Nora’s POV
I called her from the stairwell. Not the elevator, not my office, not the parking garage where the acoustics were bad and sound traveled in directions you didn't expect. The stairwell between four and five had a heavy fire door that sealed out the ward noise completely. I sat on the third step from the bottom and pulled up Mrs. Holt's number and breathed once — all the way out, slow, the full length of it.
Then I called. She picked up on the fourth ring, voice thick with sleep but not alarmed. A woman who'd raised four children had long ago stopped treating late-night calls as emergencies until she had evidence they were.
"Mrs. Holt, it's Nora Quinn. I'm so sorry for the hour."
"Nora." The soft click of a bedside lamp. A small shuffle of someone sitting up. "Everything all r
