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Dinah

She is sleeping on her side, and stirs when I enter but doesn’t wake. I leave the door cracked so some of the hall’s light comes in.

Her dark hair is a mess on the pillow, and for the first time since she was admitted, I take a moment to really look at her.

She’s got long lashes. A thin nose with a slight bump.

Some acne scars on her cheeks. I think of my own acne, which flared to maximum levels that summer I was away.

She’s been drooling, and I stare at the dried saliva and resist the urge to wipe it off.

She is a problem, I remind myself. That’s it. A problem that needs to be eliminated. I can’t think of her as a person.

Instead, I think of Joe. The tender brush of his fingers across my cheek. Our future. Him going gray. The afternoons we will share. The trips we will take. We have decades ahead of us, decades that could be destroyed by this one thing. This one problem.

Reese Bishop is taken care of. Now for the last piece of the equation.

Her hand with the IV port is tucked under the pillow, and I reach for her arm and pull it. She startles at the touch and opens her eyes, her body tensing.

“It’s okay,” I say softly. “I just need to give you some medicine.”

She lets me take her hand and I turn it over, checking the IV. It’s still in place, though it will need to be changed in the next day or two.

“No pills?” She sounds groggy, and I’m not sure if it’s from sleep or the effect of whatever Joe gave her earlier. That should be wearing off, and I check my watch as I twist the IV tube into place. 12:17 a.m. I have plenty of time.

I reach into my pocket and close my hand around the small glass vial of pentobarbital. It will take a few minutes; then she’ll be out and I’ll be free to do what needs to be done.

I withdraw the vial and connect it to the IV, watching as the clear solution pulls through the line and toward her hand. Now to sit and wait.

“Are you the nurse?” She clears her throat and shifts on the bed into a more upright position. I watch her but don’t move to help.

“Yes.”

“What’s with the outfit?” She gestures with her IV-laden hand to my hoodie and sweats.

“I just came in for this. We forgot to give it to you earlier.”

“So, no Dr. Joe,” she drawls, and I can hear the disappointment in her voice. I don’t blame her. Anyone would be attracted to Joe. He’s the most beautiful man in the world.

“No consult tonight, no. You can relax and go back to sleep.” I pat her arm despite myself.

“Wait a moment, please. Do you have a sec?” Her voice is so small, the question a plea.

“I’ve really got to go,” I say, but I don’t move from my spot by the bed. Her eyes are fully open now, studying me, and I feel naked without the face mask that I typically wear in the patient rooms.

“Wait, I know you.” She straightens, and how she knows anything with all the drugs in her system is beyond me.

“Yes, I’ve been in here before. I brought you tampons.” I should leave, let her drift off to sleep alone, but my feet seem to be rooted to the tile floor.

“No, I mean outside of here.”

I’m shaking my head, but she grabs my arm, squeezing it. “You know my mom. Reese Bishop.”

My mom. Reese Bishop. I thought of the scrawny woman sitting across from me at the Italian café, her long fingers pushing the contract forward.

I’ve kept my portion of it. She and her defective heart haven’t.

“I’ve seen the file on her death, but I don’t know her.” I reach down and peel back her fingers. Any moment, the vial should start to work, and her eyes will get heavy, her grip weak. Right now, it’s a vise, and maybe that’s what five hours a day of scooping ice cream gets you. Cavewoman hands.

“She showed me a picture of you once and told me about you.”

My throat closes at the thought. “Couldn’t have been me.”

“No, it was. I’m scarily good at remembering things.”

Go figure. What’s with Chunky Mike’s employees and photographic memories? I yank my arm free and check my watch. 12:21 a.m. Talk about time passing slowly. “I’m going to step out. Go back to sleep.” I stand and head out.

“I didn’t kill her, you know.”

I pause halfway to the door. “I believe you.”

“Can I tell you a secret?”

Oh, the six words no detective—or woman, for that matter—can resist. I turn, certain that no matter what the secret is, I already know it. “Yes?”

“Dr. Joe says that I did it, but I told him I didn’t, and between you and me ...” She lowers her voice and now, finally, her eyelids are starting to droop. “I ...”

I don’t know what she was about to say, and it doesn’t matter.

Her mouth is open, her breathing loud and smooth, and I wish Joe slept like this.

As it is, he’s a silent snoozer. No snoring, no deep breathing, no hint if he is alive or dead, awake or asleep.

Early in our marriage, I would sneak over to his bed and rest my head on his chest in the middle of the night, just to make sure his heart was still beating.

I withdraw the scalpel and place it on the tray beside her bed, then reach for the plastic clipboard Joe left for her.

The photos from the scene are clipped in next to the autopsy reports and faux witness statements.

I flip through the pages, stopping to study the fake receipt from MedsUS.com that I created on my laptop.

It looks good, and I can only imagine how confused she was when she saw it.

I unclip the items and, with a swift downward motion, I smash the broad side of the clipboard against the edge of the footboard.

She doesn’t stir at the loud sound, and I crouch, picking up the bright-orange shards of the plastic board. There’s a nice jagged one with a sharp point, and I choose it and bring it over to her bed.

Her wounds are healing, the skin knitting together beneath the sutures.

I keep the scalpel handy but use the broken piece of plastic to slice along the seam of the stitches on her left wrist. Joe and I did this to her a week ago, our shoulders brushing against each other as we worked side by side in a continual thread of connection.

I held her down while he cut from the underside of her wrists to her forearms, deep enough to draw blood but not too deep to sever important tendons.

Then the repairs, our breaths commingling in the air above her, me stitching the seams closed while he dabbed the blood that seeped out.

This time, there will be no repair.

I reopen the cut and then reach for the scalpel to dig deeper and sever the veins and arteries that will drain her body of blood. Before I start, I take just one short moment to look at her.

I don’t have words for the mix of emotions that I feel, and maybe this is that protective instinct that so many crow over.

I don’t know her; she is a stranger, a distance I’ve made sure to preserve despite her time in this place.

But still, there is some invisible hand on my chest, telling me to stop.

To wait.

To protect.

To save.

I could save her. I could let her out of here and take her home. I could make sure that she grows old and has her own family and realizes her dreams and fights for them. I could do that, or I could kill her now. Extinguish that flame and everything her heart and soul beat for.

Killing her is the smarter path, a painful action now that will erase a lifetime of future problems. I clear my throat and steel myself, then tighten my grip on the scalpel and carefully bring it to her wrist.

I push the razor-sharp metal tip into the cut. Okay. One quick downward yank, and it will be done. I don’t have to be careful. I don’t have to worry about vital tendons or going too deep. The deeper, the better. The opening will fill with blood, and in just a few minutes, she’ll be gone.

“Dinah.”

I jump at his voice and whirl around to face the door.

Joe’s in jeans and a T-shirt, spare keys in hand, staring at me as if I have done something terrible.

“What are you doing here?” I breathe, trying to think of an explanation for why I’m here.

He shoulders past, knocking me out of the way, and I stumble, catching the wall to keep from falling. He checks Jessica’s IV, her pupils, then her wrist, and I try to pocket the scalpel, but he turns before I can and catches the motion.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he seethes.

I have no good explanation and am out of time. “She—She ...” I gasp for air and pull myself to my feet. “She’s in love with you,” I manage. “You should hear her talk about you. She’s planning to seduce you, Joe. She told me all about it.”

He looks down at her wrist, and even with just the opening of the stitches, it’s beginning to bleed. “Since when have you had to worry about that?”

This must be what drowning feels like. Flailing in place and not finding the surface. Choking despite every effort to open your mouth. He has to believe me. I was worried she would take him from me. That’s why I’m here. He knows how much I love him. It is plausible, if not out of character.

He turns to face me, and at this proximity, he towers above me, his face dark with anger. “Answer me,” he orders. “When, in all our time together, have you ever worried about me stepping out?”

Stepping out. Such an old phrase. I watch as he reaches into his pocket, and I try to sort out the right words to sell him on the scenario.

“You’re right,” I manage. “It was stupid of me. You’re just so perfect.

” I grab his arm, my eyes filling with genuine tears.

“I’m so sorry. I was just so afraid of losing you. ”

A truth, mixed in with all the lies, and my anger swells suddenly at her , lying there in the bed, the source of all of this. “I’m so sorry,” I repeat.

“Oh, Dinah,” he says, his voice sad. “I’m going to need more than that.”

I don’t understand, right away, what happens next. Why my butt cheek clenches with a sharp pain, why Joe is suddenly so close, pinning me to him, his features intense, his gaze tight on mine.

Then I realize what he’s done and I let out a sob—not so much from the pain, because that is slipping away, everything softening. No, the sob is for what is to come.

My husband doesn’t drug a woman unless he plans on treating her, and I cannot—will not—become his patient.