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She suspected she knew ht she now understood the motive behind Franklin White’spuzzle piece of all
She fishtailed into the hospital lot and took a reserved space
She ruh the toolbox she always kept behind her driver’s seat--a few simple items that opened most doors One was a stethoscope
She tucked it in the front pocket of her blazer and headed toward the lobby
As she walked, she thought about Tres
She’d slept in his bed last night The pillows smelled like him The cat curled between her feet, but the sheets weren’t warether, the more she missed his warmth when they slept apart He was always hot--always just a degree shy of a fever
She woke to winter sunlight through bare pecan branches, the creaking of pipes and the s butter and fresh-baked cinnamon rolls downstairs
Despite her uneasy sto, she ate breakfast in the kitchen with Saed ear, Sam was in an excellent mood He ate three cinnamon rolls with bacon and had two cups of coffee
He thought Maia was one of his operatives He kept asking her questions about clients Maia did her best to fabricate good answers
Mrs Loorown and moved out of state Her husband the police She’d raised them on her own, hadn’t seen either of them now for several years
"That’s a shas onto their plates "Oh, it’s not so bad IThey drove ic"
Maia hed "You’ll understand when you have a child, dear"
When Not if
A decade ago, Maia would’ve protested She’d fended off many such comments, resented the assumption that because she was a woman, she would someday be a mother
The last five or six years, those comments had becorateful to hear soain It soundedoptis She tried to push away the iuish and worry finally breaking hi his bones brittle as surely as the disease that had taken his ten-year-old son, Xian, wrapped in funeral white
Maia knew she had to get going, but she didn’t want to leave the comfort of the kitchen She felt safe here, part of the ht about her own apartment in Austin, the view of Barton Creek out the kitchenShe’d only been away fro what it looked like She had evenof it as ho docks today," Sam told her "Be careful nobody finds you out"
"I’ll be careful," she promised
She met Mrs Loomis’ eyes The older woman smiled as if she’d just seen a photo fronant, with faces of children who had long since grown
"IS DR GAGARIN IN ICU?" MAIA asked, using a random name from the hospital directory
The hospital receptionist looked up What she saw: an Asian woman in an expensive black pantsuit, a stethoscope in her pocket and a confident, i her questions answered "I don’t know, Dr--"
"Never e--"
"No, thank you No time"
Maia strode down the hallway to the elevator
Nobody stopped her
Maia wasn’t surprised She’d played doctor nued She liked to think that was because of her great acting skill, but she feared it had more to do with hospital security They weren’t any better than police stations
Maternity wards were the worst Maia had already put that on her list of things to worry about, six months from now
The elevator opened on the third floor
As Maia feared, no police officers were stationed outside Ana DeLeon’s roo bucks directing traffic for the local churches It wouldn’t have taken much to convince the uniforms to take off this shift
Maia walked toward Ana’s room Halfway, she froze At the far end of the hall, by the nurse’s station, Etch Hernandez was standing with his back turned, talking to an orderly
If he’d already done so sickness snaked its way through her stoht down the nausea and slipped into the roo pulse Her eyes were closed She still looked wasted and pale, but the i
Her face had so
Maia suddenly felt foolish
Perhaps she’d been wrong about Hernandez He’d been here before her He hadn’t done anything Would he be in the hallway, casually chatting with an orderly, if he was planning murder?
Maia went to the bedside and held Ana’s hand Ana’s gold wedding band felt warotten her phoneWhite’s daughter, but Maia had been shaken She’d felt a compulsive need to explain Tres--to protect hi wo
The DNAbefore someone in White’s household heard the news
The pain in Maia’s gut was getting worse She wanted to lie down, curl into a ball, but she couldn’t give in to it--especially not this
Ana’s eyes