AN: Thank you so much for all of your reviews and story alerts! They mean more to me than y'all know. I may not get around to replying to every review for every chapter, but I really am trying. And with no further ado...

CHAPTER 7:

The rest of the night was rather uneventful for Rosemary. She managed to finish with the stack of paperwork, and was now focusing on making sure she didn't fall asleep at her desk. It was roughly 5 in the morning, and she still had about 2 hours until Riley would be showing up with a much needed food supply.

"Rosemary?"

Rosemary lifted up her head and saw Dr. Auge standing before her. "Hey, you. What can I do for ya this morning?"

"Mr. Carnegie passed away last night during surgery," Dr. Auge explained.

"Oh my gosh! I'm so sorry, Don," Rosemary said solemnly.

"Thank you," Dr. Auge replied. "I was wondering if you could bring his body down to the morgue for preservation."

"Um...well, wouldn't a nurse normally do that kind of thing?" Rosemary inquired. "When I work down here, I normally just do the filing and check patients in."

"Yes, nurses are usually those given the responsibility of transporting the deceased, however, as you know we are severely understaffed. I'll get you the authorization and clearance to go down there. All I need is for you to bring the body down there, sign the paperwork, and place the body into the storage unit. Mr. Carpenter, the resident mortician, will take care of the rest when he arrives in a few hours."

"Yeah, I can do that," Rosemary said. She followed Dr. Auge to the room where Mr. Carnegie's remains were being kept. He then gave her his ID badge and told her the security code to enter the morgue, and then left in a hurry to go perform another surgery.

"Well, it looks like it's just you and me, Carnegie," Rosemary stated aloud.

She took a deep breath and then wheeled the narrow hospital transport bed down the hallway and into the elevator. When both she and the bed were in the elevator, Rosemary swiped Dr. Auge's ID card into the card reader and pressed the button for the secured basement level. When the elevator doors opened at her destination, Rosemary hurried out of the elevator and down the hallway toward the morgue.

Like most people, Rosemary found basements to be a little unsettling. Basements are isolated, oftentimes hidden from the reaches of natural light. In one word, basements are dreary. This one, although located in a prestigious hospital, was no different. The overhead fluorescent lights that illuminated the narrow hallway were flickering, and the basement was completely deserted. It was clean and sterile like the rest of the hospital, yet it felt grimy and unsanitary.

The light was burned out at the end of the hall, just before the entrance into the morgue. The lack of light made it difficult to maneuver the transport bed around the corner. As she was attempting to turn the bed, her arm smacked into a protuberance from the wall.

"Dammit," Rosemary cursed as she gingerly held her elbow. "Who the hell came up with the idea to attach pipes to the outside of a wall? Shouldn't it be hidden, or something?"

She finished lining the transport bed up in front of the door, and squeezed her way past so that she was standing in front of the solid metal door.

"God, I hate basements."

She quickly entered the access code which allowed her to open the door, and then wheeled the transport bed into the room, pausing when she realized that something was off. The normally slow-to-turn-on automatic sensor lights were already illuminated, and there was a faint smell of something burning. She left the transport bed in the doorway and entered the room with caution.

"Hello?" she said aloud.

No answer.

She walked a few more steps into the room. "Hello? Is anybody there?"

Again, there was no answer.

As she rounded the corner of the room, and her voice caught in her throat as she tried to scream at the sight in front of her. Her breathing became erratic as she processed the scene. Spread out on the floor were human remains, burnt to a crisp.

She saw movement out of the corner of her eye, and she froze in panic. "Who...who's there?"

No answer.

Rosemary tried again. "Hello?" She reached into her back pocket and pulled out her cell phone. She flipped it open and looked down at the screen. "Of course, there's no effing service, Rose, you're in a freakin basement!" She tossed her phone onto the floor, and it slid under the shelving unit in the corner of the room. "Shit!"

She slowly walked around the remains and to the phone sitting on the desk near the wall. With a shaky hand, she picked up the phone and dialed the number for hospital security. She waited as the phone rang a few times.

"Hello? I need someone to come down to the morgue...Yes now. And I also need you to find a way to get Dr. Powell here immediately...I know he's not scheduled to be here for a few days, but it's an emergency...I don't care, just get him here...and hurry."

oOo

"I've told ya all this before!" Rosemary sighed. She rubbed her forehead with her hand. "Dr. Auge asked me to bring Mr. Carnegie's body into the morgue. When I got there, the light was already on. It smelled like something was burning, and when I walked further into the room, I found the burnt remains. I called security, and now here we are..."

"Yes, Ms. LeFay," the police officer said. "But we'd like to know why you're so calm about this. A normal person finds a body, they become hysterical."

"I work in a hospital. I'm used to death," Rosemary explained. She adjusted the position she was sitting in on the hospital bed. Officer Marks, the police officer, had brought her into one of the unused hospital rooms to get her statement.

Officer Marks raised his eyebrow. "You're a candy striper. A person with that job usually wouldn't see anybody's remains. And if they did, I guarantee you that the remains wouldn't be nearly as disturbing as what was found down in the morgue."

"I...uh..." Rosemary stuttered as she attempted to think of a reason to explain her reaction.

The police officer tightened his gaze on her.

"You don't think I did this!" Rosemary asked. "What possible reason would I have for doing this? And why would I report the body?"

The officer took an intimidating step forward. "Maybe you wanted to throw suspicion off of yourself. Our records indicate that two years ago you were admitted to the hospital, a victim of a violent crime. You claim to have amnesia. Maybe that's not true, and you just got your revenge on your attacker. Not that anyone would blame you..."

"I'm NOT lying. I don't remember anything! And I most certainly didn't commit murder," Rosemary huffed in anger. She took a deep breath and was about to continue, but was interrupted when the door flew open and three concerned people stormed into the room.

"Rose!" Riley said. "Are you alright?"

Rosemary remained silent, still reeling from her anger.

Riley turned his attention to the police officer. "What did you do to her? Why won't she talk to me?"

"And who might you be?" the police officer asked, sizing up the man in front of him.

"He's my friend. Riley. He's a neonatologist here," Rosemary explained, then she nodded over to the other two people who had entered the room. "And that's Maggie. She's a nurse here, and I live with her. And I believe you already know Dr. Auge."

"Perhaps it's time for Rosemary to go home," Dr. Auge stated. "She just got done working a double shift, which ended in tragedy. She needs time to process everything."

"She's been through so much already," Maggie explained. "Enough is enough. I'd like to take her home."

"I'm not an invalid," Rosemary protested. "This is all standard protocol. I understand the process, even if I don't agree with the accusations. Either way, I don't need anyone speaking for me."

"Come on, Rose," Riley said as he helped her down from where she was seated on the hospital bed. "I'll drive you home. And I'll make you breakfast. After all, I still owe you that."

Rosemary smiled, despite the situation. "I'd like that." She turned her attention the the police officer. "Now, if your not going to arrest me-which you really have no grounds to do-then I am going to go home."

The police officer recognized his defeat. "Don't leave town."

"I'm not planning on it," Rosemary stated as she rolled her eyes. She grabbed Riley's hand and then walked out of the hospital room.

AN: The next chapter is completely written and edited too. I'm going to try to post it this weekend. Realistically, it'll most likely be on Sunday. It all depends on when I get done working on set for the senior thesis film I'm working on...