The Night Shift(2)

CHAPTER 1


ELLA




APRIL 2015

Ella pops a Xanax as she waits for the valet to take her keys. Driving into Manhattan always stresses her out. The frenetic confluence of cabbies rage-driving, cops jetting by with sirens blaring, pedestrians all but challenging you to run them over as they step defiantly into the street.

What the fuck is she doing here?

Last time, she’d promised herself that it would be the last time.

A young guy in a bellhop uniform stands at her window now. She hums down the glass.

“Checking in?” he asks. He’s in his twenties and gives her the once-over.

“No, just meeting a friend.”

He nods as if enjoying the euphemism. Sure, in that outfit, a friend.

Ella slips out of the car and palms the kid a five. She catches him stealing a look at the bill, unimpressed.

Give her a break. She’s a therapist making $30K a year, for fuck’s sake, not some businessman on an expense account.

Inside the marble lobby of the Carlyle hotel, she makes a beeline for the bar. Against all sound medical judgment—she’d taken a pharmacology class at Wellesley—she pops another tiny blue pill.

She feels eyes on her as she enters the mahogany room. Faux old-money decor and the din of Franz Liszt from the gray-haired pianist trying not to look defeated at the culmination of his music career.

Ella should talk. She’s barely making her half of the rent, coming into the city so she won’t bump into one of her fiancé’s friends. Or a client from her fledgling practice. She thinks about sixteen-year-old Layla from their session that morning. She’s cutting herself again. Layla didn’t need to explain why. Ella understands.

Surveying the bar, Ella snags the look of a man in an expensive suit holding a tumbler of Scotch. They always drink Scotch. And love to talk about it. The special barrels this, the unique region that. Beyond the Scotch prattle, most tend to have a pale band of skin on their left ring finger. Ella doesn’t bother to take off her engagement ring. The Scotch guys don’t care.

The man smiles at her.

He’ll do.

Ella is always surprised how easy it is. She doesn’t need Tinder when she has this black dress.

So she goes to meet her new friend.



* * *



A few hours later, her phone chimes. She’s in a hotel room now, the only light from under the door. On these frolics, she always sets the alarm for 5 a.m. It avoids awkward morning-after talk.

But it isn’t the sound of the alarm. It’s an incoming call. She extracts herself from under Rick’s hairy arm. She wonders if that’s his real name. He looks like a Rick. Though he probably thought she looks like a Candy. Something sweet but bad for you. Much like her old friend, whose name she borrowed. She always uses their names. Candy, Mandy, Katie. She has no idea why.

“Hello,” she whispers into the phone. She scuttles quietly to the bathroom, scooping up the black dress off the floor. The marble is cool under her feet.

“Ella, I’m sorry to call this late. It’s Dale.”

“Mr. Steadman?” After all these years she can’t bring herself to call him by his first name. You’re always a kid to the teachers in your life. She hasn’t spoken to him in a year, not since her former teacher and now principal at her old high school had her meet with students in the wake of a school shooting in a neighboring township. “Is everything okay?” She feels drumbeats in her chest. Why would he be calling at this hour? Could it be? Could they finally have caught him? No, good news rarely arrives in a wee-hours call.

“Something awful has happened. I know it’s asking a lot. But can you come to RWJ?”

Come to the hospital? Now?

Before she can ask, Mr. Steadman says, “There’s been a—one of my students needs your help.”

She wants to protest. Wants to make an excuse. But she can’t. Not after everything Mr. Steadman has done for her.

“Sure, of course,” she says. “I’m visiting a friend in the city. I can get there in about an hour.”

“I wouldn’t drag you out here if I thought there was someone else who could…” He trails off.

Ella’s head is swirling. She’s exhausted. Still tipsy. Confused. She composes herself. “Can you tell me what this is about?”

Mr. Steadman’s voice catches. “Four girls were attacked at an ice cream shop in Linden. Only one survived. She needs someone who understands, who can—”

“I’m on my way,” Ella says killing the line, knowing she’s uniquely qualified to help this girl.

Knowing what it’s like to be the only one who made it out alive.





CHAPTER 2





The parking lot of the Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital is covered in a spring fog. The lot is nearly empty save for a gathering of police cars. A woman in scrubs paces outside the front doors, talking on a cell phone.

Ella grips the steering wheel even though she’s parked, and looks down at her pale, bare legs. She debates going home to change into something more professional. But Mr. Steadman sounded uncharacteristically rattled. He’s usually a rock.

She takes a look at herself in the visor mirror, thumbs her smeared eye makeup. Climbing out of the car, she decides the fuck-me heels are a bit much. She reaches back for her gym bag, pulls out her sneakers.