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"I thought we had a good time last night."

"If you say so." God, why am I such a bitch?

He looks at me for a moment, and I can see him working out what to do with the fact that I'm not being nice to him this morning. Then he sits up straight and his face goes back to the neutral, professional one he wears as the respectable undertaker. Just like that, the moment is gone.

"I've got a call at ten," he says. "And people from Chicago at eleven."

"Have a lovely day."

"Try to eat something."

"Get out."

He frowns, but only slightly. His face smooths in a blink. "You slept in here," he says, like it settles something. "This is our room now."

"Get out."

He gives me a small smile then leaves, closing the door quietly behind him. I'm a doctor, for Christ's sake, a pretty experienced surgeon, and I can't even bring myself to be intimate with my husband, because being angry at him is the last thing keeping me on my side of the line. Pulling the thought of him out of my mind, I get ready.

I spend the entire drive to the hospital thinking about him. About the way he looked at me when he handed me those tablets, so caring and thoughtful. About the fact that I nearly let him kiss me, and I would have let him do a lot more than that. I don't want to feel this way. I need to talk to Daphne about it because in truth she is my only friend now, a new but honest friend, and I am not a person who’s had those kinds of friendships in my life. Not with the family I was born in. I isolated myself for the most of it. How could I bring anybody into that?

But Daphne is a woman who’s been through things and knows what she is talking about. She does not judge, but will tell it to you like it is. It’s not like I had a choice about connecting with her. She’s a whirlwind that swept me right up.

So now I need somebody to tell me that I am not losing my mind over a man I did not choose. I know she’s been telling me to let loose and live a little, but I’m just about going insane over this.

I stop at the coffee cart on the ground floor and get Daphne the horrible one she likes—oat milk, three heaping teaspoons of instant, one sugar, a lot of cinnamon on top—and I get myself plain drip coffee because my stomach is not ready for anything more ambitious than that. Then I take the lift down to the basement.

I push the door open with my hip.

"I brought your terrible cinnamon nightmare and before you say anything, I need to talk to you about something. It is embarrassing, so you have to promise not to judge me."

Then I stop, because there is a body on the table.

Daphne looks up from her desk. "Oh, thank God. You are my favorite person in the whole world. I have been here since three o'clock this morning and I am running on absolutely nothing."

"Why have you been here since three o'clock?"

"This was an emergency post-mortem. The police wanted it done as quickly as possible because there is a lot of press attention on it, so they dragged me out of bed at two-fifteen, and I have been down here ever since." She takes the coffee out of my hand and drinks, eyes closed as though I’ve given her ambrosia. "God, that is exactly what I needed. I was going to move him before you came down, but you're a little early, aren't you?"

"Yes, because I wanted to talk to you about something."

"Then talk to me, girl. I am listening. I am just going to keep working while you do, if that is all right with you."

I put my bag down on the chair and walk over to the table. He is a big man, taller than average and broad across the shoulders. He is burned very badly across the chest and both arms, as well as down the left side of his face. His left hand, which is resting on the edge of the tray, is more or less intact. Something about him seems familiar, but I cannot quite place it, so I push the thought away because I am hungover and not back to myself yet.

"Who is he?"

"They are still working on the official identification. They are waiting on the dental records, but they are fairly sure they know who he is. He was on a luxury yacht down at Chelsea Piers Marina last night, and the whole thing exploded at around one o'clock this morning. It was quite a big fire, I was told. You could see that shit from the coast road. He was the only person on board. They pulled him out of the water."

My heart skips a beat. "A yacht exploded."

"Yeah, out of this world. It just exploded out of nowhere. They think it could possibly be a gas leak in the galley, but the insurance people will be crawling over the wreckage for a while before we know anything for sure."

I look at the body again, more properly. His penis has been cut off cleanly at the base. There is very little tissue left, just a flat wound where it should be, and the edges of the cut are neat and straight, which means whoever did it used something sharp and knew what they were doing. There is not much blood around the wound either, which is unusual.

"Daphne."

"Mm?"