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Five
Rounds had never been something about her job she enjoyed. Bunny liked to be where the action was, not writing up observations and dishing out pills. But as one of only three staff members on duty through the night at Arcadian Waters, she didn’t get the chance to be that choosy. She hustled from one room to the next, keeping up her regular pace. That, if nothing else, was still under her control, and she hadn’t seen anyone glowing around the place, either.
Bonus.
She glanced up as she turned the corner into the hallway toward the kitchen—and her eyes landing squarely on the man in black. He was walking away from her, heading in the direction of the area she’d seen him in the night before. But this wasn’t some gaslighting flicker in the corner of her eye. She was watching him actually stride down the hall, his long overcoat flapping as he moved.
Yes, she had promised Ben that if she saw him again, she would call the cops. But security had ridiculed her when they had arrived to an empty room and a false call. They had assured the ‘new girl’ that she was just jittery being in this big ol’ building at night, and that she ought to lay off the coffee. Assholes. She didn’t feel like giving Atlanta PD the chance to give her more of the same. And now she was pissed off that this dude—whoever he was—continued to flaunt his ability to break and enter.
“Hey!” she called, her voice like the steel bar of a rat trap snapping closed.
There was a subtle shift in the guy’s shoulders. Surprise, maybe? He turned his head slightly to the right, his glossy black hair brushing the collar of his jacket, and his jaw and the tip of his nose thrown into profile before he turned his head back and kept on walking. The action was arrogant and dismissive; a figurative ‘screw you, lady’.
“Hey!”
Bunny quickened her step, her fast-paced years in triage serving her well. A couple of seconds later and she was running down the hall, praying none of the residents had gotten out of bed when they’d heard her shout and stepped in her way. The guy continued to walk at the same purposeful pace, turning left at the end of the hall. Her sneakers squeaked against the linoleum, giving her enough traction to slow down and take the corner much faster than he had.
They also helped her pull to an abrupt stop on the other side of the corner.
The guy had vanished.
Bunny’s gaze immediately darted to the first couple of doors on either side of the hall. He had to be in one of the rooms. There was no way he could have gotten farther than that before she caught up with him. All the rooms on this hall were occupied. There was a possibility he was in one of them, hurting one of her patients. She was responsible for them.
She entered the first room, walking in just as purposefully as he’d been walking down the hall. It was important she didn’t show any fear, because if any of the residents were awake, she didn’t want to frighten them. Bunny marched over to the bathroom door, opened it quietly, flicked on the light and made sure it was empty. On her way out, the elderly man who occupied the room snuffled gently in his sleep and rolled over onto his side.
One down. She would check every room in the damn facility if she had to. He had to be here somewhere. The alternative—that she was, in fact, having fully blown lucid hallucinations—was too stark to face. Gritting her teeth, Bunny came out of the room and was one step across the hall to the next when an earth-shattering crash made her leap out of her skin.
Her head snapped left, her eyes widening when she looked at the mess of mangled picture frame and broken glass on the floor down at the end of the hall.
Bunny surveyed the damage, her mind racing. How on earth had this guy managed to throw a picture frame off a wall and then hide before she’d seen him?
No sooner had the thought entered her brain, it was answered. Another frame ripped itself off the wall and smashed next to the first one. It hit the floor with such force that the frame splintered.
She blinked, hands open and held beside her just in case a frame happened to get thrown her way. Bunny began to back away out of the hall. Chasing down a guy who was loping around the facility like she was a damn vigilante was one thing. Dealing with damn poltergeists was another. And aside from needing to protect the residents and her coworkers, she didn’t want to be blamed for vandalizing her new workplace.
Bunny pursed her lips and lifted her watch.
“Call security.”
* * *
“You’re serious?”
Stuart the security guard shifted uncomfortably, as though he were trying to walk a tightrope and the only thing between him and the concrete below was a really pissed-off-looking nurse. He clung to a blue plastic clipboard as though it could shield him from Bunny’s piercing gaze, offering a small noncommittal shrug.
“There is no breach of any doors and the windows don’t open. Nothing on the security footage, inside or out.” He glanced at the nurse standing next to Bunny before his eyes darted back again. “All we can uh, see, is you in the hall.”
Great. All of this was going to look really convincing on whatever reports Cerise would send to Julian. If her hospital-mandated counselor started to talk about vivid hallucinations, she would be tempted to face plant on the desk.
She lifted her hands in exasperation. “Can you at least see the pictures?”
“By the time the camera pans back, they’re already on the floor,” the security guard said apologetically.
Well, at least she wasn’t a suspect.
“Pictures don’t just thrown themselves off the wall,” Bunny pointed out, looking hopefully at Dana, the other nurse on duty, for some kind of support. Her coworker had been running care on another wing when Bunny had texted her. It was only fair that everyone knew the score if there was a dangerous lunatic on the loose in the building.
“Maybe their hangers broke?” Dana suggested, losing herself points.
