I Regret Loving You for Five Years novel · Chapter 15 of 32

Chapter 15: The Price

"A week," Harriet repeated.

She looked at the ceiling tiles for a while.

"Well," she said. "That's not enough time to learn to knit."

Nobody laughed.

She looked at me again.

"What do you need, Doc?"

"A plane. And I can't get one."

"No. But I can get you a phone." She pointed at her desk drawer. "Top left. My authorization card. Station manager's priority line. It goes out on the official channel, which means Wexler can listen. It also means they can't cut it off without explaining to the Program why they hung up on the manager."

I took the card.

"Who are you going to call?" she asked.

I didn't answer.

She didn't need me to.

***

The comms tech looked up when I came in.

He saw the card in my hand and pushed his chair back from the console.

"Priority line," I said. "For the station manager."

"You're not the station manager."

"She's in my ward with a closing artery. She sent me."

He looked at me for a second.

Then he plugged in the handset and gave it to me.

"I have to log it," he said. "And I have to stay in the room."

"Stay."

I dialed the number I'd known by heart for five years.

It was five in the afternoon yesterday in Seattle.

It rang once.

"Marshall Ludlow."

His work voice. Flat and careful.

"It's me."

There was a sound like a chair hitting a wall.

"Thea. Thea, are you all right? Is it you?"

"I'm fine. My station manager isn't."

I told him.

I told him like I'd tell a cardiologist on the phone at three in the morning.

Fifty-eight. New changes at four. A week, maybe less.

He didn't ask me to repeat anything.

"Wexler denied the medevac," I said.

He didn't say anything.

I could hear him breathing.

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