Chapter 8: The Back Stairs

On the back of the key card, in a hand so small I had needed the bathroom light, Quincy had written:

*Clinic. Back stairs. 10:40.*

Kenneth had taken the card.

But I had read it under the table before he did, and I had memorized it.

Kenneth let me out for one thing only, and it was the baby.

The private doctor's clinic took up the third floor of a glass tower downtown.

His driver walked me to the elevator, and the man in the gray jacket walked me to the door of the exam room.

"I'll be right here, Mrs. Stockwell."

"I know."

I told the nurse I needed the bathroom.

I took the corridor past it, and the corridor past that.

There was a gray fire door at the end with a red bar.

I put both hands on the bar.

If I was wrong, the alarm would ring, and Kenneth would hear about it before lunch.

I pushed.

The door opened without a sound, and cold stairwell air hit my face.

Somebody had taped over the latch.

I ran.

I ran down three flights holding my stomach, my heels in one hand, through a door that let out on a loading dock, through a gap between two vans.

Behind me, a shout.

The man in the gray jacket had found the empty exam room.

I heard him say my name into his phone, flat and urgent.

I heard his boots on the stairs, heavy and fast.

A black car idled at the end of the alley with the passenger door already open.

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