Chapter 7: What Cillian Heard

Cillian's POV

I ran the cabinet audit myself, on a Friday night, because nobody else was going to run it fast.

The pharmacy tech didn't like it.

"It's a seven-to-ten-day process, Dr. Tarleton."

"It's a report. You press a button, and it prints."

"It's not that simple."

"Then I'll stand here while you make it that simple."

She pressed the button.

It took a few minutes.

I sat with it at the back of the pharmacy and ran my finger down the column for H. Birkett, RN, going back eighteen months.

Every pull matched an order. Every count balanced. Every waste had a witness.

There was not a single discrepancy.

I signed the cover sheet and sent it up to the nurse manager with a note that said Close it.

I did not tell Hannah.

She hadn't asked me to.

I had stopped trying to explain to myself why that made it easier.

I was thirty-seven years old and had been an attending for six years.

I had never once gone looking for a nurse's audit on my own time.

I kept seeing her in recovery.

She had come out of the anesthesia with her fingers closed around mine.

Without opening her eyes, she had said, "Is it over?"

I had said, "Yes."

She had said, "Okay," and had gone back to sleep with her hand in mine until the next nurse came.

I hadn't let go first.

There was also the other thing, the one I didn't think about on purpose.

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