Chương 2
The question was routine enough that she could have asked it a thousand times.
My throat closed anyway.
“My husband is trying to have me killed.”
Teresa’s expression did not become dramatic.
That helped.
She looked toward the doorway again, then reached for the rolling computer beside my bed.
“Tell me exactly what you need.”
“I need hospital security and police, but I don’t want Daniel or Dr. Hale warned before they get here.”
Her fingers froze above the keyboard.
“Dr. Hale?”
“Yes.”
“What are you saying he did?”
“I have a recording.”
Teresa swallowed.
For the first time, fear entered her face.
Not disbelief.
Fear.
That distinction mattered.
She pulled the computer closer and lowered her voice.
“I can call a rapid safety response without using the room phone.”
“Will Hale see it?”
“He could.”
“Then don’t.”
Teresa frowned.
“You’re asking me to leave you here.”
“I’m asking you to get security physically to this floor before anyone knows why.”
“I can’t promise how long that takes.”
“Can you move me?”
“Not without an order unless there’s an immediate clinical reason.”
“There is an immediate reason.”
“A medical reason.”
For one irrational second, I wanted to snap at her.
The hospital’s distinction between medical danger and a murder plot seemed obscene.
Then I saw her hands.
They were trembling too.
Teresa was not refusing me.
She was trying not to make a mistake that might alert the physician I had just accused.
“What can you do without Hale?” I asked.
“I can escalate a patient safety concern to the charge nurse.”
“Does he get notified?”
“Not automatically.”
“Do that.”
She nodded once.
“I’m also staying in this room.”
“No.”
Her eyebrows rose.
“If Daniel comes back and sees you here, he’ll wonder why.”
“I’m your nurse.”
“He thinks I’m unconscious.”
“That makes it more normal for me to be here, not less.”
She had a point, and I hated that I needed anyone else to have points.
“Fine.”
Teresa began entering something into the computer.
I watched her face instead of the screen.
“Do you trust the charge nurse?”
“Yes.”
“That was fast.”
“I’ve worked with Paula for eleven years.”
“People work with their spouses longer than that.”
Teresa looked at me.
The words had come out harsher than I intended.
“I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not.”
“No.”
“Good.”
She finished typing.
“You don’t need to be polite right now.”
A strange laugh escaped me before I could stop it.
Teresa smiled for less than a second.
Then footsteps sounded outside.
She immediately lifted the blood-pressure cuff and pretended to inspect the tubing.
Daniel entered carrying a paper cup of coffee.
His smile appeared before he reached the bed.
“There she is.”
I closed my eyes.
He kissed my forehead.
“Still sleeping?”
Teresa glanced at the monitor.
“Looks that way.”
“How long will the medication keep her out?”
My stomach tightened.
Teresa did not answer immediately.
“What medication?”
Silence.
Daniel’s coffee cup made a faint paper crackle in his hand.
“The sedative.”
“I don’t have a sedative documented on her current medication administration record.”
I could feel the room change.
Daniel recovered first.
“Marcus said she’d been given something to help her rest.”
“Dr. Hale?”
“Yes.”
Teresa clicked through the chart.
“He may have discussed something with her, but I don’t see an administered dose.”
Daniel stepped closer to the computer.
Teresa turned the screen slightly away from him.
It was a tiny movement.
He noticed.
“So why is she unconscious?”
“She’s asleep.”
“For three hours?”
“Pregnant women sometimes sleep.”
His laugh sounded wrong.
“Sure.”
Teresa removed the cuff from my arm.
“Her vitals are stable.”
Daniel said nothing.
I could almost hear him calculating.
Then his fingers brushed my shoulder.
“Claire?”
I did not move.
“Baby?”
That was what he called me when he wanted something.
My body knew the word before my mind could reject it.
I had to stop myself from answering.
Daniel squeezed my shoulder.
“Claire.”
Teresa moved between him and the monitor.
“Let her sleep.”
“I’m her husband.”
“And she’s my patient.”
The silence that followed lasted perhaps two seconds.
It felt much longer.
Daniel stepped back.
“Of course.”
His voice had gone pleasant again.
“I’m just worried.”
“I understand.”
“Do you?”
Teresa looked at him.
“I understand that you’re worried.”
Daniel smiled.
It did not reach his eyes.
Then he walked into the sitting room.
Teresa waited until he was out of sight before touching two fingers to the edge of my blanket.
Stay still.
I did.
A minute passed.
Then another.
From the sitting room came the faint sound of Daniel making a call.
He spoke too quietly for me to catch the words.
Teresa checked the hallway.
When she returned, her face had changed.
“Paula’s coming,” she whispered.
“How long?”
“She’s already on the floor.”
Daniel appeared in the doorway behind her.
Teresa saw my eyes change and turned.
He was no longer carrying his coffee.
“Who’s Paula?” he asked.
Nobody answered.
Daniel looked at Teresa.
Then at me.
His gaze remained on my face.
For seven years, I had watched him bluff through negotiations, family arguments, late mortgage payments before my inheritance arrived, and one disastrous Thanksgiving when he had forgotten to thaw the turkey.
I knew the exact moment he recognized a lie.
His eyes narrowed first.
Then his mouth became still.
He walked to the bed.
“Claire,” he said.
I kept my eyes closed.
He reached toward me.
Teresa caught his wrist.
“Sir.”
Daniel stared at her hand.
“Take your hand off me.”
“Step away from the patient.”
The softness vanished from his face.
He looked at me again.
This time he did not say my name.
He grabbed the blanket and ripped it down to my waist.
My phone lay beside my hip, its screen glowing with Ethan’s newest message.
Daniel read the words before I could cover them.
POLICE ARE ON THEIR WAY.
May you like
Daniel’s face emptied.
For one second, he looked less like a husband caught trying to murder his wife than a man who had just discovered a door he thought was locked had been standing open behind him.
