CHAPTER 2 - THE CALL SHE HIDES.

Georgina's phone had rang again, the Second time in ten minutes.

She didn't look at it.

That was the tell. Georgina looked at everything.

"You're not going to check that?"

"It's nothing." She was already sliding off the chair, already reaching for her bag.

"I should let you rest anyway."

"You just got here."

"I have a thing." She didn't say what thing. She never left a room without telling me exactly where she was going and why, down to the traffic she'd hit on the way.

Her hands moved too fast. Bag strap, jacket, phone, bag strap again.

"Georgina."

"What?"

"Nothing. You just seem—"

I didn't finish it. I didn't have the word yet.

"I'm fine. I'll be quick."

She was out the door before I could find one.

— GEORGINA —

The stairwell smelled like bleach and old coffee. I took it two floors down before I answered, because hospital walls were thinner than people thought.

"You can't keep calling during visiting hours."

"Is she asking questions?" The voice on the other end didn't do small talk anymore. Hadn't in weeks.

"No."

"No, or you don't think so?"

"I know her better than you do." My hand tightened around the rail. "She trusts me completely. That's the whole point, isn't it?"

"The point is she doesn't find out anything until it's too late to matter. Is the account still frozen?"

"As far as I know."

"Good. Keep her calm, Keep her close.  Georgina—" A pause I'd learned to hate.

"Don't let your conscience cost us both."

The line went dead before I could answer that.

I stood there a second longer than I needed to, phone still pressed to my ear like there was more to hear.

There wasn't.

I fixed my face in the elevator mirror before I went back up. Same soft eyes I'd been giving her for three weeks. It wasn't even hard anymore.That should have scared me more than it did.

"Everything okay?" Lauren asked when I walked back in.

"Fine, Work thing." I checked my watch, mostly to have something to do with my hands.

"I actually have to run. Client at six."

"On a Tuesday?"

"Clients don't care what day it is." I kissed her forehead. She still smelled like hospital soap. Like sickness trying to be clean. "I'll come tomorrow."

"You don't have to."

"I know I don't have to."

I left before she could look at me too long.

— LAUREN —

Dr Farrow didn't sit.

That was never good.

"Your latest bloodwork came back."

"And?"

"The markers are up. Significantly." He said it like he'd said it a hundred times to a hundred people, and it never got easier.

"I want to move to a more aggressive protocol. Starting this week."

"Then start it."

"There's a cost difference." He tapped the edge of the chart twice against his palm  a habit I'd never seen from him before.

"And there's a balance on your account that hasn't cleared in six weeks."

"That's not possible." My voice came out sharper than I meant it to.

"My husband handles the billing. Check again."

"I've checked twice, Mrs Roland."

"Then check a third time."

"I don't have insight into your finances." His voice stayed level, but his hand tightened on the chart.

"I have insight into what this hospital requires before it authorises further treatment. That's the extent of what I control here."

"Then what good is telling me this?" I heard how it sounded. I didn't take it back.

"Because you deserve to know before Friday, not after." A crack, finally  something almost tired underneath the calm. "I'm not the villain here."

"I didn't say you were." I had, a little. I heard it in my own voice, and I hated it. "I'm sorry. 

how much?"

He told me.

The number sat in the air between us like something solid.

"There has to be a mistake."

"I hope there is." He softened, just enough to make it worse. "I'd suggest calling your husband today. Not tomorrow."

"He'll answer."

"Okay."

"He will."

Dr Farrow didn't argue with me.

That was somehow worse than if he had.

I already had my phone in my hand.

Busy tone.

I hung up. Dialled again.

Busy.

"Jack, pick up," I said it out loud, to no one, my thumb hovering over the screen like pressing harder would change something on the other end.

Third call. Same flat sound.

"Come on. Come on, come on—"

I tried his office line instead. His assistant picked up.

"He's in a meeting, Mrs Roland. I can have him call you back."

"Tell him it's urgent. Tell him it's about the hospital."

"I'll pass it along."

She wouldn't. I already knew she wouldn't with  the way I knew a lot of things now that I'd stopped letting myself believe them.

Dr Farrow was still standing there when I lowered the phone.

"I can give you until Friday," he said. "After that, I can't hold the treatment."

"Sorry doesn't pay a bill."

"No," he said quietly. "It doesn't."

— —

The nurse didn't say I was being discharged. She said, "Let's get you comfortable at home," which meant the same thing with better manners.

My clothes went back into the bag I'd brought them in. My medication went into a smaller one — three days' worth, not ten.

"Fill the rest once things are sorted," she said, taping a printout to the bag.

"Once things are sorted."

"That's what it says here."

Her hands moved quickly and clipped over the paperwork the practised efficiency of someone who had this exact conversation weekly and had learned not to let it slow her down.

I didn't argue. I turned the ring on my finger instead. Thin gold. Looser than it used to be.

The cab was waiting outside.

"Home?" the driver asked, watching me in the mirror.

"Home," I said, and gave him the address like it still meant what it used to.

I kept my hand curled around the ring the whole drive so it wouldn't slip.

The hospital shrank to a smear of white in the side mirror. I watched it disappear, and some stupid part of me still believed Jack would fix everything before I even got home.