She didn’t go to the happy hours at the Bier Garden in Olde Towne. She didn’t join the group chat. She didn’t talk about her family or her weekends or her dating life.
She ate alone.
Always at the same table in the cafeteria. In the corner. With her back to the wall.
Facing the door.
Dana noticed that the first week.
She noticed other things too.
Elise seemed to know every exit in the building.
Not just the main ones. The stairwells. The service corridors. The loading dock. The door behind the pharmacy that only maintenance used.
Once, during a fire drill, the alarm went off on the third floor. Everybody went to the main stairwell. It jammed up. Thirty people. Patients in wheelchairs.
Elise turned left.
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