12th of Never (Women's Murder Club 12)

I rolled over and saw that the baby’s incubator was no longer at our bedside. Seeing that empty spot dropped me into unadulterated, heart-stopping, blinding terror.

What had happened while I slept?

Where was my baby?

I was on my feet when Joe rounded the doorway to our room. He was wearing a T-shirt, shorts, and paper slippers, and was holding two containers of coffee.

“Hey. I’ve got something for you,” he said. “If you want a shower, go now. We’ve got a meeting with Dr. Sebetic in fifteen minutes.”

“Where’s Julie?”

“She’s in the baby room. Go. Splash some water on yourself.”

I stood in the tiny stall under the hot spray, not moving, just letting the water work on me. The baby was in her incubator. We were going to meet with Dr. Sebetic and he was going to give us a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down. And whatever he said, we were going to deal with it.

Still, I didn’t like the freaking odds.

Joe rapped on the shower door.

“Let’s go, Lindsay. We don’t want to keep the doctor waiting.”

I dried off with a towel the size of a dinner napkin, then dressed in yesterday’s smoky jeans and one of Joe’s clean Tshirts. If paper shoes were good enough for Joe, they were good enough for me. I opened a packet and put them on.

After brushing my teeth and hair, I went out into our room, drank down my coffee in one long gulp, then said to my husband, “Are you ready?”

“No,” he said. “I’m not.”

We went into each other’s arms and held on tight. I gathered strength from my husband and I asked God to please let her live. Joe dropped his head to my shoulder and I put my hand in his hair.

Then Joe released me. “We’re late,” he said.

Chapter 107

DR. SEBETIC WAS in his forties, stood 6 feet 3 inches tall, weighed about 170, had red hair, black-framed glasses, and wore a sporty green plaid tie with his lab coat. He had seemed distracted each time we had met with him, but he was a hematologist and oncologist of distinction, and that was all that mattered.

The doctor looked up when we entered his office, said hello, and offered us chairs across from him at his desk. He called out to the hallway, “Nurse Kathy, please bring in Baby Girl Molinari.”

The nurse called back, “Coming right up, Doctor,” then came into the room with our baby. Julie was swaddled in a blanket, wearing a pink stocking cap, and waving her fists.

“She had a good breakfast,” Nurse Kathy said.

I stood up, took Julie from the nurse, thanked her, and sat back down. Then I held the baby up so that Joe could kiss her, took her back, kissed her cheek, wiped my tears off her face, nestled her in my arms.

“So,” said Dr. Sebetic, looking at the space between me and Joe. “I have news.”

He removed his glasses, polished them with a tissue, then squared them on the bridge of his nose.

“The test results are back and the blood cell appearance is returning to normal. It’s what’s called a polyclonal lymphocytosis, which is a benign, temporary, self-limiting disorder—”

“For God’s sake, Doctor,” Joe said. “In English, please.”

“I’m sorry. Let me say it another way. Julie had abnormal lymphocytes, and that diagnosis is a banana peel that many an experienced specialist has slipped on.

“You see, the blood cells in mononucleosis look just like the ones that you find in lymphoma.”

I didn’t see.

I said, “Mononucleosis? The kissing disease?”