Chapter 7: The First Wife

I typed back with my thumb.

Where can we meet?

The answer came in seconds.

Lou's Diner, 2nd Ave and 68th. One hour. Come alone.

Ethan read it over my shoulder.

"Absolutely not alone."

"She'll run if she sees you."

"Then I'll be in the booth behind you reading a menu."

Lou's was a narrow place with red stools and a pie case by the register.

Maeve Farrell was in the back booth in purple scrubs, holding a cup of tea with both hands.

She was maybe forty. Tired eyes. A cross on a thin chain.

Ethan slid into the booth behind her without a glance.

I sat down across from her.

"Thank you for coming," she said. "I almost didn't text you."

"Why did you?"

"Because I was in the waiting room when you asked who signed your form."

She turned her cup in a circle.

"I've seen that form before. With another woman's name on it."

"Who?"

"Laura Finch. A schoolteacher from Queens. Two years ago."

Maeve leaned in and dropped her voice.

"Dr. Pierce had a patient then. A young man, a friend of Laura's husband. Stage five, he said. Only months left."

"And he wasn't sick."

"Not even a little."

The waitress came by. I ordered coffee I didn't want.

Maeve waited until she left.

"Laura gave her kidney. Dr. Pierce did the surgery in the clinic's private operating room. At night."

"At night."

"He said the recipient needed privacy."

My stomach turned over.

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