Chương 4
“It worked.”
“That isn’t the point.”
He rubbed a hand over his mouth.
“The police needed the location.”
“They have it.”
“I know.”
“Then be her doctor.”
He looked back through the glass.
“She said her mother told her to run if Mark found them.”
“I heard.”
“He kicked a wheelbarrow with two newborns in it.”
“I saw.”
“And now he’s saying he was going back.”
Claire’s expression softened, which annoyed him more than if she had stayed critical.
“Be careful.”
“With what?”
“Wanting him to be simple.”
Before Daniel could answer, an ambulance stretcher came through the far doors.
Everything after that happened quickly.
Emily Miller was thirty-three years old, pale almost to gray, with blood soaked through the lower half of a loose green nightgown beneath the emergency blankets. Oxygen covered her face. Her dark hair was damp against her forehead.
Sophie saw her through the exam-room window.
She screamed once.
Not loudly.
“Mom.”
Then she ran.
Daniel caught her before she reached the stretcher.
“Mom!”
Emily did not move.
“Mommy!”
Daniel held Sophie against him while the trauma team pushed the stretcher past.
Sophie fought for perhaps three seconds.
Then she stopped completely.
Her face pressed against his coat.
“Why won’t she open her eyes?”
“They’re helping her.”
“She hates masks.”
Daniel looked toward the disappearing stretcher.
“What?”
“The mask. She hates things on her face.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
“You’re right.”
Claire came up behind them.
Daniel released Sophie carefully.
The child stood alone.
That mattered.
He had nearly forgotten to let her.
A police officer approached.
“We need to speak with you, Doctor.”
“Not now.”
“Daniel,” Claire said.
He heard the warning.
The officer glanced toward Sophie.
“Privately.”
Daniel led him several feet away.
“What?”
“EMS found signs of significant blood loss in the apartment. No one else there.”
“That’s obvious.”
“There’s more.”
Daniel waited.
“They found a cell phone in the kitchen sink. Broken.”
“Her phone?”
“Appears to be.”
“And?”
“The child’s father told us she never asked him for medical help.”
Daniel looked through the window at Sophie.
The officer continued.
“He says Emily called him this morning because she was bleeding and frightened. Says she refused to go to the hospital. Claims he left to get his car from a garage because it had been towed overnight.”
“He kicked the wheelbarrow.”
“I’m not defending him.”
“He said the babies were never supposed to get here.”
“He now says he meant they weren’t supposed to be moved in a wheelbarrow.”
Daniel stared at him.
The officer gave a tired shrug.
“I didn’t say it was good.”
“Did he explain why he kicked it?”
“Says he panicked when he saw them.”
“People panic in interesting directions.”
The officer nodded.
“We have lobby video.”
“Good.”
“And we’re getting a warrant for his phone.”
Daniel glanced toward the trauma bay.
“What about the mother?”
“We’ll speak with her if she survives and can speak.”
If.
The word sat there.
Daniel returned to Sophie.
He did not tell her.
For the next two hours, Sophie learned what hospitals did to time.
They stretched it.
They made five minutes feel like twenty, then stole forty without warning.
Claire found her clean hospital pants and a T-shirt because the muddy dress was wet near the hem. Sophie refused to remove the dress until someone promised it would not be thrown away.
“It’s evidence,” a police officer said.
That made her more frightened.
Claire corrected him.
“It may help people understand what happened.”
“Evidence means somebody gets arrested.”
“Sometimes.”
“Is Daddy arrested?”
Claire glanced at Daniel.
“He’s with the police.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“No,” Claire said. “It isn’t.”
Sophie changed clothes behind the curtain.
When she came out, she kept the dusty-pink bow in her hand.
“Can you do it?”
Claire took the bow.
“I can try.”
“You have to make the sides even.”
“I make no promises.”
Claire tied back Sophie’s hair.
One side of the bow was noticeably larger than the other.
Sophie touched it.
“It’s crooked.”
“I warned you.”
“Mommy does it better.”
“I believe you.”
Sophie climbed onto the exam bed.
“When she wakes up, she can fix it.”
Claire’s fingers paused at the back of the child’s head.
Then continued.
“Yes.”
A social worker named Nora Patel arrived shortly afterward. She was in her forties, wore navy slacks and a cardigan, and carried no clipboard.
Sophie distrusted her immediately.
“Are you CPS?”
“I work for the hospital.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Nora pulled up a chair.
“I also work with child protective services when children might need somewhere safe to stay.”
Sophie slid backward on the bed.
“No.”
“We don’t know that you need that.”
“No.”
“I’m not taking you anywhere right now.”
“My mom said never tell CPS stuff.”
The room became still.
Nora did not change expression.
“Okay.”
“She said they twist your words.”
“Okay.”
“And they take kids.”
“Sometimes children stay somewhere else when home isn’t safe.”
“Our home is safe.”
Nora looked at the gauze on Sophie’s hands.
Daniel hated himself for noticing the same contradiction.
Sophie noticed him notice.
“My mom didn’t do this.”
“No one said she did,” Daniel replied.
“You looked.”
He had no answer.
She turned away.
For the first time since reaching the hospital, Sophie would not speak to him.
It lasted most of the afternoon.
Emily went to emergency surgery.
The twins were admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit. Baby Boy improved quickly with warming, fluids, and feeding support. Baby Girl had more difficulty maintaining her temperature and developed breathing problems that required closer monitoring.
Daniel did not tell Sophie numbers.
He told her what each machine did.
Claire arranged for Sophie to see the twins through the NICU glass once she had eaten something.
Sophie chose peanut-butter crackers and apple juice.
She ate two crackers.
The third sat untouched on her napkin.
“Do they have to stay in boxes?” she asked.
May you like
“They’re called isolettes,” Claire said.
“They look like boxes.”
