“Yes.”
“You look stunned.”
She shook her head slowly and took a sidelong glance at her office. “I am.” The left wall looked like a checkerboard of pink and blue, adorned with contiguous pictures of her patients’ babies.
“My sister just had a baby. A girl. It was an unexpected early delivery.”
Banks’s face relaxed. “Well, isn’t that nice.”
“She’s seven pounds four ounces. Sophia Roxanne.”
It was the name she had always wanted for a daughter.
Banks nodded. “What a blessing.”
She smiled, turning her wheelchair toward the door behind her. “I’m off to go meet her now. See you next time.”
Leaning forward, she propelled her wheelchair to the door and pushed it open without waiting for Banks’s reply. The hallway gleamed white, no longer sterile and monochrome, but dazzling. For a moment, she thought about going to tell the Ericsons, but they were busy with patients. As soon as the workday ended, she would call them. Instead, she dashed to the waiting room, waved to a few regulars there, and then flew out the door onto the sidewalk. The air was chilly and nipped at her face as she rode jubilantly through the park, savoring the scent of cool freshness after rain. When she flew over a puddle and it splashed up to her blouse, she laughed and went faster, speeding past the fountain, under the glorious arch, and veering left, straight into her building’s lobby.
In the elevator, she took her cell phone out of her pocket and called Trent, drumming her fingers excitedly on her armrest. If only she could see his face. She wondered if he would scream or stay silent, or even cry.
One, two, three, four rings passed before his voice mail picked up. Undeterred, she tried again. One, two, three four, voice mail. Growing frustrated, she tried once more. But his phone continued to ring, unanswered.
* * *
Dopp worked quickly, rewriting the department’s application to bug Arianna’s cell phone. This time, he thought, they’d better be assigned a good old-fashioned judge who could smell something foul when it stank up the room. Senator Windra ought to help land them the right judge, if he was sincere about wanting to support the department. But Dopp was putting off making the call to Albany. Part of him worried that the senator would lose respect for him for asking a favor, that it undermined his own leadership skills to rely on political connections. But then again, that feminist judge had not given their application a fair review. It was up to Dopp to set it right. He knew he needed to shun that worst of human sins—his own pride—and just make the call.
At that moment, his phone rang. No way, he thought, it would be too lucky. He waved his hand over the desk phone’s speaker to answer.
“Gideon Dopp,” he intoned.
“Boss. I have an update.”
Dopp recognized Banks’s throaty voice immediately. “Yeah, what’s up?”
“She left. Said her sister just gave birth, and took off. She was happier than I ever saw.”
Dopp’s skin prickled. “How did she find out?”
“She got a call on her cell.”
“If only that idiot judge had approved our application already!”
“I know.”
“So you don’t know where she went?”
“No.” Banks’s voice wavered. “I guess to a hospital. I just thought you should know.”
“Obviously. Thank you.” Dopp said good-bye and waved his hand over his desk phone’s speaker to turn it off.
For a few moments, he sat completely still, wondering why the hair on his arms was taut and his skin cold. His intuition was a precise instrument, as reliable as a compass, and he knew never to ignore it. On a hunch, he reached into his filing cabinet for a manila folder labeled, ARIANNA DRAKE/WASHINGTON SQUARE CENTER FOR REPRODUCTIVE MEDICINE.
The thick folder held all the information Trent had compiled about her over the past several months, complete with transcripts of their conversations, notes about her moods, and sly observations of her comings and goings.
Dopp turned back to the records of their earliest conversations, when she and Trent had talked during breaks in their bike rides. He skimmed the mostly boring pages, flipping through them quickly. And then he gasped.
Her words were right there on the page, woven into a stock conversation about their family histories, an incidental revelation that held no meaning until this moment:
DRAKE: You’re an only child? So am I.
* * *
Trent’s cell phone began to vibrate as soon as Dopp rushed into his office. But a more pressing matter than the call confronted him: Dopp’s eyes were wide enough to reveal the whites all around his dark brown irises. His lopsided lips were parted and moist, and a glint in his eyes signaled an alarming level of intensity.
“What is Arianna’s sister’s name?” Dopp demanded, clutching the side of the doorframe as if to steady himself.
“What’s what?”
“You heard me.”
“I—I don’t understand. What are you talking about?”
In Trent’s pocket, his cell phone began to vibrate against his thigh for a second time.
“What I am talking about,” Dopp said, “is Arianna’s sister. Do you know her name?”
“I thought she was an only child like me.”
Dopp’s face flushed, taking on a feverish tint. “You’re right.”
Trent felt his heart smack against his ribs. “What’s going on?”
“Banks just called from her clinic. She had some sort of ecstatic outburst and then took off, telling him that her sister just had a baby. But isn’t it funny—” Dopp paused, handing Trent a single sheet of paper that he remembered typing two months before. “She told you she’s an only child.”
Trent took the paper and skimmed it as his cell phone vibrated a third time. He realized then who might be calling … an ecstatic outburst … Could Sam have—?
“I don’t understand,” he said. “Where did she run off to?”
“That’s the whole point! That woman is a liar, and now we’ve caught her in the act! If she doesn’t have a sister, where in the world did she go? And why?”
Trent shook his head. “I wish I could tell you. I’m as confused as you are.”
“Call her right now,” Dopp instructed.
