The Wife He Buried Alive novel · Chapter 14 of 32

Chapter 14: Whose Boy

We were at the children's hospital in twenty-two minutes.

Winston drove, and neither of us said a word about the buttons on the floor of his suite.

Milo lay under a heated blanket with his cheeks bright red.

Bev stood at the foot of the bed with her glasses pushed up into her hair.

"One hundred and three," she said. "The nurse already drew cultures."

I took his small hot hand, and he opened his eyes a crack.

"Mama. Is the man here?"

"I'm here," Winston said from the door.

He did not come closer until I nodded.

Then he knelt by the bed and put his forehead against the rail.

"Hi, Milo."

"Hi. You're wearing yesterday's shirt."

I bit down on a laugh that came out as a sob.

The doctor came in at seven and spoke to both of us at the window.

"It's a line infection, and we caught it early," she said. "Antibiotics should clear it. If he's afebrile by Monday, we go Tuesday as planned."

"And if he isn't?" I asked.

"Then we wait, and every day we wait costs him."

Winston turned to the glass.

"He'll be well by Monday," he said.

"You don't get to promise that," I said.

"I know. I'm promising it anyway."

I did not argue.

We went down to the lobby at nine because Bev had told us to eat, and there were cameras at the doors.

There had been cameras for a week, but now there were three trucks and a crowd of at least thirty.

A man at the front held up a phone with a headline on it.

DEAD WIFE'S SECRET: WHOSE BOY IS MILO GARRICK?

Winston stopped walking.

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