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“Well, according to my phone locator app, my phone is in there.” I gestured to the door. “The phone my nurse claimed I didn’t have when I was admitted, which I’m beginning to think was a lie. Either you let me go in there to retrieve my phone, or I’m calling the police.” I did have Officer Cooley’s number in my pocket, though I didn’t have a phone to make the call with.
“It’s okay, Gus. I recognize him. He just got discharged less than an hour ago,” the guy at the front desk said to the guard. “You’re the satyr that came in earlier, right? We don’t see many of your type here.”
I leaned in to read his name tag. “Listen, Lenny. My patience is wearing thin. I’ve just been given the runaround. I need to contact my girlfriend, and according to this”—I held up the tablet again—“my phone is in there.”
“Your girlfriend? The woman admitted with you, reddish brown hair, glasses?”
“Yeah, that’s her. Ivy. The nurse told me I came in alone.”
The guy frowned as he checked something on his computer. “Nope. She most definitely came in with you. She was in the next room.”
“What?” I snarled. Fuck! “Is she still here?”
“No. She left just a few minutes ago with someone who looked exactly like her.”
“That’s her sister. I can’t believe that nurse lied to me. Fuck. I bet she stole my phone, too. It’s a satellite phone, they don’t come cheap.” It was the only thing that worked way out in my woods.
The guy at the front desk furrowed his brows. “Can you go with him to check it out?” he asked the security guard.
We followed the signal from my phone into the staff room and found it coming from one of the lockers.
The guard sighed heavily. “I’ll have to call my boss and get the go-ahead to cut the lock. Better yet, we’ll find who owns the locker and get them to open it.”
As I waited for them to retrieve my phone, I looked up Iris’s business number. I didn’t have Ivy’s number memorized, but if she was with her sister, maybe I could reach her that way. I looked around for a payphone. Did those things even still exist?
Not immediately seeing one, I asked Lenny.
“I’m sorry you’re going through all this,” he said, looking genuinely apologetic. “You can use this one here. Just dial nine before the number.”
“Thanks.”
I just hoped the number was a cell phone and not a landline at her office, and that Iris would pick up at 7 PM on a Friday evening.
It rang six times before it went to voicemail.Refusing to give up so easily, I called the number again. And again. I only gave up when the security guard waved me over. There was another man in uniform with him, as well as the nurse from earlier. Her face paled when she saw me.
Sure enough, my phone was inside her locker.She’d turned off the phone, probably thinking that would prevent any sort of tracking. Think again, lady. I proved that it was my phone by unlocking it with my fingerprint. I had missed a call from Ivy.
“This bitc—I mean, nurse—also lied about where another patient was. She was in the room next to mine, but I was told she wasn’t in the hospital.”
The security guard shrugged. “I can’t do anything about that, but she did steal your phone.”
“I wasn’t going to keep it!” she protested. “I just wanted to stop him from contacting the woman. Monsters like him shouldn’t be messing around with humans. It’s disgusting and wrong, especially under a love spell.”
“‘Monsters like him’?” the second security guard, who did not smell remotely human, repeated in a low murmur. If I had to guess, I’d have said he was a bear shifter in human form. He turned back to me. “Would you like to file charges, sir?”
“Oh yes. I most certainly would.”
“Great. The two officers who were here are on their way back.”
Lenny came over with an empty cup in his hand and offered it to me. “Someone just brought in a carafe of fresh coffee from the good place down the street. I thought you might like some while you wait. It’s at the front.”
“Coffee at 7 PM?” I asked.
He looked at me with a “well, duh” look on his face. “This is a hospital, sir. We run on caffeine 24/7.”
***
By the time I was done with my second talk with the police in one day, I’d called Ivy six times. She didn’t pick up once.
