Chapter 9: The Heartbeat

Thursday morning, Knox parked his truck outside Riverside Women's Clinic and turned off the engine.

Neither of us got out.

"You don't have to do this," he said. "I can go in and ask what's going on."

"They won't tell you anything. You aren't a patient."

"No."

"And I am."

I took the appointment card out of my coat pocket and held it flat on my knee.

Thursday, 9:15, in the nurse's round handwriting.

I turned it over.

One corner was bent, and there was a faint ring on the back, the size of a coffee cup.

I looked at it for a long time.

"What?" Knox said.

"I dropped this at the café, the day I met Nicolette. It slid out of my coat. She picked it up off the floor and handed it back to me face down."

"Face down."

"She said, 'Careful, you'll lose it.'"

He didn't say anything.

He didn't have to.

A woman with no appointment of her own could read a time and a clinic in about two seconds.

"She copied my slot," I said.

"Maybe. Or she's been at Riverside all along."

"If she's been here all along, I'll hear them say her name."

"Then we'll hear them say it."

He got out and came around to open my door before I could do it myself.

I let him.

Inside, the waiting room was empty except for a young man reading a pamphlet and a woman with a stroller.

I checked in at the desk.

The receptionist took my card, tapped her keyboard and gave me a clipboard.

"Willa Haskins, nine-fifteen," she said. "Is this your partner?"

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