He Took My Love 99 Times. The 100th Time, He Lost Me Forever. novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: The Nurse

The woman from the clinic sat at the nurse's desk with a cup of tea she didn't drink and the black ledger shut in front of her.

"I've worked the Transfer Wing for sixteen years," she said. "I walk the donors in and I walk them out."

"I remember you," I said.

I did.

She was the one who had held a paper cup of water for me after the first draw and said, "Take your time, dear."

"I hold the recipient book," she said. "The donor forms go to the chief. The recipient forms stay with me, because somebody has to log who receives what."

"And you kept it."

"I make copies of everything. It's a habit. My husband says it'll get me killed."

She pushed the ledger across the desk.

"Nobody asked me for it until tonight," she said. "Tonight I saw you walk out of that ballroom on the news. I thought about what I'd tell my daughter."

Leone had come to stand behind me.

I opened the cover.

Ninety-nine lines, in a neat clerk's hand, in blue ink.

Every line had a date, a percent and a recipient signature.

It was the same signature on every one.

Paola Lanza, in a looping, graceful hand, with a small flourish under the P like a dancer's arm.

"She signed for every draw," I said.

"In person. Every time."

"She told me she only asked for the first."

"She came in with Mr. Montanari for all of them, Mrs. Sartori. She sat in the waiting room and she signed." The nurse's mouth tightened. "She always asked the same question afterwards."

"What?"

"Whether there was anything for her in the safe."

I looked up.

"The jewelry," the nurse said. "Mr. Montanari paid the buyers' fees into a box. Paola took her share before it went anywhere."

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