THE SECOND PAYMENT
(Elena's POV)
Damian read my messages and didn't answer.
I had sent two. A nurse just called me. A man was in Mia's room tonight. Then, three minutes later, Where are you? Your study is empty.
I watched the word under them turn from Delivered to Read, and then I stood in his hallway at three in the morning and waited anyway, for no reason at all.
Then I got my keys.
I drove to the hospital with both hands on the wheel and the check-engine light burning at me from the dashboard, and for once it felt like company.
Yolanda was at the fourth-floor desk. Nine years of nights. She never looked surprised by anything, and that night her mouth was a flat line.
"Room four twelve," I said. "Tell me."
"Between midnight and two, a man was with her. He told the floor nurse he
