"Carrie!" Elmer called as he hurried down the hall towards the rather nervous nurse. The more that he had thought about Sonny's suggestion to check the ladies' rooms for Lona, the more that he thought it was a good idea. If Lona had been sick, that would have been one of the few places she might have gone, right? Either there or to lay down. Of course, if she was in one of the ladies' rooms, then shouldn't she have came out by now? Unless the ladies had done a way better job than he had thought in getting Johnny B. Goode to do some work, then the public bathrooms weren't the place that you wanted to spend your night. If Lona was really sick though....

"Carrie, wait!" Elmer called once more as panic started to grow at the though of Lona being ill. If she was too sick to call for help.
Maybe he shouldn't have waited, should have tried to check some of those ladies' rooms himself. So what if someone called the cops? At least that might get them to take the situation with Lona more seriously! What if she really needed help and here they were not doing a thing because of some stupid rule?

"Elmer, what's wrong?" Carrie asked as she turned, staring at the young doctor curiously. He definitely seemed to be seriously upset about something.

"Carrie, you haven't seen Lona anywhere today, have you?" Elmer asked anxiously. It was obvious that the nurse's latest fainting spell had wiped her mind of his earlier request for information about Lona

Lona, it figured that was what Elmer was upset about. Sometimes, it seemed like the only thing on Elmer's mind was Lona. Carrie shook her head slightly at that thought, grinning a bit as she did. She supposed that Elmer's single minded focus did explain some of the stupid things that he did, though. Suddenly her smile turned to a frown as she recalled the rumor she had heard earlier, that Lona had resigned. She had dismissed it as the usual stupid hospital gossip but now seeing the panic that Elmer seemed to be in along with the fact that he was looking for Lona.... Elmer seemed like he always knew where to find Lona, almost like he had tagged her with a tracking device.

"Elmer, I heard the oddest rumor this morning," Carrie said slowly,
watching carefully to see how he reacted. Okay, after the head incident,
he deserved some sort of punishment but she didn't want to upset him too seriously. "People are saying that Lona...."

"She didn't resign!" Elmer said in a firm tone. Oh, Lona was just going to love this when they found her, especially if Dr. James decided that the resignation was actually real and went looking for a replacement for her. After a moment, Elmer forced himself to calm down slightly. They had to find Lona, they just had to find her and then they could get everything fixed. If he let himself get freaked every time that someone mentioned that stupid resignation, it wasn't going to help things at all.
"Carrie, will you please come and help me look for her?"

"Look for her? What's going on?" Carrie asked as she followed Elmer down the hallway. Peds could wait for her for a little bit. From the way Elmer was acting, she was starting to feel a bit nervous for her friend.
"Elmer, how do you know that she didn't resign?"

"The letter was all wrong, for one thing, was in this flowery,
romantic looking font that Lona would never use." Elmer said with a shake of his head. He wouldn't let himself even think about the vague possibility that Lona might have gotten fed up with him and quit. He didn't think he would be able to stand it if he thought about that. That just couldn't be what had happened! "And would Lona actually leave the sleep lab?"

Okay, Carrie, had to agree with Elmer there. Lona was so focused on the lab and her research that she couldn't see her leaving them voluntarily. If Lona hadn't resigned though...

"And her car's still in the parking lot. She wouldn't have left that here if she was quitting." Elmer's tone sounded slightly as if he was trying to convince himself as well as Carrie that Lona definitely couldn't have left.

"What do you think happened then?" Carrie asked. That definitely did sound odd. Taxi service to the hospital was terrible, after all. How would Lona have gotten home without her car?

"I don't know." Elmer said, his eyes filling with worry as he thought about it. "Lona was fine when I saw her last night. She was wanting me to meet her this morning so she could tell me about an experiment she had planned. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary at all. Dr. Havens thought that she looked pale, like maybe she was sick when he saw her though."

"I hope with just the flu and not what the cafeteria served for dinner last night." Carrie muttered under her breath. "So, what do you need me to do?"

"Could you check the ladies' rooms for me and see if she might be in there? Sonny went to check some of the labs and my dad, Hook and Chris are checking the ER and the lounges she would have passed on her way out."

"No problem." Carrie reached out and patted Elmer gently before motioning for him to follow her. Any anger she was still feeling towards him over the head incident had been firmly pushed aside for the moment.
"We'll find her, Elmer. She's got to be around here someplace."
Privately, though, Carrie was more than a bit worried. How could Lona just vanish unless something very serious had happened?