He Locked Me Out and Let Her In novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: Owner in Car

I slept in Reuben's bed with the key still in my fist.

At seven on Monday morning the owner of Eastside called us both in.

She was a small, silver-haired woman in her sixties, and she had run that hospital for thirty years.

Her office was glass on three sides.

By the time we got there, a dozen night and day staff had already gathered outside it with their coffee, pretending not to look.

On the desk lay a thick stack of paper, clipped at the corner.

"Sit," she said.

I sat.

Reuben didn't.

"Ms. Stroud's family has given this hospital a great deal of money," the owner said, tapping the stack. "Her father paid for the new surgical suite. Her report says you stalked her, falsified records and harassed her at her home."

"I didn't."

"I'm sure you didn't." She sighed. "But the board is nervous, and I'm required to act. Maddie, you are suspended with pay, pending review. Effective now."

The room outside went dead quiet.

My face heated.

"That's not fair," I said. "I haven't done anything."

"I know."

"Then why..."

"She doesn't know," said Reuben, "because nobody has shown her."

He reached into his jacket and took out a thin paper folder.

He laid it on the desk, flat, beside the report.

"What is this?" the owner said.

"A chart. Three years old." He opened it. "Patient, Daisy, grey domestic longhair, owner Lydia Stroud, address 14C, the Marlowe. Emergency contact: Dean Pullman, tenant."

"Tenant?"

"That's what Ms. Stroud wrote on the intake form, in her own hand. She called him her tenant."

The owner put on her glasses.

"Go on."

"The cat came in at two in the morning, brought by Mr. Pullman, who said she was a friend's." Reuben turned a page. "Look at the bottom."

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