"Ugh! That rat bastard... good for nothing piece of sh—"
"Shhh," Olivia cut Natalia
off quickly. "Kids and sick people all around us." She took
the incensed woman by the elbow and gently pulled her over to a more
secluded corner of the waiting room. "What did you ask the
receptionist for?"
"Conniving, malicious swine! This
is SO fu—"
"Funny!... how I just
told you to keep it down and stop scaring the invalid children,"
Olivia put her hands on both of Natalia's shoulders. "Are you
sure about this?" She waited until the brunette looked straight
into her eyes. She saw the fury and overwhelming certainty.
"I may not have killed my father,
but sure as fu—" She caught Olivia's warning look. "As
sure as fudge, I swear I'm going to kill that disgusting excuse for a
human being."
"Let's make sure you don't spout
that proclamation off to the Detective, shall we?"
"I should have known... He should
have been the first person I thought of."
Natalia sat in a nearby chair, not sure whether to scream or cry.
Considering where they were, she didn't feel it was best to do
either.
"So what did you just ask the
receptionist for?" Olivia asked again.
"I didn't really ask
for anything," Natalia confessed. "I believe I may have
threatened to sue every single person employed by the hospital if she
didn't find and hand-deliver to me the names and work schedule of
every female nurse that was on duty the night my father was brought
in."
"What for?"
"Because the person that called in
as the hospital's lab technician was a woman."
"How does that implicate Matteo?"
Olivia asked and only had to see the sideways glance that Natalia
gave her to know the answer to her question. "Oh my god! You
think he..." Her mouth dropped in disbelief. "That
despicable FUCK!"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Jacques, I really can't talk
now," Matteo spoke into his cell phone from the backseat of his
limo. "I'm on my way to an exclusive interview for The Insider.
They want to know how I'm coping with the heartbreaking loss of my
beloved father at the hands of my sadistic, psychopathic sister,"
he finished with a hint of a smile on his face.
"Why are you taking these rumours
seriously," the older Frenchman asked helplessly. "You are
only perpetuating them and it is going to ruin Natalia's reputation.
It is ridiculous!"
"What's ridiculous, Jacques,"
Matteo began, the venom in his voice began to slowly seep into his
words, "is that you've willingly spent the last 20 years as the
little lapdog to the great Rivera family. Don't you ever get bored
of being the doormat? Is that what you always aspired to be in your
life? Wiping my father's ass for him and following my idiot sister
around, trying desperately to cover up for all of her dirty little
deeds and secrets while you all let me be the publicly ridiculed
scapegoat. The bastard black sheep?" Matteo's expression and
voice remained smooth and calm as he derailed Jacques devotion to
every other member of the family.
"Matteo, your father did
everything he could to make up for his mistakes. He gave you
everything you ever wanted. Do you feel nothing about his death?"
Matteo snickered. "Of course I
feel something," he gleamed. "Pure excitement to find out
how big my inheritance will really be. Well, that and the joy of
seeing how fast I can rip this company apart from the inside out now
that the old geezer and his train-wreck of a daughter are out of the
way!"
"This isn't right," was all
that Jacques could say.
Matteo paused and gazed out the tinted
window.
"Correction, Monsieur. It
wasn't right." He replied with pure hatred in
his voice. "And now Natalia is going to get what she truly
deserves."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Olivia stared at the food on the
hospital cafeteria tray in front of her. None of the food selections
had looked particularly appetizing, but she hadn't eaten anything all
day and Natalia had insisted on staying at the hospital a little
while longer. She pushed a piece of boiled chicken around her plate.
"You know, you'd think with all the ill people and distraught
family members in this place they'd want to make the food here a
little less... nauseating."
Natalia looked up from the page she was
studying, first to Olivia's plate, and then at Olivia. "I told
you, I need to stay here in case I have to ask the Administrator any
questions about this." She gave the stack of papers in her hand
a little wave before going back to what she had been reading.
Olivia gave up on the chicken and
reached for a clear plastic cup of blue Jell-O. "And what is the
'this' you're referring to, Nancy Drew? What all did you get from the
Administration desk?"
Natalia took a pen out of her purse and
began scribbling a sentence on the page she was holding before
answering. She pointed to one stack of papers in front of her. "This
is the list of every female staff member that was working on the
floor that my father was brought to that night." She then
pointed to another stack beside the first one. "These are the
said staff members’ personnel files, and this..." she held up
a double sided sheet with a list of names, "is everyone who has
missed shifts since the phone call was made to the M.E."
"Uh-huh," Olivia said,
momentarily distracted by the 'dessert' in her hand. "Isn't that
creative? They cut the Jell-O into cute little cubes to try and make
it look more appealing," she stated blandly. "It's still
just Jell-O. Flavored gelatine." She shook the cup and shoved it
towards Natalia. "Look, it doesn't even jiggle! What could
that mean?"
Natalia didn't look up this time. "I
will take you to a five star restaurant once I've found out who is
helping Matteo ruin my life."
"Fabulous. It's a date,"
Olivia enthused, waiting for the brunette to look up —knowing
Natalia would hastily refute the idea that she had meant it as a
date—before she winked. "I'm kidding. Lighten up!"
Natalia rolled her eyes and went back
to her reading material.
Olivia set the Jell-O down and sat back
in her uncomfortable metal chair. "A needle in a haystack.
That's what all of this is reminding of," she said as she
pointed to the large stacks of papers on the table.
Undeterred, Natalia circled a name and
wrote another comment beside it before shaking her head. "All I
need to do is narrow these employees down to a list of women who
either haven't shown up for work or who have been acting strangely
since the day the that call was made."
"Oh is that
all?"
"I'll find the shortest list of
possible... suspects?" she asked not knowing what to call them.
"And talk to their superiors or to those women themselves."
She watched Olivia nod sceptically at her. "Okay, for
instance..." she placed the sheet of paper she was working on in
front of Olivia. "Theresa Cordano. She worked on the floor my
father was on."
"And she hasn't shown up for work
since?"
"Correct."
"So she is now on your
short-list."
Natalia took the paper back and put it
with the others. "Nope," she said simply.
Olivia furrowed her brows in confusion
as Natalia placed another page in front of her.
"This is Theresa Cordano's
personnel file. Mrs. Cordano is a 45 year old Clinical Nurse
Specialist who specializes in cardiovascular diseases. She has been
employed here for..." she turned the page slightly to look at
the dates. "Seven years. Why would a middle aged woman —with
years of medical school behind her and probably a family to support—
risk losing a comfortably established position at this hospital for a
young, notoriously womanizing son of a deceased hotel owner?"
"Good point," Olivia agreed.
"Besides... seven years. She’s been here long enough to know
the Lab Technician—Stacey—is a man."
"Exactly." Natalia pulled
another sheet from the stack. "Katrina Moore: an RN who has
worked here for only a month, worked on my father when he was brought
in and has been off on sick-leave since. But..." again she
pointed to circled notes on another page. "It says that the
reason she is absent is because of a sprained ankle, which was
treated... well, here."
Olivia nodded. "Her story would be
easily verifiable.”
"Right. So again, not our girl."
Natalia put the pages back in neatly organized stacks.
"How many names do you have so
far," the older woman asked.
Natalia counted the circles on the
pages she was holding. "Fourteen. There will be more once I'm
finished going through these lists." She went back to sifting
through the material on the table. "I'm going to find her
though."
Olivia watched the brunette silently.
She was worried that the already emotionally weary woman was going to
further wear herself down, or, that Natalia was using this new
mission as a distraction from dealing with her father's death. Either
way she decided not to tell her to slow down, not only because she
knew that Natalia was the most stubborn women on earth, but because
she was secretly enjoying being in the other woman's company. No
matter how many times she told herself she was okay with only having
their strange kind of 'friendship' with Natalia, Olivia couldn't deny
that each moment spent with her produced the desire to spend two
moments more. It meant that, today, she would help Natalia search
for Matteo's accomplice. Tomorrow she would help Natalia get through
the funeral, and the next day...
Who knows what the next day
will bring? she pondered to herself. Probably a
one way ticket back to Springfield.
"We might as well head back to the
hotel." Natalia's voice interrupted the blonde from her
thoughts. "This is a pretty big list and it will probably take
us all day." She moved to stand and collect her purse before
shuffling all the files together under one arm.
"Wonderful!" Olivia enthused
sarcastically.
Natalia stopped suddenly. "I'm
sorry! I didn't mean to presume that you would want to help me go
through it all. I mean, if you don't want... or if you wanted to
just..." the brunette floundered with her sentence. "I
wasn't implying you had to—"
"Natalia!" Olivia cut in.
"Relax. Take a breath." She waited until the other woman
had done just that. "I said I wanted to be here to help and
that's what I'm going to do."
The younger woman's shoulders relaxed.
"Thanks... again, I mean. For everything," she said quietly
not able to look up until she felt the blonde nudge her arm with an
elbow.
"Don't thank me yet." Olivia
flashed a mischievous grin. "I've been bribed with a
spectacular dinner-date," she leaned in and
lowered her voice somewhat suggestively. "And I should warn you,
Rivera, I'm looking forward to experiencing all five
of those stars."
