Something with Raleigh, or anyone, just wasn’t a possibility now.
I glanced over at Claire, who was pulling the car onto 101. I took a deep breath.
“You ever hear of something called Negli’s aplastic anemia?” I asked.
Chapter 40
IT CAME OUT OF THE BLUE — so unexpectedly — that it didn’t really dawn on Claire what I had just said.
She answered as if she were fielding a medical question in her lab. “Blood disorder. Pretty rare, serious. The body stops producing erythrocytes.”
“Red blood cells,” I said.
Claire glanced at me. “Why? It’s not Cat?” referring to my sister.
I shook my head. I sat rigid and stared straight ahead. My eyes were glassy.
It was probably the long pause that caused it to slowly sink in.
Claire whispered, “Not you?”
An awful stillness took hold in the car.
“Oh, Lindsay.” Claire’s jaw dropped.
She pulled the Bronco onto the shoulder of the road and immediately reached out and hugged me. “What has your doctor told you?”
“That it’s serious. That it can be fatal.”
I saw the gravity of that wash over her face. The hurt, the pain. Claire was a doctor, a pathologist. She had taken in what was at stake before I even met her eyes.
I told her that I was already undergoing packed–red cell transfusions twice a week.
“That’s why you wanted to get together the other day?” she declared. “Oh, Lindsay. Why couldn’t you just tell me?”
None of my past reasoning seemed clear now. “I wanted to so much. I was afraid. Maybe even more to admit it to myself. Then I allowed myself to get wrapped up in the case.”
“Does anyone know? Jacobi? Roth?”
I shook my head.
“Raleigh?”
I took a breath. “Still think I’m ready for Mr. Right?”
“You poor baby,” Claire said softly. “Oh, Lindsay, Lindsay, Lindsay.”
Her body was shaking. I could feel it. I had hurt her.
Suddenly, I let it all go — fear and shame and uncertainty rushing through me.
I held on to Claire, and I realized she was all that kept me from hurtling out of control. I started to cry, and then we both did. It felt good, though. I wasn’t alone anymore.
“I’m here for you, sweetheart,” Claire whispered. “I love you, girl.”
Chapter 41
THE MURDER IN NAPA changed everything. There were blistering attacks on the way the SFPD was trying to solve the case. We took heat from everywhere.