The institute’s glass doors opened before Julian’s transport stopped. He stumbled out in a stained, rumpled suit.
Paramedics unloaded the gurneys and pushed them through the doors. The heart monitors beeped faster as they entered.
They crowded the empty lobby.
Julian’s eyes scanned the vast, empty space and then shot upward toward the mezzanine. He found me standing there, looking down.
Two weeks earlier, he would have expected me beside the first gurney before it crossed the threshold. This time, I waited above him.
“Harper!” The name echoed across the lobby. “Get down here! My mother is dying! This is an emergency!”
I stayed on the mezzanine with my hands in the pockets of my Chief Partner’s lab coat. He shouted my name again.
Then I walked down the steel staircase. My heels sound
