Epilogue

Seven Years Later

I've beenon my emergency medicine rotation for over two weeks, and I officially hate my life.

It's the third rotation of my third year of medical school. For your third rotation, you're supposed to schedule the specialty you're interested in doing for the rest of your life. That way, you have enough time in the hospital that you don't look like a complete idiot, but you take the rotation early enough that you have plenty of time to get letters of recommendation or change your mind in case you end up hating it. The latter is the case for me.

Actually, I like the pace, the patients, the procedures, and even most of the staff. But what I hate is the senior resident, Dr. Sasha Zaleski. And somehow, that's enough to make me completely miserable.

"Kiera!"

I look up from the computer monitor at the sound of Dr. Zaleski's voice. Most residents allow me to call them by their first name, but Dr. Zaleski does not. I groan inwardly and brace myself.

"What are you doing?" Dr. Zaleski demands to know.

"I was just writing up the last patient," I explain. I silently curse the fact that Dr. Zaleski is working during nearly all of my shifts in the ER. I checked the schedule last week, hoping maybe it had changed. It hadn't. Somehow, I have angered the scheduling gods.

"I told you to see the woman with suspected appendicitis in Room 3," Dr. Zaleski says accusingly.

Yes, but she also told me that I had to write up patients I'd seen before moving on to the next one. Mixed messages, seriously.

"Sorry," is all I say.

"Well, because you were so slow," Dr. Zaleski says snippily, "I already saw that patient myself. Why don't you make yourself useful and call Surgery to come see her?" She pauses. "And after that, go get me a cup of coffee."

I nod, afraid to say anything to further incur her wrath, even though technically, the residents have been scolded for sending medical students to perform menial tasks like fetching coffee or doing laundry. I don't mind grabbing her some coffee, though. At least it's something I'm less likely to screw up. I know exactly how she likes it after two weeks on this rotation. (Black—like her soul.)

I heard Dr. Zaleski is bad-tempered because she matched for a residency spot at the lowly DeWitt. Apparently, stellar grades don't make up for mediocre evaluations from attendings on rotations. Dr. Zaleski can't even be nice to the people she's sucking up to.

Not that DeWitt Hospital is so bad. The medical school is one of the best, especially now that it's no longer known as Dead Med. Everyone knows the story about that old nickname, though—it's huge gossip in our school.

So apparently, DeWitt used to have a bad drug problem. Several students overdosed, but they still couldn't manage to crack down on it. Also, the former anatomy professor was this real player, a total Casanova, who frequently used to have affairs with his students. He was having an affair with this girl in the class, and another student found out about it and tried to blackmail him. The whole thing went horribly wrong, and that student ended up murdering the professor and some other staff member. And that anatomy professor was the one distributing the drugs, so after he died, the students got clean.

The student who killed the professor was sentenced to life in prison—first-degree murder charges, I guess. They thought part of the reason he did it was because he'd been abusing drugs, and it was all tracked back to some clinic off campus that was handing them out like candy. It goes without saying that the doctor who worked there lost his license and went to jail too.

Of course, all of these are rumors passed down over seven years. Who knows how much of it is true?

I was always curious what happened to the girl who had the affair with the professor, and that's never been clear, aside from the fact that she transferred to a different school. My friend Meg, who is usually right about this kind of stuff, says she quit med school entirely. I've heard people say she went on to become a yoga instructor, a kindergarten teacher, a ballet dancer, or just that she married rich and doesn't have to work.

Now that I think of it, Dr. Zaleski was probably at DeWitt back then. Maybe she knew that student and could tell me what happened to her. But Dr. Zaleski frowns on personal conversations during work hours.

I call the operator and discover that the surgery resident on call for consults is Dr. Abe Kaufman. It's the only good news I've gotten all night. Of all the surgery residents, Abe is the nicest. Hell, he's the only nice one. You call Abe, he comes down right away and doesn't quiz me on a million tests I ordered wrong somehow.

Sure enough, Abe rushes right down after I explain the situation to him. I spot his red hair and his large frame lumbering down the hallway, and I wave. He waves back enthusiastically.

"Appy?" he asks me.

"Uh-huh," I say. "It's a twenty-nine-year-old woman. Right lower quadrant pain, fever, elevated white count."

Abe takes the chart from me and skims the first page. "Huh," he says as his finger lingers on the name Dr. McKinley. "My wife is her primary care doctor."

He strides into the room, a smile stretched across his face. "Ms. Durand!" he greets the young woman, who looks intensely uncomfortable. "How are you doing?"

"Terrible," Elsie Durand groans. "The pain is… It's so bad."

Abe lays his right hand gingerly on her abdomen. It always surprises me that a big guy could be so gentle.

"What did the CT show, Kiera?" he asks me.

"I, um…" I bite my lip, bracing myself. "They haven't done it yet."

"Ultrasound?" he asks.

I shake my head again.

The last time that happened, the surgeon screamed at me for ten straight minutes. But Abe just shrugs.

"Well, it's a clinical diagnosis," he says.

"Can I have something more for the pain?" Elsie Durand pleads with him.

He shakes his head abruptly. "No. No pain meds. You're going straight to the OR."

I nod in agreement, relieved.

"By the way," Abe says with a wink, "how's Sasha treating you?"

I don't even know who he's talking about at first. "Do you mean Dr. Zaleski?"

"Oh, Christ." Abe laughs. "I think that answers my question."

I glance around nervously. "She's, um, fine."

"I'm sure." Abe rolls his eyes. "Well, if you ever need someone to straighten her out, give me a call." He cracks his knuckles and adds, "It would be my pleasure."

He's joking. I'm almost positive.

I find Dr. Zaleski back at her computer station, writing up a patient encounter. The moment she hears my footsteps, she whips her head around to look at me accusingly.

"Well? Are you going to tell me what happened with that patient, or do I have to guess?" she asks.

"Dr. Kaufman is going to take her to surgery."

She raises her eyebrows. "He doesn't want to wait for the CT results?"

"No," I say.

Dr. Zaleski takes another sip of coffee and mutters something under her breath. "Where's my coffee?" she finally says.

"Oh…" I look down at my hands, like if I wished hard enough, a Styrofoam cup of coffee might magically appear. "I'll get it for you right now."

She nods curtly. "Now, please. You'd think I'd only have to tell you once…"

Less than two weeks to go…

I sprint down the hall to the kitchen, where they have a machine filled with hot coffee that is constantly brewing. I grab one of the Styrofoam cups and press the button to dispense coffee. Of course, nothing happens. That's exactly what kind of night I'm having.

"Problem?"

I whirl around, nearly dropping the cup on the floor. A slim woman in her late twenties wearing a pair of scrubs is standing behind me, her dark hair piled on top of her head. The ID badge on her chest reads Rachel Bingham, MD, Psychiatry Resident. It's very late, but her eyes are bright, and she doesn't seem the slightest bit tired.

Unlike me. Even my bones are tired. I didn't think such a thing was possible until my third year of med school.

"The coffee machine won't work," I grumble.

She arches an eyebrow. "Why are you drinking coffee at midnight?"

"It's for Dr. Zaleski."

"Okay, then. Why are you Dr. Zaleski's coffee slave?"

"I don't mind getting it for her." I don't want it getting back to her that I've been bad-mouthing her behind her back. The residents talk amongst themselves, even between departments. "And she's got a lot to do."

"Here," she says in a voice much kinder than my own resident's voice, "let me help you."

Dr. Bingham takes the coffee cup from me and fiddles with the machine. A minute later, the coffee machine starts dispensing piping-hot black liquid. I let out a sigh of relief. Dr. Zaleski definitely would've screamed at me if I came back to her without coffee. If I couldn't get this machine to work, I would have had to hide in a supply closet for the rest of my shift.

Dr. Bingham turns her back to me as she finishes filling up the coffee and places the Styrofoam cup on the counter. "She takes it black, right?"

"How'd you know?"

"Just a guess. She's always so hyper when she calls us for consults. You'd think she was on speed."

I snicker. "Dr. Zaleski on speed? No way. She would never take that kind of chance. They do random drug tests all the time here, and she would wreck her entire career."

She nods. "Yes, you're probably right. It would be very stupid, wouldn't it? Anyway, you better get her this coffee before it gets cold and she screams at you again."

She isn't wrong. I reach out to take the coffee cup from the counter, but that's when I see it. A sprinkling of white particles dissolving into the black liquid. I squint down at the cup, trying to figure out what they are. But before I can, Dr. Bingham retrieves a plastic lid and pops it on top of the cup.

I start to ask her about what I just saw, but then I shake my head. What am I supposed to say? Hey, why were there little white specks in the black coffee? I'll sound nuts. It's probably a visual hallucination from lack of sleep.

The psych resident picks up the cup of coffee and holds it out to me. "Good luck tonight," she says.

As I take the coffee from her, our eyes meet. A chill runs down my spine, although I'm not exactly sure why. I can't help but think that I didn't imagine those white specks in the coffee. While she was turned away from me, Dr. Bingham had a chance to do whatever she wanted to that coffee.

But why would she? I had to have imagined it. I must have.

After all, who would want to drug Dr. Zaleski?

THE END