Chapter 6: Midnight Rounds
I was back in the corridor before Prescott finished his second message.
Yates was already inside the medical suite.
I stopped at the glass.
He was standing at Blythe's bed, not examining her — standing.
His back was to the door.
He was looking at the medication log.
The same page Miriam had read twice.
He turned it back.
Then forward.
His shoulders were very still.
I pushed the door open.
He turned around.
His expression arranged itself into something calm, but the log was still in his hand and he hadn't put it down.
"Lawson.
I didn't expect you to be awake."
"I could say the same."
He set the log down on the tray beside the bed.
Carefully.
"I wanted to check on them.
I had a concern about Blythe's numbers from this afternoon."
"What concern?"
"Her white count.
It dropped slightly more than I'd anticipated." He moved toward the door, toward me.
"Nothing alarming.
I just wanted to verify the overnight readings."
"At midnight."
"I take my patients seriously." He stopped a few feet away.
"Is there something wrong, Lawson?"
"Should there be?"
He studied me.
He was good at this — the measured pause, the steady eye contact, the slight tilt of concern.
I had read it as competence for eighteen months.
"You seem tense," he said.
"My children are dying.
I'm always tense."
Something moved behind his eyes.
Not guilt.
Calculation.
"Of course." He nodded.
"Get some rest.
I'll have updated numbers for you at morning rounds."
He moved to step past me.
"Franklin."
He stopped.
"Who recommended you for this position?"
A beat.
Very small.
A person who didn't know him would have missed it.
"You reached out to my practice directly.
Don't you remember?
Your assistant called."
"My assistant called your practice," I said.
"But someone gave her your name.
Do you know who that was?"
He looked at me with an expression of mild confusion that was almost perfect.
"I assumed it came from a referral within your network.
I never asked."
"Interesting."
"Lawson—"
"Good night, Franklin."
He left.
I stood at the glass and watched the twins breathe.
In.
Out.
Jonah's chest rising and falling.
Blythe's fingers curled loosely against the sheet.
Miriam appeared at my shoulder.
She had been in the side room the entire time.
"He checked the log," she said quietly.
"I know."
"He saw that a page had been turned."
"I know."
"If he suspects someone has been in here reviewing the medication records—"
"He'll move faster." I turned away from the glass.
"Which means we move faster."
I called Prescott.
"I need you to pull the original intake file from eighteen months ago.
The call log from my assistant's office.
Every name she contacted before Yates was hired."
"It's past midnight."
"Prescott."
"I'll have it in an hour."
I went back to my office and sat at the desk with Genevieve's letter open in front of me.
I read the relevant section again.
*Crosby came to me eight months before you ended the partnership.
He told me things about you — things I didn't believe.
When I told him I didn't believe them, he stopped being kind.
He said the children would make you understand eventually.
I didn't know what he meant.
I should have told you.
I'm sorry I didn't tell you.*
Eight months before the partnership ended.
The twins had shown their first symptoms seven months before the partnership ended.
I sat with that for a long time.
At one in the morning, Prescott knocked and entered with a printed call log.
He set it on the desk without a word.
The third entry down read: *Referral — Dr.
F.
Yates — source: C.
Vane office.*
I looked at it for a moment.
Then I picked up the card Nora had given me and turned it over in my hand.
Aldric Boone.
South side address.
Tomorrow.
Alone.
May you like
Whatever Genevieve had hidden, it was the only thread left that Crosby Vane didn't know about.
I had to reach it before he realized I was looking.
