Page 26 of Good Half Gone

“Crede, take Iris on the tour, then take her over to the cafeteria for lunch.” She looks at me pointedly. “The dorms are being turned over and cleaned, so you’ll have to wait to put your stuff in a locker. In the future, get there early to claim a bed.” The morning rush that I was caught in earlier made sense now. Bouncer probably lost out because of me.

“You can leave your backpack and jacket here until after your shift.”

She glares at Crede, beady eyes pinching smaller. “You smell like my dad’s truck, goddamn. You can’t work in health care and smoke a pack a day.”

“I hear you,” he says. “She ready?”

Jordyn looks like she wants to say something else about the smoking, but instead, she swivels her chair in my direction. “You’re working hospice today, so buckle up…”

Buckle down. I volunteered at a hospice during my undergrad work. I knew what hospice meant—sitting and waiting for someone to die was not the education I’d been expecting today. Jordyn smiles thinly as if sensing my thoughts. “We’re short-staffed. We could really use your help.”

“Of course,” I chirp. I hang my jacket on the coatrack in the corner and prop my backpack against the wall behind it.

I am out the door trailing Crede, my thoughts trying to catch up to what is happening.

“Her office smells like fake pie.” His voice is flat, but I hear the humor.

“My gran smoked.” I shrug. “It is what it is.”

His laugh is reluctant; he shakes his head. “Her gran must have baked pies…”

He leads me back to the waiting area where Bouncer gave me the pill and stops in front of the staircase. “We call the downstairs area the lodge,” he says. “Over there is the newest addition to the building. We just came from the administrative offices, which are in the old Victorian part, and that way—” he bops his head left “—is the cafeteria and dorms, but you’ll see that later. Come on…”

I’m calculating the chances of being able to sneak into D hall at night and find his room. If I obeyed every impulse I had in regard to Piper’s case, I’d likely become a patient at the hospital. I’m here to verify the truth. It’s his blood that I need.

“What happens if there is an emergency at home? How would we get back?”

He gives me a side-eye. “You didn’t think to ask that before you took the job?”

“I would have taken the job no matter what the answer,” I admit.

He fixes his attention on my face.

I can tell he likes my answer. “I suppose they’d call the water taxi if there was an emergency. Tuesday to Thursday, and next shift comes Friday to Sunday. Monday is skeleton crew—the ferry doesn’t come on Mondays. Even the doctor leaves on Sunday night, comes back Tuesday mornings—”

He walks backward up the stairs as he talks. The scene is so Broadway I half expect him to break into song. I like him despite the Seattle Freeze vibe he’s giving off. We’re all like that here. I don’t know why, maybe it’s the moderate weather that makes us moderately friendly.

“This part of HOTI is in what we call the Victorian. It’s all part of the original house as you can probably see…” he tells me. “A lot of the upper-level staff like Jordyn and Dr. Grayson have private suites up here.”

We reach the top of the stairs, and I blink at the sudden change in decor. “Wow,” I say, “I wasn’t expecting that.”

Crede takes a moment to appreciate the room with me.

“I know,” he says. “It’s beautiful.”

It looks like we’ve gone back in time. High-back floral armchairs sit squarely on Persian rugs. The curved walls are lined with bookcases. My eyes follow the line of books until they reach the security doors, so misplaced and ugly. Crede leads me away from the doors, around the circular landing. I run my hand along the wooden banister as we walk, the woodgrain smoothed to a gloss.

We pass wider-than-average mahogany doors, each one with a brass handle and lock.Old fashioned keyholes stare back at me. I look curiously at each one until Crede notices and slows down.

“If you walk by around noon when the cleaning crew are here, you can get a little peek inside.”

I laugh because he’s caught me. I do want to get a look inside.

“That one is Dr. Grayson’s.” He nods at the last door on the landing. I want to press my ear to the wooden door and listen for him.

“He has a place in the city too, but some nights he stays here.”

I’m practically salivating with the information, but I keep my expression neutrally interested. I’m playing a role, being a character. I’m smart, but I’m not that smart; I’m hard-working but not an overachiever. I absolutely cannot draw attention to myself. It took years of planning and hard work to get to Shoal, and I’m not going to muck it up with stupid mistakes. Hundreds of other applicants from around the country applied for my internship, some of them from prestigious colleges. Me—not so much. I spent the first two years at community college and then transferred to UW for my last three years of undergrad work. It just so happened that one of my professors was a former roommate of Leo Grayson, and he emailed my application and résumé directly to him. I could tell that Professor Pratt liked the idea of discovering me, sending his star student for Leo Grayson to inspect. I’d let him think there was convincing to do, but I’d chosen his classes because of his association to the famed Dr. Grayson.

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