“I don’t know anything yet,” she said. “I can’t reach the Grants either.”
I moved past her, brushing her gently aside, and faced the nurse.
“Aurelia Vale,” I said. “Do you have any information about her?”
The nurse barely looked up from her screen.
“Miss Vale is currently in surgery. We will let you know more soon.”
The thought of her being under a knife made my heart skip a beat.
I turned back to Dasha.
Her face was pale, stripped of color, and for the first time since I had known her, she wasn’t wearing any makeup.
“Don’t look at me that way,” she said, her Russian accent thicker than usual. “I was getting ready for bed when I got the call from my friend at the police station.”
“She will be okay,” I said, pulling her into my arms.
“Sir,” the nurse said, “you’re bleeding. We have to check that.” She pointed at my left hand with her pen.
I looked down. Blood had dried along my skin, and fresh drops still slipped from the cut. I hadn’t even felt it.
I nodded. “I’ll be right back,” I told Dasha.
Another nurse approached and guided me down the hall into one of the rooms to the side.
We stepped inside. The lights were dimmer here, but the smell was stronger. Beds lined the room, each one hidden behind a yellow curtain that stood in the middle between the beds. Shapes moved behind them, but the curtains hid their faces.
She led me to an empty bed. I sat down, my hand resting on my lap.
As the nurse began cleaning the wound, the sting came, but I sucked in a breath and said nothing.
From behind one of the curtains, there were two familiar voices I heard before.
“Are you sure she’s dead?” one of the men asked.
“I left her in the car to drown,” the other said.
One of them is Daniel Grant.
My fingers curled into fists. The nurse glanced up at me.
“Try to relax,” she said, steadying my hand as she started stitching.
I forced myself still and continued to listen.
“Did old Vale sign?” Daniel asked.
“Yes.”
My jaw clenched. The thread pulled through my skin, I turned my head to the nurse, scaring her with my gaze. The next stitch came more gently.
“I’ll pay off the doctor,” the other man said. “He’ll say he never saw you. Never admitted you. We will take the Vale house, all his assets, his money. We’re his business partners. With the insurance policy he signed, everything comes to us.”
“And what if she survives?” Daniel asked. “By some miracle?”
A short, humorless chuckle followed.
