Samira was eager to get this portion of the task over with. She could now feel perspiration on her face despite the OR’s being over-air-conditioned. She was not fond of feeling anxious, and because of the long-term duplicitous life she’d led as a teenager with her parents, she’d felt it all too often.

Once in the OR and confident she was alone, Samira made quick work of getting the syringe full of succinylcholine. The only potential problem was that in her haste she nearly dropped the glass bottle containing the paralyzing drug. If it had broken, hitting against the hard floor, it would have been a calamity, since she would have hesitated cleaning it up. Each sliver of glass would have been the equivalent of a curare poison dart in the jungles of Peru. It wasn’t lost on her how ironic it would be if she’d end up being found dead in the OR in the morning.

It was with great relief that Samira retraced her steps back to the stairwell. With this portion of the assignment out of the way, she thought she was home free, but little did she know.

Descending two floors, she checked the time. It was a tad past eight. Her only concern at that point was Mrs. Benfatti, whom she had met that afternoon. Would she still be visiting? On the positive side, it was the night of Herbert Benfatti’s surgery, and the chances were he was still feeling the results of the anesthesia, meaning he’d probably be seriously sleepy or sleeping. The only way to find out was to check.

Opening the third-floor stairway door, Samira glanced up and down the corridor. Two nurses could be seen in the brightly lit nurses’ station, which meant the other two were either off in patient rooms or taking a break. There was no way Samira could know.

With her anxieties again mounting, she told herself it was now or never. Taking a deep breath, she stepped out into the hall and headed toward Mr. Benfatti’s room. All went well until she arrived at the man’s door, which was open about six inches. Eager at that point to get the whole thing over with, Samira raised her hand to knock when she found her hand poised in midair. To her utter shock, the door had been pulled away the instant Samira had expected to make contact with its surface. Reflexively, Samira let out a yelp of surprise as she was unexpectedly confronted by one of the evening nurses, whom Samira knew only by her first name. It was the remarkably obese and brusque Charu, and she completely filled the doorway.

In contrast to Samira’s reaction of surprise, Charu acted irritated that someone was in her way. She looked Samira up and down as if evaluating her and said, in not too friendly a manner, “What are you doing here? You work days.”

Charu and Samira knew each other only from nurses’ report during the shift change when the day nurses communicated to the evening nurses each patient’s status and specific needs.