He Let Our Baby Die Over a Hospital Bill novel · Chapter 24 of 32

Chapter 24: The Counter

Gina didn't lower the spoon.

"It's midnight," she said. "Again. What is it with you people and midnight?"

"I walked," Kaylin said. "From Larimer. I couldn't call a car."

"Why not?"

Kaylin laughed, a short, ugly sound.

"Because it's after six."

I stood behind Gina in the kid's blue blanket.

I didn't step back, and I didn't invite her in.

"Show me," I said.

Kaylin held out the phone.

It was EvenUp, but not a screen I'd ever seen. Black, with thin gold lines.

At the top it said INTIMACY.

Under it there were two columns.

One said N.K. The last date on it was the week before Linden House.

The other said K.S.

It started in Aspen.

Every date had a tally mark. Every tally had twelve dollars and fifty cents next to it.

At the bottom, in the same gray letters, it said: Rate: half of a standard date night.

"He had it open on the counter," Kaylin said. "Last night. In my kitchen. He went to shower and I picked it up to check the time."

Her voice wobbled and she made it stop.

"I've seen your page thirty-one a thousand times. Everybody has. I thought it was just you. I thought it was because you were difficult."

"It was never because I was difficult," I said.

She swiped.

A second screen. A balance, in red.

K.S. owes H.K.: $9,000.00.

"I asked him if I could keep the apartment after the listing," she said. "That's all. He says the roadshow needs clean optics, and I'm not clean optics anymore. I'm supposed to be out by the end of September."

"And when you asked to stay?"

"He sent me that. Half the furniture. Half the flights. Plus interest."

I looked at the number.

Nine thousand dollars.

The same nine thousand I'd found with a yellow highlighter at Gina's kitchen table, billed to me as household travel.

He'd billed it to both of us.

"He froze my card at 6:01 tonight," she said. "I couldn't buy an umbrella."

She waited.

I knew what she was waiting for. The hand on the arm. The towel. The poor thing.

I didn't give it to her.

I didn't close the door, either.

"Why are you here, Kaylin?"

She looked at Gina's spoon, and then at me.

Then she reached into the inside pocket of her ruined blazer and took out a little silver drive in a plastic bag.

"I've been his assistant for three years," she said. "I export things for him. Board stuff. Support reports."

She held the bag out.

"Support has a tag. Medical-freeze. Every time somebody writes in from an ER or a pharmacy or a hospital, they tag it."

"How many?"

"Three hundred and forty. In two years."

The hallway was very quiet. Even the hall light stopped buzzing.

"There's a thread on top of them," she said. "In the support channel. A girl on the team asked for an override button. For emergencies. She wrote a whole proposal."

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