I fill Zach in on what I know and by the time we get to the hospital, Diana is so far into the bowels of the building and system I can’t find her. I send Blake a couple of texts and voicemails telling him what I know and where we’re going.

The first thing that strikes me is the smell. Disinfectant, acidic medicine odors, maybe cafeteria food, all wrapped up in a basket of fear and pain. I tumble back to all of those days with Mom. The waiting, witnessing her decline and the agony of the monster growing within her, stealing her life cell by cell. I grip Zach’s hand.

Thank you.

Alone, I wouldn’t be able to face another hospital, another fight where I stand helplessly on the sidelines.

The young man at the ER check-in desk can only tell me she’d been admitted and whisked away immediately. He sits in a glassed office with a door opening into the hidden reaches of the hospital. A double door off the right of where he sits remains closed. The waiting room is full of people holding bloody clothes to various places, coughing children, listless older people. Basically, walking wounded waiting for anyone to care.

I fly out the emergency room doors and find the main entrance. Zach stays with me, only asking once where we’re going. My plan is to ask for information at the front desk. If they can’t tell me anything, I’ll find a way to sneak down the corridors and find Diana.

That doesn’t work because the front desk is closed and we’re escorted out the front by two large security guards.

Back in the ER, Zach stands next to me as I badger the guy behind the counter for the hundredth time in the last hour. “Diana Lincoln.” I say her name slowly and with all the tension I feel. “She’s in here somewhere. Can’t you tell me anything?”

He eyes me with irritation and stands up. “Let me go see if I can find out.”

Zach takes my hand as I fidget by the desk. “You’re a good friend.”

I can barely speak through the fear, rage, and frustration. “If I was such a good friend, I would have stopped her from being with Don. I didn’t like him from the beginning. There was something creepy about him and I felt it.”

“You can’t protect people from themselves,” he says.

The guy saunters from where he’d disappeared behind the office he guards. He plops down in his chair as if he’s just returned from scaling Mt. Fuji. “Okay. Diana Lincoln is in surgery. Take a seat and the surgeon will find you when it’s over.”

“Surgery? For what? How bad is it? I need to talk to someone.” I lean over the counter and pound my hand on the surface.

The guy scowls at me.

Zach pulls me across the waiting room to outside. The heat of the tropical night slaps me and I take a deep breath of the humid air. I pace several steps, spin and pace back. I keep that up for a while until some pent-up frustration works its way out. “I want to find Don and beat the crap out of him. He should be in here instead of Diana.” I start to shake. “All she wanted was for someone to love her and take care of her.”

Before the tears fall, Zach holds me and I cling to him. “She didn’t deserve this.”

“What if she’s not okay?” Memories of those last moments with Mom swamp me. There was a moment, three days before she died, when the blinders fell from my eyes. Until then, I had hope. I believed she’d get better and we’d go on as before. That we were only working through a tough time. It wasn’t even a big, pivotal event that made it clear to me. I’m simply returned from lunch and bopped into her room, eager to tell her a funny story about two women I’d seen outside. I started talking before I looked at the bed. When I did, everything in me stopped. Like a wind-up toy whose key quits spinning.

Mom lay on her back sleeping. Her head tipped back and her mouth wide. For the first time I saw her gray skin, the hollowness of her face, the way her teeth seemed enormous. She was hardly more than a skeleton and I knew.

After that, I kept up a false cheer for her benefit. She knew she was dying and I knew, but I didn’t want her to feel I’d already started mourning.

I can’t go through that again. Not with Diana.

I realize Zach’s shirt is wet from my tears. That isn’t going to help anything. Before I can step out of his embrace Zach jerks and inhales sharply. He swings me around and drags me back toward the ER door. “Damnit.”

I try to pull my head from his chest but he palms the back of my head and slams my face into his shirt. “What the hell?” I struggle against him.

“Hurry, Kylie. We’ve got to get you out of here.” He yanks me into the building and lets go.

Half mad, half scared, I don’t know what to think. “What’s going on?”

He casts around, studying the doors to the rooms in back. Finally, he shoves me toward the restroom. “Go in there. Don’t come out until I’m gone or it gets quiet. Or, hell, I don’t know, just go.”

“What’s happening?”

He’s halfway to the door on his way out. “The camera. I’ll take care of it, but you’ve got to hide. Now.”