Georgia had thought she was out of tears by the time Luke arrived home. But as soon as she recounted the story of what had happened, a fresh flood started up. He was the first person she’d told. There was a missed call on her phone from Rick, so she assumed he’d somehow heard — no doubt the rumour about a nurse being accused of stealing drugs was already flying around the hospital — but she hadn’t been able to bring herself to call him back. What if he believed the rumour? What if he was calling to have a go at her? She hadn’t heard from Amber but she knew it was her weekend with Violet.
Marcus was the one person she wanted to talk to. She’d decided this was enough of a reason to disturb him on his holiday. So, she’d sent him a text message, asking if they could please talk. But so far there’d been no response. She was trying hard to understand — it was his honeymoon, he had every right to ignore her if he wanted to. But she was just a tiny bit hurt.
She didn’t want to tell her parents or anyone else in her family; she felt too embarrassed about the whole thing. What if they thought she was guilty? What if her parents thought it was like last time? What if they thought she was having . . . problems again?
Luke sat on the couch next to her, an arm around her shoulders as he tried to console her.
‘This is ridiculous,’ he said for what was probably the third time. ‘Haven’t you been working there for two years? Why would they think you’d suddenly start stealing pills now? Surely they know you well enough.’
‘I know. But the problem is they were in my bag.’
Luke slapped a hand against his own knee in frustration. ‘But how was someone able to put them in there? Don’t you keep your bags in lockers?’
‘We do, but the lockers are so old that half are broken, and most of the keys have gone missing. They’ve never bothered to replace them over the years, and it’s never mattered because the staff room is locked so it’s only other staff that go in there.’
‘Do you have any idea who’d want to set you up?’
‘No! There’s no one. I’ve never had any issues with any other nurses, and as far as I know no one’s ever had a problem with me.’ Georgia stood up and started pacing. ‘I don’t get it, I don’t get it at all.’ She stopped at Luke’s workout bench, mindlessly picking up one of his dumbbells and swapping it from hand to hand.
Luke stood and walked over to her. He carefully took the weight out of her hand and put it down. ‘I know that right now everything seems awful, but listen, it’s all going to work out, I know it is. There must be cameras they can check, right? Something to prove you didn’t do this and to figure out who the hell did. Because obviously someone does have something against you. Those tablets didn’t appear in your bag on their own.’
‘Maybe. I’m not sure. I can’t remember if they have cameras in the storage room.’ She looked up at Luke. ‘You really think someone at the hospital hates me that much?’
‘I don’t know, but there has to be some kind of motivation behind it. It’s not like it’s a funny prank. It’s a serious sabotage of your career. You’re sure you can’t think of anyone?’
Georgia stared down at her feet. Faces flashed through her mind. Nurses, doctors, colleagues, friends. Surely one of her friends couldn’t have done this to her? Could they?
She shook her head. ‘I really don’t know.’
‘And what about your trip to Bali? Do you think this will all get sorted out in time for you to still go?’
She hadn’t even thought about that. But there was no way she could go traipsing off overseas in the middle of this. She sat back down, put her head in her hands and started crying again. ‘I can’t go,’ she said through the tears. ‘I’m going to have to call Mum and tell her what happened, and it’s going to be so embarrassing and they’re going to be so ashamed of me.’
‘What? No way. How can they be ashamed of you? You didn’t do anything wrong. Oh babe, please don’t cry. I’m telling you, this is all going to work out. I’m sure of it.’
*
The following morning, Denise called and told Georgia there would be an automatic two-week suspension without pay and that an investigation would take place immediately.
‘Listen,’ she said, ‘one way or another, we’ll get to the bottom of this. I promise you, we’ll sort out the truth.’
But there was a slight edge to her voice, and Georgia couldn’t help feeling that Denise might have already made up her mind about what the truth was.
She sent a message to her parents.
Hey Mum and Dad, thank you so much for the generous offer but I can’t come on the holiday to Bali. It’s impossible for me to get the time off work. Thanks again though.
She hated lying to them. She had planned to call and tell them the truth, but after speaking to Denise, she couldn’t do it. Five minutes after she sent the message, her mum tried to call, but Georgia declined it and turned off her phone.
She spent the day sitting in front of Netflix, switching from one show to another, wrapped up in a quilt, pretending to herself that she was off work because she was sick with a cold. In fact, she told herself that so many times that eventually she started to feel like her nose actually was blocked and her throat was scratchy. Every now and then, she shuffled out onto her balcony to smoke a cigarette, but she didn’t enjoy it. As the day finally edged towards evening, she turned her phone back on and discovered voicemails from Amber, Rick and her mum. She deleted them all without listening to them. She wasn’t ready to talk to her mum. And as much as she wanted the reassurance of her friends, there was a tiny part of her deep inside that had begun to question: who could she trust?
When Luke arrived home, she told him she was coming down with a cold, so he made her chicken soup and then ran her a hot bath, and didn’t comment on the fact that she wasn’t sneezing or coughing or feverish. She was grateful.