next stop was Women’s Psychiatric to ask about Lana. Nurse Gerry George reported that Lana was still missing, but they were certain she would be found soon.
“Now, don’t you worry about a thing,” said Nurse George as she escorted an anxious Cherry to the elevator. “Marstad said if you came around to send you on your way,” Nurse George laughed. “I guess she knows you pretty well, Cherry. First to volunteer and last to leave. You’d make a great army nurse! Now, get out of here and have some fun!” She gave Cherry a quick hug and playfully shoved her into the elevator.
Cherry felt drawn to the handsome woman with her warm manner and soft brown eyes. Nurse George was someone she would certainly like to get to know better. “I’ll send her a postcard, too,” she decided.
She walked briskly to the hospital garage where she stored her 1953 dark blue Buick. “It’s not a very glamorous car,” she thought, comparing it to the flashy red convertible with white leather seats parked in the next space.
“But it’s sturdy and dependable, just like me.” She smiled at her reflection in the car window and patted her dancing black curls into place.
She put her suitcase and cosmetics bag in the trunk, checking twice to make sure the lock was secure. “If you must leave home, at least leave in style,” her mother had sighed when she gave her the luggage as a high school graduation present.
Cherry hopped into the car and put her purse containing Nurse Marstad’s package on the passenger seat beside her. Cherry sighed and settled into her seat. The drive home to Idaho would take at least eight hours, and she was eager to be on her way.
She pulled her car into a nearby service station, and while the attendant filled her tank, Cherry checked to make sure she had her maps of Washington and Idaho. Although she knew the route by heart, it comforted her to know they were available if she ran into trouble. Although Cherry had an excellent sense of direction, she refused to go anywhere without a map.
She was engrossed in planning the first leg of her journey when a strange man wearing a fedora pulled low over his face reached into her car and snatched her purse!
Cherry screamed, and the startled man dropped her purse and ran. The attendant raced after him, but to no avail.
“He disappeared around that corner,” she said apologetically, handing Cherry her purse. “Are you all right, miss? Do you want me to call the police?”
Although Cherry was frankly shaken, she didn’t want to lose any time. She wasn’t as worried about her purse as she was about Nurse Marstad’s precious parcel. What if it had been stolen? “I’d have to change my name and move to another town,” she though grimly. “I’d never be able to face Nurse Marstad and admit I let her down.”
She paid for the gasoline, thanked the attendant for her help, rolled up her windows and locked her doors. “No one’s getting this purse away from me again,” Cherry vowed.
She drove with her eyes securely on the road ahead and her thoughts back at the busy hospital, her many nurse chums, and the now even more mysterious Lana. At times she wanted to turn back, and as the miles passed, taking her further and further from Seattle, she felt a sense of apprehension. Had she failed as a nurse? Nurse Marstad didn’t seem to think so. Cherry replayed the hour of Lana’s disappearance again and again in her mind.
If only she hadn’t left the room! “But I thought someone needed me,” she consoled herself.
Still, she had a nagging feeling that somehow there was something she had missed. She mulled over the two lengthy conversations she had had with Lana. Although Lana was friendly, she had a way of turning the conversation away from herself, and both times Cherry was surprised to find herself the focus of the conversation.
It had been Lana who had urged her to fly in the face of family disapproval and visit her Aunt Gertrude in San Francisco. Cherry had wanted to visit her beloved aunt many times, but each time she talked of going, it seemed some family emergency had come up. Or was it that her family just didn’t like Aunt Gertrude? Cherry knew that couldn’t be. Why, everyone loved the attractive, vivacious Miss Aimless!
The thought of seeing her aunt after all these years put Cherry in a better mood. Still, she would have felt even happier had she been able to solve the puzzle of the lovely Lana.
Cherry was proud of her sleuthing abilities. Hadn’t she saved poor Miss Pringle’s farm from being sold out from under her by her unscrupulous nephew? Cherry smiled as she remembered how, working as visiting nurse to Miss Polly Pringle of Pleasantville the summer after getting her R.N., she had uncovered the nephew’s spiteful scheme and stopped the sale just in time.
Her thoughts drifted to her family. She knew her mother would be happy to see her, yet her mother’s habit of scrutinizing her daughter from head to toe, starting with her short hair-do and ending with her ungainly size-nine feet, was a bit unnerving.
But she felt so good after hearing the glowing report from Nurse Marstad, she was determined not to let her mother bother her this time. “I’ll just pretend I don’t hear her,” Cherry decided. “And if she’s upset about my leaving so soon, I’ll just explain that I’m transporting important medicine!”
She checked her watch. It was after noon, and she felt ready for a good stretch and some lunch. She stopped at a tidy roadside café and stepped out of her car for some quick calisthenics, to the amusement of the other travelers. Cherry was aware that her actions looked odd, but she ignored their giggles. As a nurse, she knew that sitting for too long was bad for the circulation, and a good stretch was the best medicine for sleepy limbs.
After a nourishing lunch of an egg salad sandwich, jello and milk, she purchased steaming coffee in a paper cup and took it to her car. She hoped it would revive her for the last leg of the trip.
Cherry balanced the paper cup on the seat, and while she waited for the coffee to cool, she opened her purse, took out her compact, and reapplied her lipstick. She reached for a tissue from her glove compartment and clumsily knocked over the cup of coffee, spilling it inside her purse and all over Nurse Marstad’s important package!
“Oh, dear!” she cried, grabbing the cup before its entire contents could empty into her purse. She used a tissue to wipe the package, but when she did, she erased the name and address right off the brown paper wrapping!
“Jeepers!” she cried. “How am I going to deliver this now? I can’t call Nurse Marstad and admit I dropped hot coffee on her package.” She looked at the map the head nurse had given her, and was relieved that her destination was clearly marked. “At least I know the town I’m going to,” she sighed.
“Now if I can just find the name and address of the person who’s supposed to get this. Maybe their name is on the inside,” she thought brightly.
Cherry carefully untied the string holding the parcel together. Inside the brown-paper wrapper was Lana’s book!
“Why, this isn’t medicine!” Cherry cried. “Nurse Marstad must have goofed and given me the wrong package!” Although it was hard for Cherry to believe that Nurse Marstad ever made a mistake!
While she was loath to call her boss and admit she had opened the parcel, she knew, as a nurse, she was bound to deliver that special experimental medication!
“Even if I have to turn around and drive all the way back to Seattle General Hospital, I’ll do it,” she
