Chương 4
Claire hesitated.
“Big,” Hannah said. “Gray hair. Burns on his arms.”
“You know him?”
“I know a picture.”
“What picture?”
“Daniel sent it.”
The fellow touched Claire’s shoulder. “Time.”
Claire stood.
Hannah caught her sleeve with surprising strength.
“Does he have the tag?”
Claire looked down at the thin fingers gripping her navy scrub top.
“Yes.”
Hannah released her.
“Get him out.”
When Claire returned to the conference room, Earl was standing near the glass. He had removed the disposable gown and folded it on the chair. His volunteer badge hung from a blue lanyard against his shirt.
“She knows who you are,” Claire said.
His expression did not change, but the muscles along his jaw hardened.
“She asked whether you had the tag.”
He looked toward bed seven.
“She told me to get you out.”
The trembling in his right hand increased.
Claire waited for anger. It did not come. Earl took the lanyard over his head, placed the volunteer badge on the table, and tucked it beneath the folded gown.
“I’ll use the public elevator,” he said.
“You don’t have to leave the hospital.”
“She asked.”
“She is sedated again. We don’t know what she meant or why.”
“I do.”
“What did you leave out?”
Earl looked at her for a long moment.
Then he walked past her.
Claire followed him through the secure doors, past the handwashing stations and the waiting area where a father slept with his head against a vending machine. Earl moved slowly, not because he was reluctant but because the damaged nerves in his legs sometimes affected his balance. Claire had seen that in his evaluation. She had also written that his gait might alarm families.
At the public elevator, he pressed the down button.
“Mr. Ransom.”
The button light glowed red.
“Earl.”
He did not turn.
“You said Daniel came back for you.”
“He did.”
“Why does Hannah want you gone?”
The elevator arrived with a soft chime. Earl stepped inside, then faced her.
“Because he should never have had to come back.”
The doors closed.
Claire remained in the hallway until another nurse asked whether she was waiting for the elevator.
By eight thirty, the unit had returned to its usual controlled disorder. A respiratory therapist changed tubing at bed four. Two parents argued quietly about whether their older child should attend school while they were spending their days at the hospital. Someone burned a bagel in the staff lounge and opened the door, allowing the smell to drift into the corridor.
Claire answered physician calls, reviewed medication double-checks, completed staffing adjustments, and did not mention Earl’s tag to anyone except the social worker.
Tessa Coleman arrived at nine with damp curls escaping beneath her knit cap and a paper cup of coffee she had already spilled down one side. She was thirty-five, relentlessly practical, and possessed an ability to ask invasive questions without sounding curious.
“You have a volunteer claiming connection to the deceased father,” she said after Claire closed the office door.
“He isn’t claiming a legal connection.”
“He wants access?”
“No.”
“Money?”
“No.”
“Custody?”
“He left when the mother asked.”
Tessa took a slow sip. “That complicates my favorite theory.”
“What was your favorite theory?”
“Unstable man develops attachment to vulnerable infant, invents military connection, hopes hospital staff are too sentimental to verify it.”
Claire disliked how closely the theory resembled her own first reaction.
“He knew Hannah’s previous surname,” she said.
“That’s not protected information in the age of search engines.”
“He knew she had blocked Daniel.”
“Also discoverable if she posted about him.”
“The tag is real.”
“You can tell military identification from ten feet away?”
“I saw the engraving.”
Tessa set down the coffee. “Real metal does not make a real story.”
Claire pushed a printout across the desk. “The father’s date of death is eight months ago. The chart says he died during military service overseas.”
“Source?”
“Hannah told the admitting resident before surgery.”
“Did she provide documentation?”
“No.”
“Then we verify.”
They contacted the hospital’s legal department, which instructed them not to photograph the tag, copy Earl’s volunteer records into the patient chart, or disclose Hannah’s condition without consent. The volunteer office confirmed that Earl had passed a background check, completed neonatal training, and entered the program through a veterans’ rehabilitation referral.
His emergency contact was listed as “None.”
At ten fifteen, Tessa reached an Army casualty assistance office in Iowa. The official on the phone would not discuss Daniel Reed without authorization but agreed to accept a request through the hospital’s social services channel.
At eleven, Baby Girl Reed had another apnea episode.
At eleven forty, Hannah’s cardiac procedure ended without immediate complication.
At noon, Earl’s volunteer coordinator called Claire.
“What happened?” asked Miriam Holt.
Claire rubbed the bridge of her nose. She had eaten half a yogurt since five that morning. “A patient’s mother requested that he leave.”
“Did he violate policy?”
“Not that I observed.”
“Was this related to your placement concern?”
“Yes and no.”
“That sounds useful.”
Claire told her about the tag. She kept Hannah’s details minimal, though enough remained to create a long silence on the other end.
“Miriam?”
“I’m here.”
“Did Earl ever explain why he chose the NICU program?”
“He said he needed work that required patience.”
“That was all?”
“No. He said infants didn’t ask him to talk about the war.”
Claire looked through the office window. Bed seven’s incubator glowed in the dim room. Talia was adjusting a sensor on the baby’s foot.
“Did he seem attached to this child before today?”
“It was his first week assigned to direct holding. He’s cleaned equipment for two months. Why?”
“Because the mother knew him from a picture.”
“Claire, are you asking me whether he engineered his way into the unit to find her baby?”
“I don’t know what I’m asking.”
“Then don’t decide before you do.”
May you like
The rebuke was gentle, which made it harder to dismiss.
That afternoon, an encrypted email arrived from the casualty assistance office. It confirmed that Staff Sergeant Daniel Aaron Reed had died during an attack on a joint convoy in Syria eight months earlier. Earl Ransom, then serving as a civilian security adviser after retiring from the Army, had been injured in the same incident.
