Stepping-Stone for Mia novel · Chapter 4 of 24

Chapter 4: The Notebook

The hospital put out its statement at nine the next morning.

I read it on my couch with my arm in a sling and a bag of frozen peas on my elbow.

Harbor Point Medical Center mourns the loss of a young mother.

The resident responsible for her care has been placed on leave.

We are cooperating fully with the Maryland Board of Physicians.

They didn't print my name.

They didn't have to.

By ten, a TV station had it. By eleven, so did everyone else.

Dr. Sarah Harwood, 30, chief resident, daughter of the late surgeon.

By noon there were two news vans parked in front of my building in Federal Hill.

My neighbor across the hall, a retired mail carrier who'd never said more than "morning" to me, banged on my door.

I opened it with the chain on.

"Some kid with a camera tried to get in behind me," she said. "I told him I'd call the cops. You need groceries?"

"I'm okay."

"You're not okay. You've got a sling on." She squinted at me. "Did you do it?"

"No."

"Okay." She nodded once. "I'll get you milk."

The comments were worse than the vans.

Kelly Beal's channel had forty-one thousand followers, and every one of them seemed to have found my Facebook page.

Murderer.

I hope you never sleep again.

She asked for you and you let her die.

I turned my phone face down on the coffee table.

Then I thought of Mia turning her pager face down, and I turned it back over.

At six-thirty that evening, somebody knocked.

Three knocks, then two. Not a reporter knock.

I looked through the peephole.

Four women in Harbor Point scrubs and winter coats were crowded in my hallway, holding foil pans.

I opened the door.

"Move, honey," said the oldest one. "This is heavy."

They came in.

They were the night shift from Labor and Delivery.

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