Chương 3
Margaret said, “This is exactly why fragmented recollection should not be treated as fact.”
Emily flinched.
Claire did not look at Margaret.
“What did you do with the new bands?”
“I didn’t.”
“Who did?”
“Kelsey.”
“Where was the baby?”
“Right there.”
“Did anyone remove his original bracelet?”
“No. I don’t think so.”
“You don’t think so?”
Emily’s breathing sped up.
“No. I mean, I didn’t see anyone remove it.”
Claire looked down at the bracelet she had covered.
It appeared ordinary. White plastic. Printed name. Medical record number. Barcode.
It could also be the only thing in the room that had not yet been altered.
“Do you remember the original number?”
“No.”
“Anything about it?”
Emily shook her head.
Then stopped.
“There was a smudge.”
“What?”
“The ink. On the first band. The printer ribbon was bad. There was a gray streak through the second digit.”
Claire looked at the bracelet.
No streak.
Emily whispered, “That isn’t the first band.”
No one spoke.
Daniel put one hand against the wall.
Margaret closed her eyes for half a second.
That was the moment Claire stopped wondering whether Margaret knew something.
The only question left was how much.
Janice arrived with a security supervisor and a respiratory therapist she had apparently dragged from another floor because she had not wanted to come alone.
The corridor became crowded.
People began lowering their voices in the way hospital employees did when something was suddenly serious enough to create paperwork with everyone’s names on it.
Claire disliked that instinct.
She also understood it.
Janice listened to the story with her hands on her hips.
She was sixty-three, practical, gray-haired, and permanently unimpressed by hierarchy.
When Margaret interrupted twice, Janice finally held up a hand.
“Margaret, I need to hear it once.”
“You report to me.”
“Not while I’m managing an active safety hold.”
Margaret stared at her.
Janice stared back.
It was not cinematic.
It was two tired women standing under bad fluorescent lighting, one of them wearing clogs.
Claire trusted it more because of that.
Janice ordered the corridor cleared of nonessential staff, posted security at both ends, and called the neonatal charge nurse.
Then she looked at Claire.
“Take me to the mother.”
“I don’t know where she is.”
“You spoke to her.”
“Internal extension.”
“What number?”
Claire showed her.
Janice’s face tightened.
“That’s ICU overflow.”
Daniel pushed off the wall.
“I’m coming.”
“No,” Janice said.
“That’s my wife.”
“And until we verify identities, I am not moving family members through restricted areas.”
“Do you hear yourself?”
“I do.”
“What if she’s asking for me?”
“Then I’ll tell her you’re here.”
Daniel stepped closer.
The security supervisor shifted his weight.
Claire saw it and hated the direction the moment was going.
“Daniel.”
He turned.
“I’ll go with Janice.”
He shook his head.
“I don’t know you.”
“That’s fair.”
“You hid my son in a closet.”
“Supply room.”
Emily looked at Claire in disbelief.
Claire regretted the correction immediately.
Daniel stared at her for one second.
Then, against every reasonable expectation, a short, broken laugh escaped him.
He covered his face.
“I’m sorry,” Claire said.
“No. That was—” He inhaled shakily. “That was the dumbest thing anyone has said to me tonight.”
“Probably.”
He lowered his hands.
The laugh had not helped much, but it had changed the room.
He nodded once.
“Go find her.”
Claire left the baby with Janice, Emily, the neonatal charge nurse, and security.
Margaret tried to follow.
Janice stopped her.
“You stay here.”
“That is not your decision.”
“It is for the next ten minutes.”
“On whose authority?”
Janice took out her phone.
“Would you like me to call the administrator on call and ask?”
Margaret said nothing.
Claire walked away before either woman could change her mind.
The ICU overflow unit had been opened because the main intensive care floor was full. It occupied an older wing two floors below, where patient rooms were smaller and the nurses’ station still had wooden cabinets no renovation had managed to remove.
Claire found Nora Reed in room 214.
For several seconds, she stood in the doorway without speaking.
The woman in the bed looked nothing like a dead person.
She looked much worse than that.
Death was clean in records.
Nora was alive in the complicated, expensive, painful way human beings sometimes survived.
Her skin was gray with exhaustion. Her lips were dry. Dark hair stuck to one side of her face. An IV line ran into each arm. A blood pressure cuff hugged her upper arm, and a monitor traced her heartbeat in green.
There was no identification band on her wrist.
Claire saw that first.
Then Nora opened her eyes.
“Dr. Bennett?”
Claire stepped into the room.
“Yes.”
“My baby?”
“He’s safe.”
Nora closed her eyes again.
A tear slid sideways into her hair.
She did not sob.
She did not have enough energy.
“Daniel?”
“He’s here.”
Nora’s eyes opened.
“They told him?”
Claire pulled a chair closer.
“What did they tell him?”
“I don’t know.”
“Mrs. Reed—”
“Nora.”
“Nora, I need to ask you some questions.”
“Is my baby breathing?”
“Yes.”
“Is he hurt?”
“Not that we know.”
“Then ask.”
Claire sat.
“Do you know why you don’t have an ID band?”
Nora looked at her wrist.
For a moment, she seemed genuinely surprised.
Then her face changed.
“That woman took it.”
“What woman?”
“Older. Blonde.”
Claire felt the muscles between her shoulder blades tighten.
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
“Before or after you came here?”
Nora frowned.
“I was somewhere else first.”
“Operating room?”
“I think.”
“You had heavy bleeding after delivery.”
“I know that part.”
“Do you remember being transferred?”
“Bits.”
“Do you remember anyone telling you your baby had died?”
Nora’s head turned slowly.
“No.”
“Do you remember anyone telling you that you had been registered under another name?”
“No.”
“What did the blonde woman say when she took your band?”
Nora shut her eyes.
Claire waited.
May you like
The monitor continued its small electronic rhythm.
A cart squeaked past in the hall.
