Marcus by the elevator.
Two secretaries peeking out of an office.
For seven months, every person in my life had decided what I could handle.
Now they were all waiting for me to decide for somebody else.
I could have done it.
One sentence.
Owen would have walked away.
Nate would have kept his secret.
Everything would have stayed buried.
Nice and quiet.
Like clean scrubs folded on a shelf.
“No,” I said.
Nate’s face fell.
“It’s not my decision, Nate.”
“And it’s not yours.”
“It never was.”
I turned to Owen.
“Do what you came here to do.”
Owen looked at me.
Then at Nate.
Then he pulled the door open.
He held it wide.
“Both of you,” he said.
“Come in.”
“I’m done doing things alone.”
Dr. Harold Voss sat behind a desk the size of a small car.
Silver hair.
Reading glasses.
A photo of a sailboat on the wall behind him.
He looked up.
He saw Owen.
He saw Nate.
He saw me.
He took off his glasses.
“Dr. Cole,” he said.
“You’re not supposed to be in this building.”
“I know,” Nate said.
“I’m leaving.”
“No,” Owen said.
“He’s staying.”
“And so is his wife.”
Marcus stood in the doorway.
Arms folded.
Watching.
Owen didn’t sit.
He stood at that desk like a man facing a judge.
“Dr. Voss,” he said.
“The night of November twenty-sixth, I was the on-call surgeon.”
“I didn’t answer four pages.”
“I didn’t answer because I was drinking.”
“Heavily.”
“Alone in my garage.”
“Dr. Cole operated on Maddie Harmon because I wasn’t there.”
“He’d been awake thirty-one hours covering my shifts.”
“Everything that happened to that little girl starts with me.”
“I want it on the record.”
“I’ve already called the state medical board.”
“They’re expecting my written statement Monday.”
The room went quiet.
Nate made a sound beside me.
Like something tearing.
Voss didn’t move.
He folded his hands on the desk.
He looked at Owen for a long time.
“Sit down, Dr. Pratt,” he said.
“I’ll stand.”
“Then stand,” Voss said.
“But you should know something first.”
He opened a drawer.
