“Hey, Cleaner,” he said. “Somebody threw up in 314. Don’t take all day.”
More laughter.
Elise didn’t answer.
She stopped the cart. She took the yellow wet-floor sign off the hook. She unfolded it. She set it down on the tile. CAUTION — PISO MOJADO.
She bent toward the floor.
She kept mopping.
Dana Whitlock laughed too.
She hated herself for it.
She knew it while she was doing it. She could feel it. That small, ugly sound coming out of her throat. Like a cough she couldn’t stop.
But Dana had been a nurse at Portsmouth for two years. She was twenty-nine. She’d watched Kayla Thorne pick targets before. A new grad who cried in the break room. A tech with a stutter. A respiratory therapist who wore the wrong shoes.
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