Eventually, the other nurses noticed and asked questions. I told them he was a friend, because somehow that word felt accurate even though we barely spoke.
On the fifteenth night, I finally asked the question that had been sitting heavy in my chest.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked him quietly. “Why do you keep coming back?”
Thomas looked away, his jaw tightening, as if he had hoped the moment would never come.
“Because I should have been there sooner,” he said.
I did not understand at first, so he explained.
Three months earlier, another woman had been attacked in the same garage. Thomas had been visiting someone on the fourth floor when he heard screaming. By the time he reached the parking level, it was over. The woman survived, but her injuries were severe, and the attacker escaped.
“She is still here,” he said softly. “Fourth floor. Room near the end of the hall.”
The knowledge hit me like a physical blow.
The next morning, before my shift, I went upstairs.