Page 2 of Crow’s Haven (Savage Legion MC #15)

Sharon

A fter the worst shift of my life, I get called into my supervisor’s office.

Even though I’m wearing my scrub jacket, the office feels cold.

Then again, that could just be the chill in my heart over losing a patient.

It’s never easy, but when it’s a child it’s a million times worse.

I sit stiffly in the chair across from Cynthia Brenner, our Director of Nursing.

Her brass nameplate gleams on the edge of her polished desk.

However, the name that catches my notice is mine.

‘Sharon Carlin’ printed in neat, bold letters across the front of the manila file that sits dead center between us.

I swallow hard, realizing that’s my personnel file.

She doesn’t meet my eyes. She begins reading from what is clearly a prepared statement. “Effective immediately, you are suspended pending the outcome of an internal investigation into the death of your patient, Joshua Clay.”

My breath catches in my throat. That’s the name of the boy who died today. I frown in confusion. “Why are you suspending me? I didn’t do anything wrong.”

Cynthia’s tone never wavers. “Twin Rivers Medical Center has procedures in place that must be followed. This is a simple procedural measure, Nurse Carlin. A leave of absence is not meant to be punitive, at least, not yet. Until an internal investigation is completed and the Board of Directors completes their review of the incident, we feel it’s best that you take a leave of absence. ”

“Review what?” I sit up straighter, my palms flattening against the fabric of my scrubs. “I followed every protocol. You can check the chart. I did everything by the book. You can even ask Dr. Brunell. He was there.”

Cynthia exhales slowly through her nose. “We will be reviewing all the paperwork and speaking to witnesses as well as reviewing security footage. No matter what it takes, we’ll get to the bottom of this incident that occurred while this child was under your care.”

Her words feel like a slap in the face. Under your care.

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” I tell her, unable to believe that she’s insinuating that I did something to cause a child’s death.

Cynthia finally meets my eyes. Her expression is unreadable. “If the evidence suggests otherwise,” she says carefully, “we are required to notify the proper authorities.”

I blink. “The proper authorities? You mean the police?”

“If there is any evidence of wrongdoing,” she repeats, articulating her words a little slower, “the hospital will be obligated to report it.”

“But…” my voice falters. I press my lips together and try again. “Wait, why would the police be involved?”

“Law enforcement typically investigates deaths that are considered suspicious. Joshua was a very sick little boy with a severe infection, but he was getting better. His death was unexpected, so that means an internal investigation will be conducted.”

She closes the file with a flip of her wrist. “Sharon. You need to understand the severity of this. Joshua Clay was six years old. His family is extremely well-connected. The press has already called twice this morning.”

“But I did everything in my power to save him,” I point out quietly. I should be more forceful but I’m just so shocked.

“You’re free to retain representation. Twin Rivers HR will inform you when the internal review concludes.”

Representation? My stomach drops, and the little hairs on my arms rise up. I glance down to see I’m still wearing the badge clipped to my top pocket, the pediatric unit’s rainbow butterfly logo smiling up at me that seems more mocking than friendly right now.

“Sharon.” Cynthia folds her hands. “I know this information must come as a shock to you, but this meeting is concluded.”

I sit frozen for a second too long. Then I nod once and come to my feet. I don’t have a choice. Even though I’m about ten seconds from having a complete breakdown, I take off my badge, lay it on her desk and walk away. The door clicks softly behind me.

As I walk back to gather my things, memories of Joshua coding hit before I even make it to the elevator.

It all happened so fast that it was hard to get my head around the situation.

He was alert and talking to me. No, he wasn’t playing with toys or making finger puppets like he had the night before.

But his vitals were holding. He had a mild fever and slight tachycardia, but nothing truly alarming.

I remember smiling at him, as I tucked his stuffed shark under his arm.

He asked if I’d be back after break. I told him yes.

And when I came back, everything turned to shit.

I walked back into his room less than an hour later to his monitor alarm going off. I thought it was another tech glitch. The damn heart monitor in his room had been acting up all week. We’d flagged it. Biomedical was supposed to replace the battery.

But when I got closer, I saw his skin was gray and his lips were blue. The monitor was right that time. I hit the emergency button,

I remember yelling for someone to bring the crash cart. An unfamiliar tech wheeled it in. He looked barely old enough to shave. There was a new IV bag already hung. A different brand. Label smudged. Had it just been replaced? Where the hell was Carla? I turned around and she was gone.

Dr. Brunell arrived with respiratory in under a minute. They pushed epinephrine. I handed off compressions to another nurse. I was sweating through my scrubs, counting silently in my head.

Twenty minutes later, Dr. Brunell called it. I remember how awful the silence felt after it was all over. We’d been defeated by death again. This time he’d taken one of our smallest and most fragile patients. It was heartbreaking.

I turned the situation over in my mind while I washed my hands in the sink outside.

I didn’t miss a dose. I didn’t miscalculate anything.

I know all the way down to my bones that I didn’t do anything to cause this situation to go bad.

But the hard truth is, he died anyway. And now I’m the one they’re trying to blame.

The corridor feels longer than I remember. No one speaks to me, but heads turn. Conversations come to a stuttering stop. They don’t know the details, but they know my patient died. News spreads fast in a place like this.

I pass Tara, one of the day-shift nurses from Oncology. She offers a brittle smile that’s part sympathy, and part uncertainty. I open my mouth to say something, anything, but nothing comes out.

Then I see my locker. It’s been emptied. A cardboard box sits beneath it with my name scribbled on masking tape. Someone packed it for me. My purple coffee mug. The pediatric badge reel shaped like a cartoon giraffe.

They say it’s administrative leave, but this looks final.

I carry the box through the staff lounge. Carla’s in there. She glances up, eyes wide, then looks away. Guilt flickers over her face, but she doesn’t speak. She could say I’m sorry, or I know you didn’t do anything, or this is insane. She doesn’t. And maybe that silence says everything.

The elevator dings open. A security guard waits inside. I stare at him for half a second too long, and he nods.

“I’m here to escort you to your vehicle,” he says.

Of course he is. I step in beside him. The doors close behind us with a hiss that feels final.

Outside, the guard has to let me out of the parking gate because I had to leave my ID badge with the DON.

“I’ll open it,” the guard says, pressing something on his tablet. The gate arm lifts.

I drive out in silence, the box on my passenger seat rattling with every bump. My fingers grip tighter around the wheel the longer I drive. It’s one of those days where I catch every single red light on the way home.

Suspended pending investigation. Police will be notified if anything turns up. The DON’s words whisper through my mind. This moment seems surreal.

***

My apartment feels too quiet when I open the door.

It feels like my whole life just froze. I don’t bother turning on the lights.

I drop the box onto the kitchen table with a flat thud.

For a moment my feet won’t move. I stare down into the box for a long second before walking away, stripping off my scrubs, and I toss them into the washer and go upstairs to take a long hot shower.

As I stand under the shower head, letting the water cascade over my shoulder, I finally have that cry I so richly deserve.

Sliding down to my knees, I lean back against the wall and let it all out.

It’s a long ugly cry born of grief, frustration, and self-loathing.

I sit there in the shower until the water runs cold before climbing out and wrapping up in my favorite robe.

I don’t realize I’m shaking until I go downstairs and try to make myself a cup of coffee. I get the coffee pod loaded alright, but my hand shakes so hard that I keep spilling the water trying to pour it into the coffee maker.

I tell myself to stop this foolishness and get a grip, but my body doesn’t listen.

I stumble into the living room and drop down onto the sofa and curl up on my side.

I stare at my end table, not really seeing it, because I’m lost in my own internal thoughts.

Joshua’s smiling face flashes through my mind.

His shark plushie tucked under his chin.

He was just a kid, and now he’s gone. I suck in a breath and press my palms into my eyes until I see stars. It’s not my fault. I didn’t kill him. I didn’t.

I don’t know how long I lay there playing it all out in my mind over and over again. But eventually I get up and grab my laptop. I tell myself it’s just to check the news. Just to see if there’s anything online about the hospital, the investigation, the press calls Brenner mentioned.

I sit cross-legged on the couch, the screen lighting my face like a flashlight under the covers. The home page loads.

There is nothing. No headlines. No press releases. Not even a whisper on the hospital’s website. The only thing trending is some celebrity breakup and an op-ed about staffing ratios. The world hasn’t noticed what happened yet.

I open my emails. There’s an automated, impersonal email from HR.

It’s a Notice of Administrative Suspension with my name on it.

I don’t bother to read it because I already know what it says.

Surprised they haven’t locked me out of the employee portal, I open my charting system.

It’ll probably be locked soon, but I still have access for now.

My fingers move on autopilot. Joshua Clay. Room 408. Code 7:42 AM.

The notes are all there. My charting’s clean. Timestamps align. Vitals logged. Meds scanned. IV bag changed—wait.

I squint. I didn’t chart the IV bag because I didn’t change it. That means someone else did.

But the record says the bag was scanned under my ID number, fifteen minutes before the code when I was still on my break. The rational part of my brain tells me that no one would do that, we have strict protocols in place. Thinking someone would do that intentionally is just paranoid thinking.

But then I remember the IV bag. The brand was different. It wasn’t the standard bags we use. I didn’t think twice about it in the moment. Everything was chaos.

Now I’m thinking about it too much. I pull up a new tab and search for the batch number listed in the med log. PZ739-4B.

Nothing comes up at first. Then, buried on page four of a nursing message board, I find a message thread.

Anyone seen reactions with PZ739?

Got two weird hypotensive crashes on post-ops this week.

Same. Neuro nurse here. Never seen a kid drop that fast.

My mouth goes dry. It’s not an official recall. Not yet. But there’s chatter. I click the usernames. No one gives their full name, but it’s real. Nurses in other cities are seeing the same symptoms. Sudden drop in BP. Skin gray. Pupils blown.

I close the laptop with a snap and push it away, not sure what to think. If it’s something to do with the IV bag, then surely that puts me in the clear? But then my thoughts go back to the records, how I allegedly scanned the bag. Is someone trying to set me up?

***

I almost don’t hear the first call when it comes. I pull the phone out from under the pillow, blinking at the withheld number.

I hesitate, then answer. “Hello?”

Silence. Then, “Miss Carlin.”

The voice is male. Calm. Detached. Unfamiliar.

“The internal investigation is underway. We’ll be following up in the coming days. Please don’t go anywhere.”

Before I can respond the line goes dead.

Outside my window, a police cruiser rolls slowly down the street. It pauses at the intersection, headlights illuminating the front of my building. Then it keeps going.

I quickly reach over and close the blinds. Then I lock the door and double check it twice. I’m scared and not entirely sure why.