“Morning, kiddo. How you feeling?”

“Better,” Gwen said. “I guess they’re springing me today.”

“That’s what I hear. Ahh.”

Gwen opened her mouth; Sharon popped the thermometer in. Marly Kenna checked the pager on her belt. The thermometer beeped.

“Ninety-eight point four.” Sharon snapped the plastic thermometer sleeve into the bio bin. “Now you get your needles out.”

“Yay.”

“I’m going to disconnect these fluids and remove your lock.” Sharon rolled the IV stand so that Gwen could see better. “So what I’ll do first is just take and clamp the leader off like this.”

She went on that way, automatically describing each step in the process. Gwen had asked so many second-year clinical questions that most of the nurses had simply started talking out loud while they worked.

Most of them didn’t seem to mind. A few were grouchy. Gwen listened carefully to everybody, trying to absorb everything she could.

“Okay,” Sharon said. “I’ll be back in a little while to tell you about your meds.”

Marly Kenna waited until she walked out. As the door closed, her demeanor shifted. Back to Detective Kenna.

She held up a cell phone.

“I want you to keep this handy,” she said. “All the time. It’s programmed so that if you hold down any number, it automatically dials 911.”

“Um…okay.”

“It’s not a friends-and-family plan, so don’t give out the number to people. But my cell number is in there. And the hotline I told you about.”

“Okay.”

“I mean it. Carry this with you.” She placed the phone on the table.

Gwen nodded. “I will.”

Next, Detective Kenna held up a blue folder. “Keep this handy, too.”

“What is it?”

“Information,” Detective Kenna said. “All the stuff we talked about. There’s a sheet with more phone numbers. Like I said, you’ve got mine, and I promise you that’s good anyplace, anytime. But I want you to find an independent advocate, as well.” She waggled the folder. “There’s a list in here. I circled a few names I like.”

“Okay,” Gwen said. It didn’t sound like enough, so she added, “Thank you.”

“I want to be clear. This isn’t me passing you off. This is about adding people to the team.”

“The team?”

“I’m scaring you, aren’t I?”

“Maybe a little.” Gwen smiled. It didn’t feel genuine, and it didn’t feel like an act. Sitting here, going along with all of this, she could almost believe that Russell really was out there somewhere, pissed off that she’d gone to the police. Waiting.

“Don’t be scared.” Marly Kenna reached over, gave her hand a squeeze. “Scared is over. You’ve been doing the scary part for a while now.”

“I’m sorry.” The next smile came a little more naturally. “I guess I’m more nervous about leaving than I thought. Or something.”

“You don’t have anything to be sorry about.” Marly shook her head. You don’t. “As for the rest of it…look on the bright side. Now that you’ve done the hard part? Leaving? The stats say the risk drops way off after the first forty-eight hours.” She grinned. “So you’re way ahead of that curve.”

Gwen had already decided that she didn’t like lying to Marly Kenna. She took a breath, held it a moment, let it out. A deeper breath today than yesterday, she noticed. Every day, it was getting easier to do.

“Okay,” she said. “I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.” Then, just because it felt good to say something honest, she said, “Your hair looks pretty today.”

“Oh, Jesus.” Detective Kenna made a face, moving a stubborn lock away from her forehead. “Static city.”

“No, I mean it. It’s always so shiny.”

“Well, thank you.” Marly smiled. “I’d love to have your eyes.”

Gwen didn’t know what to say to that, so she didn’t say anything. Detective Kenna leaned down and squeezed her hand again.

“Just keep ’em open until we pick up shithead, that’s all. You’re going to be fine.”

By Monday morning, Tony Briggs had a throbbing gash on the side of his head that wouldn’t stop seeping no matter what he did.

Neighbor guy really had caught him a good one. It was more of a burst than a cut, jagged and star-shaped. Probably infected by now.

Tony had forgotten how much of a pain in the ass a scalp lac could be. It wasn’t like you could put a Band-Aid on it, and they bled like all holy hell. This one wasn’t clean enough to Super Glue, and the swelling only made it yawn open wider.

He’d ended up wrapping gauze all the way around his head before going to sleep. He woke up looking like the fucking flute player from that Civil War painting. He called Ray.

“Revolutionary War,” Ray said.

“Whatever. I need stitches.”

“I told you last night you needed stitches. You were a tough guy, remember?”

“Yeah, well. Come down and get me.”

“Man, we go on shift at three. I’m asleep.”

“Come on. It’ll only take an hour.”

“You don’t know that.” Ray yawned into the phone. “Shave a patch and put strips on it.”

“Forget that. I ain’t shaving shit.”

“Drive yourself, then.”

“Dude, I have a head injury.”

Ray showed up at the door in half an hour, coat over his arm, looking annoyed. His shirt was actually untucked. Tony recognized the coat from last winter. That was some haphazard shit for Ray Salcedo.

“You know they’re just going to shave a patch at the ER,” Ray told him.

“Bullshit.” Tony pulled the door closed and locked the bolt. “They can stitch it like this. I’ve seen ’em do it.”

“Twenty bucks.”

“Twenty bucks what?”

“Twenty bucks says it takes three hours, and when we come back, your head looks like a cat’s asshole.”

“How long you been into cats?”

On the road, Ray went the wrong direction. Tony looked over from the passenger seat, holding a fresh square of gauze over the open cut. “Hit the clinic on Dodge, it’s closer.”

Ray just shook his head slowly. He kept driving east, toward midtown.

“Where are you going?”

“To a hospital,” Ray said. “We’ve got a legit reason to be at a hospital. So I’m taking you to a hospital.”

It didn’t happen often. Hardly ever, in fact. But rarely, every once in a great long while, Tony Briggs felt stupid.

The girl. He’d been so preoccupied with all of last night’s bullshit that he’d forgotten all about her.

Ray could take a stroll around while he was getting sewn up. Guy had a touch with nurses anyway. At least one of them was using his head for something besides stopping crutches.

“Score one for Salcedo,” Tony said. “If they haven’t let her out yet.”

“Hey,” Ray said. “Heads up.”

“What?”

“Two o’clock.”

“Where?”

He nodded up the street. “Brick house, front yard.”

Tony squinted into the glare and saw a bunch of little kids building a snowman. “What’s the problem?”

“That one with the pigtails.”

“What about her?”

“She look like trouble to you?”

“Man, what are you talk…”

Tony stopped without finishing the sentence. He looked at Ray, clenching his jaw. He checked his gauze pad. Folded it over. Pressed it back against the cut.

“In the Care Bears coat,” Ray said. “Seriously.”

“Blow me,” Tony said. “Seriously.”

“Hop out and punch her before she sees our faces.”

“Why don’t you just fucking drive?”

19

In the elevator, a young guy loaded with gift bags got off on the maternity floor. He looked like his whole world had opened up. One floor later, a middle-aged woman got on and pressed the button for the oncology lab. She looked like her world had caved in.

Worth rode along in silence, adding up time in his head. Counting what he’d managed last night, after the crime scene at his house cleared out, he’d slept a total of about eight hours in the past seventy-two.