Page 23 of Dead Sure
“Jesus,you’rethe psychic Nurse Miller kept talking about,” Becky said, her eyes narrowed on Tennyson. “Day and night she would talk about how wonderful you are and how you predicted that she was going to marry Dr. Logan.”
“Yes, I was the one who did the reading for Autumn Miller,” Ten agreed.
“Okay, so let me get this straight,” Mason began, “You’re a psychic,” he said, pointing to Ten. “And you’re a detective,” he said, turning to Ronan.
“That’s right,” Ronan agreed. “For full disclosure, we’re also married and have two kids of our own. We’re both members of the Salem Cold Case unit. Ten has been working on investigations with me for eight years, first with the Boston Police and now here, but we’ve never had our worlds collide like this before.”
“How do you mean?” Becky asked.
“Like you said, Autumn Miller came to see me for a reading a year ago, when I told her I saw a husband and children in her future, but never mentioned Dr. Logan being in the picture. Neither of those things has come true. She’s now claiming that my predictions were fraudulent and has pressed charges against me. I was arrested yesterday.” Ten paused, hoping the shocked looks on the Hughes’s faces would dissipate.
“Not only is Ten dealing with Miller personally, but The Salem Police are investigating her for what happened to your son last week,” Ronan added. “We’re hoping that the two of you can tell us about the kind of care she provided to your son and would tell us what happened the day she was fired.”
Becky looked down at her infant son. “I never liked Autumn. There was something about her that rubbed me wrong. She was abrupt, scattered, and seemed preoccupied.”
“We also noticed the way she chased after Dr. Logan, even if she was in the middle of caring for Jason. She’d abandon him and leave the room,” Mason said.
Ten could feel the pain Becky and Mason were feeling, mixed with fear, for their son and his future. What they were telling he and Ronan was appalling.
“Jason had a bad day last Thursday. His oxygen level was down and he seemed to be struggling. Becky and I called for Autumnand she came into the room and checked on our son. She mentioned upping a medication, but turned toward the door after checking her watch. She was on her way out of the room when alarms began going off. Not the normal ones, but the loud, scary kinds. She never turned back. Not once. That woman left my child to die.” Mason set his head in his hands.
Ten couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Autumn’s behavior didnotfall under the heading of “do no harm.”
“The alarms were the kind that sends the cavalry coming, Tennyson,” Becky added. “That woman walked away from our baby when he was in severe distress. He could have died. We found out later that she’d been out in the hallway waiting to flirt with the doctor who was on his way back from lunch. She walked out of the room like she hadn’t heard the alarms at all. Thankfully, other staff rushed to our room and saved our baby.”
“We heard later that she’d been terminated, and that in addition to being lax with her nursing responsibilities, that she was also stalking and harassing Dr. Logan,” Mason said, his composure restored. “I wouldn’t ordinarily gossip about someone’s mental health, but that girl needs some serious help. All she talked about was Dr. Logan this and Dr. Logan that. She was obsessed, so much so that I spoke to the doctor to let him know.”
“We really appreciate all that you’ve told us today.” Ronan said. “One of our detectives will be in touch to schedule sit-down interviews with both of you for the negligence case they’re trying to build.”
“Why didn’t your predictions come true, Tennyson?” Becky asked.
“Nurse Miller’s obsessiveness pushed Dr. Logan away. The decisions we make every day rewrite our future, some for the good, some for the bad.” Ten offered the new mother a smile.
“Do you know what’s going to happen to Jason?” Becky asked, unshed tears making her eyes glassy.
“Jason’s going to be just fine. So fine, in fact that Jason will be the valedictorian of his Harvard Medical School class. Thanks to the lifesaving treatment he received here, he’s going to be a neonatologist, just like Doctor Logan.” Ten stood up from his seat. “Thank you so much for your time and for sharing your story.”
“We’re going to do everything in our power to make sure Nurse Miller can never again harm another child.” Ronan offered a wave and ushered Tennyson out of the room.
“Those poor people,” Ronan said. “I don’t know what I would have done if one of Everly or Ezra’s nurses had acted like Autumn Miller.”
“Yes, you do,” Ten said, taking Ronan’s hand. “The kids and I would be visiting you in prison every weekend.”
Ronan snorted. “You’re probably right.” He pressed the button for the elevator. “Let’s go get your head examined.”
“You first!” The last thing Ten wanted was to go for an exam. Aside from the headache, he felt fine.
What Ten wanted more than anything was for the charges against him to be dismissed and for Autumn Miller to be out of their lives. In order to make sure that happened, Ten needed to be at his best, which at the moment, he wasn’t.
Ten would get his head injury treated and then he and Ronan were going after Autumn Miller. That bitch wasn’t going to know what hit her until it was too late.
13
Ronan
Ten and Ronan got home a little after noon. Thankfully Tennyson’s nose wasn’t broken and he didn’t have a concussion. Even so, Ronan had sent Ten to take a nap.
While Ten was snoozing, Ronan had read through the entire Autumn Miller file. Fitz had scanned it into the computer and sent Ronan a copy. The one thing that had been obvious to Ronan right off the bat was that Autumn should have been fired long before last week. There were three formal complaints filed against her by other nurses in the unit who’d wanted to remain anonymous. Each of them accused Autumn of failing to fulfill her job responsibilities. Instead, she’d been mooning over Elijah Logan, evidenced by the complaints he’d filed against Autumn with HR. It had taken a close call with the Hughes’s baby for the hospital to finally take action and terminate her employment.
