Chapter 19: The Hospital Corridor

Linnea's POV

The cardiac unit kept its waiting room cold.

I sat in it for six hours in my cardigan, with Marcy's coat over my knees.

At four in the morning the doctor came out and said Conrad Roswell would live, for now.

He was sedated.

His heart was working at a third of what it should.

Tobias thanked him and went to sign something, and I stayed in my chair.

I was watching the elevator doors when they opened.

Philippa stepped out.

She wore the black dress from dinner, and one of her pearl earrings was missing.

Her hair was flat on one side.

She looked at the nurses' station, and the nurses looked at her, and one of them lifted a phone.

Two men in the waiting room looked up from their coffee, and I recognized one of them.

He was a reporter from the Columbus paper who had stood at the back of the ballroom with his phone raised.

"I want to see my father," Philippa said.

"Visiting hours are over, ma'am," said the nurse.

"I'm his daughter."

"Yes, ma'am. I've been told he wants no visitors."

"Who told you?"

"Mr. Tobias Roswell."

Philippa turned.

She saw me.

For a long moment neither of us said anything.

She walked across the waiting room, past the reporter and the two men with coffee.

She stopped three feet from my chair.

"I won't be pitied," she said. "Don't you dare."

"I'm not."

"Good."

"I'm not feeling anything for you at all."

Her face worked.

"He's dying," she said. "He's going to die, and the last thing he said to me was that I was a thief."

"He didn't say that."

"He looked it."

"He gave you the penthouse."

"As if that were a kindness." She dragged a breath. "Please."

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