Chapter 4: Name the Medication

I stayed in the pantry until Lia found her charger and the front door shut behind her.

Then I crept out through the garage with the deed folder pressed against my ribs.

Colleen was waiting on the curb with the box on her hip and the horn under her fist.

Brogan was leaning against his van, watching the street.

"She comes home," I said. "He said that. I'm the whole pitch."

Brogan's face didn't change, but his hand tightened on the van door.

"The pitch for what?"

"I don't know."

"Then we find out," he said. "Get in your sister's car before the neighbors start timing you."

On Monday morning I went back to work.

The clinic on Mineral Point Road smelled like it always did, of wet dog and floor cleaner.

I had a cart of blood tubes, a nervous beagle in exam room two, and a boss who had never once raised her voice at me.

For the first time in a week, nobody was asking me whether I was all right.

It lasted until ten past nine.

The front door chimed, and I looked up from the beagle.

Neil stood in the waiting room with a bouquet of white roses in one hand and his phone in the other.

He wore the soft grey quarter-zip I'd bought him for his birthday.

Six clients were sitting in the plastic chairs, and every one of them looked up.

"Hi, honey," he said. "I'm sorry to come to your work."

I put the beagle's leash in the technician's hand and walked out to the counter.

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