Faith cleared her throat loud enough to announce her return.
Ruth was behind her. She asked Will, “How bad is the leak? I mean, are we talking the whole ceiling’s gonna come down?”
Will took his time, clicking off the flashlight, dropping it back into the loop on his belt. Finally, he shook his head and shrugged at the same time. “I won’t know until I get up there.”
Ruth sighed. “It’s gonna be an hour before my boss can help move him. Can you come back?”
Bill Black took over. “You’re gonna have to put in another request.”
Ruth sighed again, but she was obviously used to dealing with the hospital bureaucracy. “All right, Buddy. Thanks for coming, anyway.” She went to Jared and started checking the machines. Lena watched her like a hawk. It was unnerving the way she just stood there. Except for stretching her fingers, she didn’t reach out to him. She barely looked at his face.
Ruth must’ve felt it, too. She told Lena, “It’s okay to touch him, hon. He’s not gonna break.” As if to prove this, she put her hand to Jared’s cheek. And then she kept it there. Her brow furrowed.
Something was wrong.
Ruth’s hand went to Jared’s forehead. Then his neck. Then his wrist. She looked at her watch, checking his pulse against the flashing number on the monitor. Will could see the thumping heart was beating faster than usual. The blood pressure was low.
“What is it?” Faith asked.
“He’s just a little clammy.” Ruth grabbed the control and raised the foot of the bed. The floor vibrated beneath Will’s feet. The nurse put some false cheer in her tone. “I’m sure it’s nothing, but let me get the doctor, all right?” She left the room at a brisk pace. Faith followed her, though Will doubted Lena would tell him anything else.
He picked up his toolbox. He tried one last time. “Lena, I know you think you’ve got all of this under control, but you don’t.”
She didn’t look up as she said, “I’ve never been able to control anything in my life.”
Will waited, giving her another chance to come clean. She ignored him. She just stood there staring down at Jared. Her hand was still pressed flat to her stomach. Her mouth moved soundlessly, as if in prayer.
All Will could do was leave the room. Ruth was on the phone by her desk. She barely registered his presence, which Will took as a bad sign. Jared’s condition was obviously a more serious matter than she’d let on.
He walked down the hallway toward Faith. She was reading her emails. Or pretending to. Will could see the screen was dark.
He stopped a few feet away from her and opened his toolbox.
Faith kept her voice low. “Well?”
Will found his clipboard and pen. He looked at Ruth again. She had her back to him, the phone pressed to her ear.
Still, he kept his voice down. “She’s protecting someone.”
“She’s protecting herself.”
Will wasn’t so sure about that. He checked some boxes on his form. “I think she was at the raid on the shooting gallery. She told me she wasn’t allowed to talk about it.”
“Of course she was at the raid. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was leading it.”
“She warned me off Big Whitey.”
Faith looked up from her BlackBerry.
Will kept checking boxes. He was giving himself time to decide whether or not to tell Faith the rest. In the end, he knew he didn’t have a choice. “She told me if I love Sara, I’ll drop the case.”
Faith looked back at her phone. Her thumb scrolled across the black screen. She seldom registered any emotion beyond irritation, but Will could tell Lena’s words had hit home.
She asked, “Why do I get the feeling that, five years ago, she told Jeffrey Tolliver the same thing?”
7.
THE DAY BEFORE THE RAID
Lena sat at her desk staring at her computer monitor. Fireworks filled the screen. She knew if she tapped one of the keys, the desktop would appear. She also knew what the files would be—open cases, closed cases, court documents, witness statements, suspect statements—endless bytes of data that summed up the lives of thousands of people.
There was only one life on the computer that she cared about.
Not that there was life anymore.
Lena closed her eyes. Let the grief have its way.
She had been electrocuted once. Not electrocuted like on death row, but shocked by an electric current. Lena was fifteen when it happened. She’d been helping Sibyl with her hair. They were both standing in front of the mirror. The glass was steamed over from a recent shower. The smell of mold was in the air.
The house they grew up in had been wired by their uncle Hank, so they were used to smoking outlets and popping lightbulbs. He’d also built the bookcases that had no shelves, and removed a load-bearing wall, which resulted in the roof settling into a camel-back sway. Just walking through the front door, you knew you were taking your life into your own hands.
Which is why Lena should’ve known better than to plug in the hair dryer without first unplugging the box fan. The shock had streaked up her arm, down her spine, then legs, and into the tips of her toes, which happened to be touching standing water from the shower. There was some sort of delay. Lena didn’t feel the brunt of the electrocution until she saw the water. She thought, This is dangerous. The lights zapped out. Her body seized. Then, the next thing she knew, she was lying on the bathroom floor and Sibyl was screaming for Hank to call an ambulance.
That’s what Lena felt like now—shocked. Almost electrocuted. Laid flat on her back. Her body tensed. Her nerves on fire. Only this time, there was no one around to help her. This time, she was completely alone.
Lena watched the colorful bursts of light explode across the computer screen. She rested her hand on the mouse. She gently pressed down. The desktop came up. She moved the arrow to the file that contained the ultrasound. Lena had torn up the photo, but the video remained. Her hand froze on the mouse. She didn’t need to open the file. She didn’t need to see the picture. The image was forever seared into her retinas. She felt weak as rain every time she saw it.
Little black bubble. White folds and ridges. The tiny flutter of a beating heart that was no bigger than a drop of rain.
How could she love something so much when she couldn’t even see it with her naked eye? How could she feel that heart beat inside of her when it took a machine just to let her know it was there?
How could she have lost it so easily?
How could one horrible moment erase weeks of happiness, destroy a prospective lifetime that had made Lena’s heart feel weightless with anticipation?
The arrow hovered over the file. There was a slight shake to the image.
Her cell phone rang. Lena moved her hand off the mouse and picked up the phone. “Detective Adams.”
“Oh.” The woman seemed surprised that Lena had answered.
“Yes?” Lena asked. She touched her hand to the mouse. She didn’t need to see the file again. She should get rid of it. Throw it in the computer’s trash.
“Ma’am?” the woman said. “Hello?”
“Yes.” Lena turned away from the computer. She made herself listen to the call.
The woman was saying, “… from Dr. Benedict’s office? You saw me yesterday?”