He cuts in, and his eyes flick down at his tablet.
“Your father never came in for his,” he says.
I stare at him.
“What do you mean he never came in?” I ask, incredulous, like this might be one big, horrible prank.
He looks back up.
“It says in his file that no appointment was scheduled,” he says. “No one called to set it up.”
My stomach drops.
“No one told me I needed to set up an appointment,” I say, and my voice is too steady for how furious I suddenly feel. “No one said anything about a follow-up CT scan.”
Dr. Shah’s expression tightens just slightly, like he’s trying not to sound defensive.
“It was part of the discharge paperwork,” he says. “It’s standard. It should have been there.”
“No,” I say, and I can hear the edge in it now. “It wasn’t.”
He holds my gaze.
“I can assure you,” he says, calm and definite, “it was included.”
And something in me snaps into irritation so sharp it almost feels deadly.
Chapter Forty Two
Nico
The ER smells like antiseptic and old coffee and something metallic underneath it that I don’t like.
The sliding doors shut behind me, and I scan the waiting room quickly, eyes working before my brain finishes catching up. People in uncomfortable looking chairs. A vending machine that hums too loudly. A receptionist behind glass. A TV with closed captions running across the bottom of the screen.
Then I see her.
Erica is on her feet near the edge of the seating area, squared off with a man in a white coat. Her shoulders are high and tight. Her face is flushed in that way it gets when she’s trying not to shake.
She’s not crying.
She’s angry. I can see it on her face… and hear it in her voice when she speaks, all the way from here.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard her like that. Not at the office. Not in a hotel room. Not in her own kitchen with her world falling apart. This is different.
I close the distance immediately.
“Erica,” I say.
She doesn’t look at me right away. Her eyes stay locked on the doctor.
“No,” she says, and her voice is sharp enough to cut. “No, it wasn’t.”
The doctor’s posture stays stiff, professional.
“Ms. Crawford,” he says, “a follow-up CT is standard. It would have been in the discharge instructions.”
“I read every word on every sheet of that discharge paperwork,” Erica snaps. “Every word. Multiple times. It was not in there.”
