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         Copyright © 2009 by Thomas Perry

         To Jo, Alix, and Isabel

1

The girl kept half-turning in the back seat to stare out the rear window of the cab, as though she were being chased across Buffalo to the hospital. It made Pete Sawicki as nervous as she was. He kept flicking his eyes to the rearview mirror, but all the way to the hospital he saw trucks, people driving station wagons to the supermarket, kids throwing baseballs beside empty streets—nothing at all that was suspicious except her. He pulled up to the emergency room entrance and got out of his cab to open her door.

She had a pretty face. She was very young, maybe even jailbait, with long light brown hair, eyes that looked gray-green, full lips that seemed to pout as she concentrated on getting out of the back seat of the cab. Pete held his hand out to help her, but she deflected his attention with a look that went past him as though he were gone already. Usually somebody who wanted a cab ride to the hospital emergency room wanted a hand.

She stood and once again her belly showed, stood out from her body under the loose shirt. It was none of his business, but Pete couldn't help seeing the pregnancy as tragic in somebody her age. How could it not be?

"How much?" she said, her hand already moving into her purse.

"Eight bucks. "

She frowned. "It can't be. "

He pretended to look inside at the meter, and chuckled to himself. "You're right. It's twelve. " He took the fifteen dollars she handed him.

"Thanks. And thanks for noticing that. " He stepped around the cab to his door, watched her walking to the emergency room, and waited until he saw the glass doors slide open to admit her and then close. He got back into the cab, reached into his pocket, took out a ten-dollar bill to pay for the rest of her fare, and put it into the cashbox. Then he drove out the circular drive. He supposed he would head out to the airport and take a place in the line there. It was still early in the day and flights from the west would start coming in soon.

AT THE RECEPTION DESK the woman in the uniform told the girl to sit and wait, but the triage nurse came out only a couple of minutes later and brought her into an office. The nurse said, "If you've got to be in the emergency room, you picked a good time. Beginning in the late afternoon, things get pretty hectic. " The girl recited the symptoms as well as she could remember them, and then she had to answer the nurse's questions. Some were the obvious ones anyone would ask a pregnant woman, and some seemed to be all-purpose questions for emergency rooms. If you answered yes to any of them, you would belong in a hospital.

When the nurse started to stand, the girl said abruptly, "Do you happen to know a woman named Jane Whitefield?"

"I'm not sure. I may have heard the name. Why?"

"Oh, it's not important. Somebody I know told me if I was in this hospital I should say hello for her. "