As Cassie stood in the deserted reception area and signed out, she noticed the door to the office was ajar. Through the gap, she could see the yellow folder lying on the desk. On an impulse, she crept round the end of the reception desk, pushed open the office door, and tip-toed in. She leafed through the contents of the folder. It contained copies of bills, a bundle of medical notes, and a carbon copy of a letter from the home to Charles Fletcher, thanking him for his most recent cheque. Cassie gasped. Charles was paying for Gerald to stay here! A thought hit her like a freight train: Gerald’s comment about his son could have referred not to David, as she had thought at the time, but to Charles. As she considered this option, she was startled by the ringing of the phone on the desk. She froze, staring at it without understanding. The ringing seemed to become more insistent, forcing Cassie to act. She threw the file back onto the desk and made for the door. Then she heard the click of heels as the Receptionist walked swiftly towards the office to answer the phone. Looking desperately round the room, Cassie dismissed the idea of hiding under the desk and darted, instead, behind the door. Her heart seemed to be thumping on the outside of her chest. The click of the footsteps stopped as the Receptionist crossed the carpet between the doorway and the desk, picked up the phone and announced ‘Twilight Years Nursing Home’.
You've got yourself into a sort of medical conspiracy story here which is providing good suspense...so good development from this point of view. From the point of view of adjectives and adverbs, you have a number of extra ones: adjectives - ajar, recent, insistent - and an adverb - most. I didnt feel that the adjectives and adverbs you highlighted were working quite as hard as they might - 'walked swiftly' might be replaced with something a little stronger 'ran belatedly'?
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