Page 82 of Old Money

I nod, thanking her absently as I turn for the door.

“You could try Valley Medical,” the nurse calls. “They’re the closest emergency surgical unit.”

I pause, confused. Valley Medical is something like twenty miles north.Why would they bring him all the way there, and not a local hospital?But then the wordsurgicalsinks in.

I drive to Jamie’s apartment first. I still don’t remember which unit is his, but I don’t have to. There’s only one without a car in the driveway.

I smell charcoal, I think, my pulse pounding.I hear fireworks on the river. I see a darkened window.

I drive north toward the highway, my phone on speaker. I punch buttons with my thumb, navigating Valley Medical’s phone menu, trying not to look at the time. I imagine Jamie laughing at me.You went to the hospital? Seriously?He’d say something about how the amateur sleuthing had gotten to me. Thenhe’d give me the perfectly reasonable, obvious explanation for what had happened.

Except I can’t think of one that doesn’t end with something terrible happening to him. And the idea of something terrible happening to him—on this night, in this year—while I listened on the other end of the phone, seems too surreal a coincidence.

There’s a click on the line as someone answers my call.

“Emergency,” the voice says. “Nurses station.”

“Hi, I’m trying to find a friend of mine who may have been brought in.”

“Are you a relative or emergency contact?”

“No, I—”

“I won’t be able to help then.”

“No, I know. But is there any information youcangive me?”

“Not regarding patients. Is that all?”

“No, wait.”

I strain for a reason.

“I was at a bar with my friend,” I spit out suddenly. “We left at the same time, around ten.”

The voice waits. I wince into the silence.

“He wasn’t drunk. I just— He split off and took the highway. He was somewhere near Ashborough—”

The nurse cuts in.

“And he was in an accident?”

“I think so. I think I heard it.” I cringe again, preemptively. “We were talking on the phone.”

Another long pause. I can hear the hospital in the background: overlapping voices, distant beeps, the click-clack chatter of keyboards.

“I’m looking,” the nurse says finally.

“Thank you, thank you so much,” I say, though my shoulders tense up.

“We did have a car accident around eleven. Came in via ambulance.”

“Oh my God, really? You did? Are they—” I clear my creaking throat. “Were they discharged already? Does it say that?”

“You’re not an immediate relative, correct?”

“No.” My voice wobbles. “A friend.”