Chapter 9: Candidate Fourteen

I turned the page with one finger.

The second sheet was a typed list with the heading *Selection criteria*.

*Works in a hospital, with access to records.*

*No siblings. Mother deceased. Father not in contact.*

*Lives alone. Good credit. Has never been in therapy.*

*Likely to stay if he is kind.*

The last line was in green ink, in the same slanted hand as the first.

*Gavin to meet her this month.*

My mouth was dry.

I turned another page and found a table of dates with a column for each month.

It was my cycle.

Three years of it, marked in the squares with small neat checks.

Under the table was a note.

*Pill box every Sunday. Lactose tablets. Watch her swallow. Her trust in him matters more than the dose.*

And under that, in a different hand, a man's blocky print that I knew from every grocery list taped to our refrigerator:

*Done. 36 months. She doesn't suspect.*

I stood at the nurses' station in my socks and read my own life as a file.

I read that the apartment I had loved was chosen because the landlord asked no questions.

I read that Gavin had fixed my faucet in the second week because *a handy man is a safe man.*

I read that the funnel cake on our first date had been a *low-cost bonding event.*

I took out my phone.

I photographed every page with hands that I couldn't feel.

"Ma'am?"

A nurse stood at the end of the hall.

I closed the folder.

"I'm looking for the bathroom," I said.

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