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Josie’s body felt like it was being pulled down by hundred-pound weights and she was so tired. So tired. The effort of keeping her eyes open felt herculean but the pain in her shoulder was finally gone. The nurse bustled around her gurney, checking her vitals and entering something into her computer.

“Is it—did they do it?” Josie asked.

She had her answer when she saw the dark blue sling encasing her left arm. Noah had gotten her a different doctor. A delightful woman named Krystal Flowers. Once the X-ray came back with no fractures, she’d talked Josie through the reduction procedure. There was more waiting and finally, they administered twilight anesthesia so that Dr. Flowers could put her shoulder back in place. The last thing she remembered was someone fitting a nasal cannula into her nostrils. A standard precaution, someone had told her.

“Yep,” said the nurse. “All done. You did great. You have to get another X-ray and you’ll be all set. Might be a while though. We’re still backed up.”

Before Josie could respond, she left, pulling the curtain closed behind her. It afforded little privacy. There were patients on both sides. Probably down the entire hall, each person crammed into a tiny space separated by nothing more than flimsy polyester cloth. The feet of the people moving in and out of the neighboring curtained areas were visible. She could hear a half-dozen different conversations. One woman told another about how her granddaughter had chosen the ugliest wedding dress in the known universe. A man told a woman the history of a rivalry with a coworker that had ended in a prank gone wrong, resulting in him nearly severing his finger. One of the doctors—Josie didn’t recognize her voice—informed a man that there was a mass on one of his kidneys. An incidental finding. This had to be some kind of patient confidentiality violation. What if a patient had come in for something they didn’t want other people hearing? A surprise pregnancy or a sexually transmitted disease?

That thought reminded her of Wren and their Frozen Appetizer Sampler Night when they’d played Two Truths and a Lie and the girl had talked about she and her mom taking in their neighbor’s cat, Chlamydia. Josie closed her eyes and let her head fall back onto the pillow.

She adjusted her nasal cannula. How were they going to get back on track with Wren?

She knew she’d done the right thing by sending Noah home. After the fire at Sylvia West’s home, they’d left her all alone. They’d abandoned her. Josie considered Erica Slater family, but she wasn’t that much older than Wren. In fact, the two were good friends. It wasn’t an adult–child relationship. Josie tried to imagine herself in Wren’s shoes. Finding out that one of her guardians had been in a fire and taken to the hospital. Her other guardian and their entire family rushing there, leaving her with the friend she happened to be hanging out with that day. Josie and Noah hadn’t even called Misty to go be with her.

Wren had been left out. Treated like an afterthought. That’s why Josie’s mother, Shannon, had been so perturbed when they were all gathered in Trinity’s hospital room. The only family member missing had been Josie and Trinity’s little brother, Patrick. He’d been away for the weekend. The rest of them had left Wren behind.

Guilt hit her like a punch to the chest. A month ago, stuck in traffic and alone in the car with Wren, Josie had made a big speech about how she was there for the girl not because she had to be but because she wanted to be. Yet, at the first real emergency, she had failed her. The worst part was that it had taken her this long to realize it. This was not the kind of mother Josie wanted to be.

She looked around for her phone, wanting to call Wren or at least text her, and found it on the tray table on her right side. When she leaned over to get it, the room spun. The meds were still in her system, leaving a warm, drowsy, pain-free feeling throughout her body. After taking a moment for her equilibrium to return, she rested the phone on her lap and used her right index finger to punch in her passcode. She found Wren’s name in her contacts. It was almost four in the morning.

Maybe she shouldn’t call. Fatigue was dragging her back under. The last thing she needed was to sound out of it or high when she spoke to Wren. She decided on a text message instead. As she tried to compose it in her mind, she dozed. Her head dipped to her chest and then snapped back up. Instead of agonizing over every word, she typed the first thing that came to mind. Without her left hand, it was even more of a struggle.

Just wanted you to

The conversations and hospital noise beyond her curtains faded. Her grip on the phone loosened. The unforgiving fluorescent lights dimmed and went black.

She blinked awake. Her mouth felt like someone had stuffed it with cotton. A static buzz played in her head. It took her a moment to remember where she was and why. The hospital. Shoulder dislocation. Waiting for another X-ray. How long had she gone back out? Judging by the bustle outside the curtain, it was just as busy as when she’d arrived. No one had come to take her for the post-reduction X-ray.

Her phone lay by her hip. She picked it up and checked the time. Two hours had elapsed since she’d texted Wren. Except that when she checked the message thread, she saw that she’d never sent the text. Never even finished typing it. Perfect. Just perfect, she thought bitterly.

Needing to use the bathroom, she sat up, still feeling a bit woozy. She reached for the nasal cannula to remove it but it wasn’t there. It lay between the bedrail and her leg. Had she taken it off in her sleep? Her fingers drifted down over her lips, feeling something sticky. Drool? That wasn’t right though. It wouldn’t be on her upper lip. It wouldn’t be so thick. This felt caked on. She pulled her hand back and saw a smudge of red on the tip of her index finger.

What the hell?

Josie placed her phone in her lap again and swiped at the camera icon on the lock screen. The app opened and she stabbed at the flip camera button. She brought the phone up so that her face filled the screen and blinked. Her heart stopped. One beat, two. Then it thundered back to life, pounding so hard against her rib cage, her whole body felt like it was vibrating. Icy fear slid over her skin. The din of the emergency department just outside the curtain was drowned out by a piercing alarm in her head.

Her lips had been painted in bright red lipstick and smeared across her face.

Forty-Two

The phone fell from her grip. Josie’s hand trembled as she brought it to her lips. Just before her fingers touched her mouth, the detective in her screamed for her to stop. It was evidence. She shouldn’t touch it any more than she already had. Her heart was like a battering ram against her breastbone. She tried to take a few calming breaths, but it felt like an elephant was sitting on her chest.

Oh God. Had he straddled her the way Dr. Holmes had straddled the glass patient? Had he kissed her? The thought caused an instant surge of bile up the back of her throat. Had he touched her anywhere else? Her fingers went instead to her neck. She picked up her phone again, using the camera to examine her throat. Lifting her chin, she turned her head from side to side, checking for ligature or strangulation marks. Nothing.

Josie kicked off her sheet. A quick scan of her body revealed that nothing else was amiss. She should have felt relieved but all she felt was panic rising from deep in her gut, making her stomach contract. She had to get someone. Anyone. Noah. Gretchen. Even Turner would do. Except Noah was with Wren. Then she remembered that the hospital had security. A nurse could get the IV out and call security. She searched the sheets for the call bell but didn’t find it. The port on the wall where the cord was normally plugged in was empty.

“Fuck.”

The bastard hadn’t just moved her call bell out of reach, he’d disconnected it and removed it from the cubicle altogether.

As quickly as she could with one arm immobilized and an IV stuck in the other, she lowered the bedrail and rotated, letting her legs hang off the gurney. Clutching her phone, she stood slowly. A wave of dizziness swept over her, darkening the edges of her vision. Too much panic, not enough air to breathe. She still felt sluggish and dazed. Thoughts surfaced from the quicksand of horror only to be snatched back under.

“Hello?” her voice was hoarse and barely audible.

Josie lurched toward the hall, stopping when she felt a burn and an uncomfortable pull on the inside of her right elbow. The damn IV. She tucked her phone into the sling and grabbed the IV pole, using it for support. Cold sweat trickled down her exposed back. As she threw the curtain open, it occurred to her that it might be faster if she just called someone. Explaining to the nursing staff or even security would take too long, and she didn’t want the lipstick painted across her mouth to remain there any longer than absolutely necessary. 911. No, she didn’t want the press to be privy to this. Dispatch. She could call dispatch.

The phone shook so badly in her hand that it took three tries to put in her passcode. Plus she could only use her thumb. In front of her, people strode back and forth. Someone from housekeeping. A radiology tech. A patient wandered past, pushing an IV pole, his bare ass hanging out of his hospital gown. No one paid her any mind. No one noticed the mark of a serial killer in blood red smeared across her face.