Roses Manor, Weston Chapter 22
While she didn’t want to go to the doctor, Gabriella loved St. Hildegard’s Medical Center the second she saw it. She’d never considered going into medicine, or had any interest in the subject whatsoever. But the Foundation’s medical services were in a converted seminary in the Newton section of Chestnut Hill. Surrounded by wealth and clearly coming up from it, St. Hildegard’s was made up of towering stone buildings along a campus that looked beautiful in its snowy cover, not a gray, nasty mess like the roads in Leominster currently were. Evergreen trees surrounded the buildings and their boughs hung heavy with snow over the roads as Madelyn drove them toward the building where Gabriella was meeting Dr. Oliver.
“It’s just a checkup,” Madelyn said. “They’re fine, I have to come here every few months since my injuries happened on the job. It’s a basic doctor’s office. Mostly.”
The “mostly” seemed heavy with meaning and it made Gabriella even more curious about this place. They passed a building with a sign for Pharmacy and Research before getting to what had to be the main hospital building, next to another smaller one with a sign for Psychiatric Services. The therapist she’d met with twice last spring probably worked out of there, didn’t he? She’d liked him well enough and would have probably kept seeing him if that was an option. But apparently it was not.
They parked outside the building and got out of the car. Madelyn was walking briskly today, with her cane stashed in her backpack. As they got inside, she motioned toward one of the long hallways branching off from the main entrance.
“You’re down that way, so I’ll wait in the cafeteria for you,” she said. “Then we’ll go check out Weston and grab some lunch on the way home?”
Then she was gone, leaving Gabriella to find her way to Dr. Oliver’s office. To her relief, it was pretty simple to find. She walked up a concrete stairwell and found herself in a dated, dim hallway with multiple medical suites off of it. A few doors down, she spotted the suite number Dr. Oliver had sent her, then went inside to the equally dim, dated waiting room.
This felt like it could be any corporate building or old medical practice in Leominster. How was this happening in the middle of what seemed like a castle? There was no way the seminarians had trained under these lights, right?
The receptionist was online on a tablet at the otherwise empty desk, clearly handling eight different suites at the same time. But she was kind, if rushed, as she checked Gabriella in for her appointment. She took her information, then instructed her to sit and wait for Dr. Oliver or an assistant to come get her.
It was, in fact, Dr. Oliver who opened the door a few minutes later. She wore her usual white coat and her red hair was in a large, messy bun on her head. She grinned when she saw Gabriella. “There she is!” she said, waving her over. “Come on in.”
Last time she saw Dr. Oliver in person, Gabriella had accidentally let slip what they were doing with the mischief in the Fairview Hills Cemetery last year. She wondered if Dr. Oliver remembered her lie. Hopefully not.
“It’s been a while,” Dr. Oliver said. “The mischief, right?”
Never mind. “Um, yeah,” Gabriella said as Dr. Oliver motioned for her to go into a small room and sit down on the exam table.
“I’m glad that all worked out,” Dr. Oliver said. “Alright, you’re here for a checkup, that’s all. The power coming out of that video game was intense, so Captain McManus asked me to do a follow up here while you were in town for the case instead of remotely. Which is what I prefer, so things worked out nicely!”
She went to her computer, which looked about as new and shiny as the ones they had at headquarters. “Alright, give me your full name and date of birth.”
Gabriella rattled off that information, and Dr. Oliver laughed. “Alright, what’s the relation?” she asked. “Is he your uncle?”
“My cousin,” Gabriella said. “Big age gap.”
“Got it. That’s really nice, getting to work with your cousin. Alright, let’s do this so you don’t have to stay here any longer than necessary. You change into that gown and I’ll be right back.”
The appointment started with surprisingly ordinary questions. Most of them were similar, if not identical to the yearly physical. But as Gabriella explained her father’s death, Dr. Oliver paused. “Don’t do that video game anymore,” she said. “Even if you’re feeling better, I don’t want you risking that strain on your heart. Do you know the cause of your father’s heart attack?”
“I don’t,” Gabriella admitted. “He didn’t have any heart problems before that. I talked to my mom about it a while ago and she said it was sudden.”
“That doesn’t mean there isn’t a genetic component,” Dr. Oliver said. “Sorry, I’m not trying to scare you, I promise. I’m just thinking…”
She wrote something on her computer. “How bad is it going to mess up your case if I tell you to stay away from that game for keeps?”
“I think the game part is done,” Gabriella said, wondering how confidentiality of their cases and doctor-patient confidentiality might clash here. “The next part is an in-person thing.”
“Can someone else go?”
“They made it clear that if it isn’t me, none of us are admitted. But someone can come with me.”
“Good. If you can’t avoid going, then wear a heart monitor and rely on your buddy. I wish I knew what this energy was, but there’s probably no real way of figuring that out. You’re looking healthy today. But we want to keep you healthy, right?”
“Um, yeah?”
“Good. Full night’s sleep tonight. Healthy food today, and lots of water. Skip your workout for a couple days, but do some stretching and take a walk around the neighborhood and get some fresh air. Just some common sense things. And no haunted video games. When is this in-person thing?”
“Friday.”
“When is your next day off?”
“Saturday.”
Dr. Oliver frowned. “Could you get tomorrow off?”
Of course she could. James would change the schedule in a second, meaning he’d take on the extra work. And she was one of the remaining people who could still go in the field. But that wasn’t her problem, right? Gabriella and Madelyn had discussed that. So-
“We’d be understaffed,” she said.
Why did her voice sound so small when she said that? Dr. Oliver looked at her for a second, then gave her a gentle smile. “You’ll be a lot more understaffed if you get sick,” she pointed out.
“I know,” Gabriella said. “But Bradley’s on desk duty for now and Madelyn goes back and forth. And I just worry about James, even though he tries not to let me.”
She wasn’t sure why she was telling her physician all of this, but it was coming out, anyway. Dr. Oliver squeezed her shoulder in the crappy little paper johnny Gabriella was wearing.
“This is management’s problem,” she said. “Not yours, not James’s. You’re not superheroes, you can only do so much in a day. I’m going to write you a note to get out of work tomorrow. The Foundation needs to accept that it’s staffed by humans. Do you understand?”
Gabriella nodded, her throat tight. “Just one day,” Dr. Oliver said. “That’s all. You’ll rest up, then go back and deal with this case.”
***
After the appointment, it was Gabriella’s turn to drive. She and Madelyn headed out to the nearby town of Weston, driving through winding streets in the forest until they reached Roses Manor in a wooded area just off of downtown. The sign announcing its name sat at the bottom of a large, ornate staircase leading up to the beautifully maintained old mansion at the top of the hill.
“There’s not a chance in hell I can walk up that,” Madelyn admitted, as they stopped across the street.
Gabriella was tempted to get out and do something. Maybe if she picked up that large chunk of rock at the bottom of the stairs, that would solve the problem. Yeah, they’d risk drawing the attention of anyone inside, but maybe it’d be worth it.
But the steep stairs, slick surface, and distance all but guaranteed Madelyn would be injured on the way up. And that wasn’t worth any potential advantage.
“That’s fine,” she said. “Maybe-”
“Wait, I think I can figure out a way,” Madelyn interrupted.
“It’s fine,” she said, as Madelyn glared out at the stairs, clearly considering something dangerous. “Let’s head back, we’ll talk to everyone and figure it out.”
Madelyn didn’t look away. Gabriella wasn’t sure what to say right now, so she just pulled away from the side of the road and headed toward home.
***
When they got back to headquarters, Madelyn wasn’t quite as hot with anger anymore. But Gabriella was hesitant to bring it up. So when James immediately called her into his office, it was almost a relief. At least until he told her he’d received the note for her to take tomorrow off.
“I can swap,” she said. “I have Saturday off already, just put me on then. I’ll take the whole day.”
“Yeah, because when the doctor puts you on a day off, she means for you to work a double shift two days later.”
He looked tired, but if she mentioned anything, he was going to deny it and she knew it. So she just accepted the decision without a fight.
Satisfied, James went back out to his paperwork on the couch in the living room. Why he didn’t just do it in his office was completely unknown to her, but like with Madelyn, she wasn’t going to bring it up. As she glanced down the hall, she saw Bradley working at the back bedroom station, where the computer was back in place like nothing had happened. His crutches leaned against the doorframe as he quietly swore at whatever he was doing. Graham was coming out of the gray bedroom, freshly showered, and he smiled at her and Madelyn as he came down the hall.
“So we need to figure out what to do,” James said after Madelyn and Gabriella told him about the building. “Mads, what do you think?”
“I can-”
Madelyn stopped herself, then took a steadying breath. “I can’t get up those stairs,” she admitted. “I just can’t, I’m sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry about,” James said. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
She nodded and glanced out the window. “I can go,” James said. “If I rearrange the schedule a little, maybe put…”
He trailed off, again doing that thing he’d been doing more of lately, where he’d stare over everyone’s heads as he thought. “Can I do it?” Graham asked.
“Actually, that’s a great idea,” James said. “Yeah, um, let’s have you do it. Mads, you take my spot running the shift itself and I’ll stick to comms with these two. If you’re out of the county, I’d like to have Middlesex aware and a comms person here devoted to it. Amelia’s taking the weekend, so it’ll be Madelyn and Bradley here, then we can…”
He wasn’t talking to them anymore as he trailed off again, but broke out of it a second later. “Alright, great,” he said. “Graham, you’re with Gabs Friday night. Gabs, any idea what this thing will be?”
“A gala of some kind,” she said. “It was a mansion on top of a hill, so…”
“Has anyone here ever been to a gala?”
Graham raised his hand. “Ooh, fancy,” James said as Graham rolled his eyes. “They’re really focused on Gabriella, so I won’t be surprised if you’re separated at some point. Do your best to avoid it, but also don’t give up the game, you know?”
“Wait,” Madelyn said suddenly. “It’ll be me and Bradley that night. Doesn’t he have seniority?”
“Yeah, technically, but I want you to get more experience running a shift with a team. With the way this one’s looking, I think it’s a good starter.”
“Is Bradley going to be mad?”
“Is the sun going to set tonight?” James muttered, then leaned back and yelled down the hall, “Hey, Bradley!”
“What?”
“Do you care if Madelyn is in charge of Friday night when it’s you and her?”
“I could not give less of a shit if I tried.”
James sat back up and looked at Madelyn, satisfied. She smiled, looking more hopeful than she had all day.
