Chương 3
That, at least, was familiar.
He lowered his voice.
“You need treatment.”
“You left.”
The room around them continued moving.
A paramedic opened an IV kit.
One police officer photographed the cracked phone.
Another stood beside Vivian near the elevator while she spoke calmly to a detective.
Adrian said, “I came back.”
“You left first.”
He had no useful answer.
Her eyes filled, but no tears fell.
“They said she died, Adrian.”
“I know.”
“You believed them.”
He looked down.
That was the moment she turned her face away.
They transported Elena to George Washington University Hospital because Mercer’s hospital was the last place she would agree to enter.
The babies did not go with her.
Police had already confirmed what Adrian feared as soon as he saw the mismatched wristbands. The boy’s identity was documented as Cole. The girl’s identity was documented as Mercer. Whatever Adrian believed, whatever Elena believed, no paramedic was going to ignore hospital records and carry a disputed premature infant into a private ambulance because a naval commander ordered it.
The girl went under emergency protective medical supervision.
The boy went with her temporarily because separating premature twins during an active investigation served no immediate medical purpose.
Adrian watched both bassinets disappear through the service elevator.
For the first time that night, he felt useless.
Vivian was taken downstairs in another elevator.
She had not been handcuffed.
That bothered him until the detective explained that there was a difference between being detained, being arrested, and being charged, and that blood on a glove was not a judicial finding no matter how badly Adrian wanted it to be.
“I have a wounded wife.”
“Yes, sir.”
“She says Mercer stabbed her.”
“Yes.”
“Mercer admits there was a struggle.”
“Yes.”
“What exactly are we waiting for?”
“Evidence.”
The word irritated him because it was correct.
Adrian went back into the living room.
The fire had almost burned out.
The cracked phone remained on the marble where it had landed.
Beside the sofa, the black gift box lay open.
Inside it was a silver key and a folded sheet of paper stained with a thumbprint of Elena’s blood.
He did not touch either one.
The detective came over.
“That what she was reaching for?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know what it is?”
“No.”
The detective put on gloves.
The paper was a photocopy of a handwritten neonatal transfer form.
At the top, someone had written during what appeared to have been a computer outage:
COLE, ELENA.
TWIN A—MALE—LIVE BIRTH.
TWIN B—FEMALE—LIVE BIRTH.
Times followed.
Weights.
APGAR scores.
Resuscitation notes.
At the bottom, a second line had been added in different ink.
TWIN B TRANSFERRED TO MERCER, CLAIRE—IDENTIFICATION CORRECTION.
No physician signature appeared beside the change.
The detective looked at Adrian.
“Who’s Claire Mercer?”
“Her daughter.”
The detective folded the page back along its existing crease.
“And the key?”
Adrian stared at it.
“I have no idea.”
He did not reach the hospital until almost two in the morning.
They had cut Elena’s dress away from the wound. The blade had entered high in the back below the left shoulder, missed the lung, and created more blood than structural damage. She had needed stitches, fluids, antibiotics, imaging, and a physician who spent an uncomfortable amount of time asking whether she felt safe going home.
Elena found that question offensive.
“I was stabbed by my obstetrician,” she said. “I think we can narrow down the safety issue.”
The emergency physician glanced at Adrian.
Elena noticed.
“He didn’t do it.”
“I didn’t imply—”
“You looked at him.”
The physician gave her a tired, patient expression.
“I look at every spouse.”
“Good.”
Adrian sat in the corner and said nothing.
His white uniform had dried blood on one knee.
There were few circumstances under which a ceremonial naval uniform made a man look ridiculous. Sitting under fluorescent emergency-room lighting at two in the morning with someone else’s blood on it was one.
Elena looked at him.
“Take the jacket off.”
He did.
“You look like a recruiting poster after a car accident.”
It was such an ordinary Elena remark that he almost smiled.
She did not.
The room became quiet again.
Somewhere in the hall a child coughed. A cart squeaked. A nurse asked somebody to confirm a date of birth.
Adrian folded the uniform jacket over the back of the chair.
“Tell me what happened.”
Elena stared at the blanket over her knees.
“No.”
“Elena.”
“I said no.”
“There is a baby in protective custody with another woman’s name on her wrist.”
“I know.”
“You were stabbed.”
“I noticed.”
“I need the sequence.”
“You need it?”
“Yes.”
She turned her face toward him.
“What you needed was to stay at the hospital.”
There was no anger in the sentence.
That made it difficult to defend himself.
Adrian looked at the floor.
At six that evening, only eight hours after their daughter had supposedly died, he had left Elena’s hospital room to attend a command ceremony he had tried twice to cancel.
Rear Admiral Harlan had told him his presence mattered.
Not ordered.
That was what Adrian had repeated to himself.
His presence mattered.
The event honored a squadron Adrian was about to take over after nearly three years in a staff assignment he hated. Congressional staff were attending. Senior leadership was attending. Photographs had already been scheduled. His promotion package was active.
Elena had said, “Go.”
He had heard permission.
What she had meant, he now understood, was something closer to I cannot survive explaining to you why you should stay.
“You told me to go,” he said.
The second the words left his mouth, he wanted them back.
Elena looked at him for a long time.
“Did you really just say that?”
“No.”
“You did.”
“I did.”
“Good. I was worried blood loss had made me hallucinate.”
May you like
He stood, crossed to the window, and stopped because the emergency department window showed a concrete wall eight feet away.
There was nowhere dignified to stare.
