“This is Olivia,” I answered, heart still racing.

“Olivia, it’s Dr. Cal. Can you please swing by my office this evening before you head out?”

I was caught off guard, wondering why he was calling, whether I’d gotten my schedule wrong. “Oh, um, I didn’t think we had an appointment this soon . . .” I pulled up my calendar, didn’t see anything in there.

“It’s important. A few items we need to discuss. Some paperwork I forgot to take care of. So. Five-thirty?”

“Sure,” I said.

This time I locked my office door behind me on the way out.

RETURN TO SENDER

No Forwarding Address

POSTMARKED: LEXINGTON, KY

MAY 21, 2011