She came out the way she always did — bag over one shoulder, badge still clipped to her scrub top, moving at the pace of a woman whose feet hurt but who wasn’t going to let them show it.Twelve hours on that floor.He had been watching the building for one, and he still felt it.
She spotted his truck before she reached her car and adjusted her path toward it without breaking stride.
He got out.
“You’ve been here a while,” she said.
“About an hour.”
“You could have texted.”
“I wanted to tell you to your face.”
She looked at him across the few feet of asphalt between them.The lot lights had just kicked on, that early-evening flicker before they steadied.
“Ronan called this morning,” Graham said.“Federal authorization came through.When the safety drill runs Monday, all twelve hospitals move at the same time.”
She was quiet for a moment.A car pulled out two rows over, headlights sweeping across the lot.
“So it’s real,” she said.Not a question.“The whole structure of it.”
“Confirmed is different from theory.I wanted you to hear it the right way.”
She watched him the way she watched a chart that didn’t add up.Patient.Steady.Trusting that if she held still long enough, the discrepancy would resolve.
“What else?”she asked.
“I found Rose Embry.”
Maren’s hand stilled on the strap of her bag.
“Where?”
“Sunrise Acres.Eight miles east.She’s been there just about four years.She agreed to talk to the nurse who stayed.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow morning.My place.Before six.”
Maren shifted the bag higher on her shoulder.“I’ll be there.”
She looked at him.“What else did Ronan say to you?The part that kept you out in this parking lot until six o’clock tonight.”
He had been sitting with the answer since ten forty-seven that morning.“He said I was too close.”
“You sat with that all day.”
“Since ten forty-seven this morning.”
“Eight hours.”She shook her head once.“You could have called.You could have sent a text.You could have waited until tomorrow.But you drove here, and you told me to my face, because that’s who you are.”
“Maren.”
“I’m not done.I’ve been on that floor for twelve hours counting the same days until Monday, and the only thing that got me through it was knowing someone on the other side of this was paying attention.Not to the operation.To me.”She paused.“So yes.You’re too close.And I don’t want you any farther away.”
He didn’t move.She didn’t move.
Then she reached out and laid her hand on his forearm.Not a grip.Not a grab.Just her palm against the skin below his rolled sleeve, her fingers resting on the scar that ran from his wrist to his elbow.
