Medicine Cup Read Online Free PDF Page A

sat up.
    “Who’s there?”
    No one answered and Sadie bent forward and squinted her eyes to try and focus. “Probably mice,” she muttered to herself.
    Having reined in her fear, Sadie turned out the lights and dropped her head onto the pillow. She longed for the good ol’ days when she could get a sleeping pill. Since Baxter had returned, he’d allowed no medicines except his ‘elixirs’. Maybe she could talk the new nurse into sneaking her a pill. After all, living a hundred and ten years, she at least deserved that much. Even if Baxter didn’t think so. She got a grip on her rampaging thoughts just as the noise at her door started again. She fumbled for her light.
    “Goddammit,” she said, as it crashed to the floor. “Who’s there? Is that you Hudson?” Sadie swung her legs over the edge of the bed. “I’ll fix you, who ever you are!”
    Grabbing the edge of her night stand, Sadie wrenched herself from her pile of blankets and climbed out of bed. Despite her vision, she felt her way across the room to the light switch next to the door. The room flooded with light and she covered her eyes. When the spots cleared, she saw a dark-clad figure standing over her.
    “Who are you? Get out of my room!” Sadie grabbed the wool mask covering the intruder’s face and yanked it off. “You!” she said, recognizing the face. She braced herself for the impact when she saw the metal pipe come around from the side. She put up her forearm in a defensive posture, but on impact, her arm snapped like a dry twig.
    The next blow ripped her skull in two.

Chapter Fourteen
    P aul Grant lay down on his bed only to realize he was just as restless as the previous night. Despite what Paul had told Baxter in his interview, the truth was more complicated than what he’d revealed to Baxter. The truth was, Paul wasn’t all that thrilled about taking the assignment at Harbor View to begin with. He was used to the convenience and pace of a large city. His last assignment, an Intensive Care Unit at a major Los Angeles hospital, was a far cry from the dairy farms of Vermont.
    His new boss, however, had begged and prodded him with a large bonus that was difficult to turn down. When he finally relented, he learned that he was the only nurse on staff that had met the tough criteria Harbor View had set forth. That surprised Paul. From what he’d seen, Harbor View was more of a babysitting job. The only perk to the whole thing was that he had met Jennie Bradford. That in itself was reason enough to stay.
    His last girlfriend, a fellow nurse in L.A., dumped him right after their respective assignments were over. He found that in the travel nurse business, it was quite common. Couples often paired up for the duration of their stay, a kind of mutual agreement to use each other with no strings attached. Paul, though, tended to get too emotionally involved, instead of seeing it for what it was. Paul realized his expectations were tied to his own parents’ conventional marriage. It lasted thirty years until the doomed airliner abruptly ended it.
    With Jennie, he would have to be careful. Her aggressive nature made her all the more attractive to him. He was not going to get stung this time.
    Then again, he always said that.
    Paul swung his legs over the edge of the bed and flipped on the light. It was 1 A.M. and all his attempts to sleep had accomplished was to make him more restless. He loaded his flashlight with the new batteries and checked the switch. The beam cast across the room to the adjacent wall. He flipped it off immediately.
    Now let’s see what’s in that storage room .
    He turned off his light and felt his way across the room to his door. Peeking out in both directions, he took a deep breath to bolster his courage and stepped out. The only sound came from the constant hum of the fluorescent lights overhead, where several gypsy moths fluttered about.
    Moving quickly, he made his way to the South Hall and down an adjacent corridor