I feel strangely alert this morning.

I probably shouldn’t be, considering how little sleep I got. I spent almost an hour cleaning up the blood on the floor, but there was a very visible crimson stain left behind. If anyone searches my basement, I’m finished—I need to find some cleaning supplies specifically for getting rid of bloodstains.

I also attempted to change the lightbulb, but it turned out it wasn’t blown out after all. It just needed to be screwed in all the way. Then once I was done in the basement, I found the key to the basement door on my keyring. And I locked it.

I had a lot of trouble sleeping last night. I kept thinking about Barber getting a search warrant for my house and seeing the pool of blood on the floor. If that had happens, well, I don’t even want to think about it.

But after I got to the hospital at five-thirty, I quickly drank two cups of coffee, and now I’ve got a hyper sort of energy. Once I finished my first surgery of the morning, I called the lawyer that Philip recommended to me, Patricia Holstein. She sounded pretty busy, but when I told her the truth about who I am, she miraculously managed to clear some things off her schedule. We’ll be meeting outside the police station ten minutes before I’m supposed to be there.

Hopefully, I won’t need a lawyer. But I’m scared after what I saw in my basement, it’s only a matter of time.

I’ve been checking the news obsessively on my phone, but I haven’t seen anything about me on there. I assumed by now everyone would know who I really am. But even though Aaron Nierling is in the news, Nora Nierling is not. My secret is still safe.

For now.

While I am sitting in the surgery lounge, sipping on my third cup of coffee of the morning, I get a 911 page from the emergency room. I grab the

nearest phone and call back. “Dr. Davis, trauma surgery.”

“Dr. Davis.” The voice on the other line is breathless. “This is Dr. Danfield in the ER. We have a twenty-seven-year-old female, Kayla Ramirez, who was in a head-on motor vehicle accident. We had her in the CT scanner and she lost consciousness. We can’t get a blood pressure. We’ve got two large-bore IVs in her, and we just intubated her. The CT looks like a splenic laceration.”

Before she’s even finished the description of the patient, I’m on my feet. “Prep her and get her to the OR right now. I’m on my way. And order a type and cross for two units of blood.”

I’m glad I had that third cup of coffee because now I’m buzzing. I head straight over to the OR, because if I don’t figure out where this woman is bleeding from fast, she’s going to die.

The patient is coming out of the elevators just as I arrive up at the OR. I give them instructions to take her into the first available room and get her prepped, and I go to scrub in. I’m very fast at scrubbing in. I still remember when I was a student, Philip used to tease me about how long it took me. When you are a medical student, they instruct you to scrub every side of every finger individually ten times. They must do it to torture us. I’ve never seen any professional scrub that way.

When I get into Operating Room Six, Kayla Ramirez is splayed out on the operating table, her abdomen draped and ready. The room is silent except for the soft murmur of anxious discussion about the unstable patient. Some surgeons listen to music as they operate, but I prefer not to unless the anesthesiologist requests it. I like to work in silence. I want to give my entire focus to what’s in front of me.

The scrub nurse is ready to put on my gown and gloves, and as those blue gloves slide onto my hands, I feel that familiar jolt of anticipation. Even after all these years, I still get that adrenaline rush every time I know I’m going to cut into somebody.

That must be what my father felt. But this is entirely different. He took those girls’ lives. I’m going to save this girl.

Or at least, I hope so.

“Scalpel,” I say as I hold out my right hand.

The scrub nurse hands me my scalpel. I look down at Kayla Ramirez’s abdomen, which is yellow from the Betadine. Her skin is smooth and

perfect—no surgical incisions I can see, not even from an appendectomy. I will be making the virgin cut on her abdomen. That is the best kind. It’s much less enjoyable to cut through scar tissue.

I slide my scalpel vertically down the length of her abdomen, the blade going into her flesh like butter. At first, the blood oozes out, but after I cut through the linea alba, I find myself confronting a pool of blood filling the entire inside of her abdominal cavity. The scrub nurse quickly suctions it away, but almost instantly, it fills up again.

“Shit,” I breathe.

The scan of her abdomen was correct. She has a laceration of her spleen, and now she’s bleeding from one of the vessels. And if I don’t find and clamp whatever is bleeding, she’s not going to survive this surgery.

“Clamp,” I say.

I feel around blindly in the abdomen. I know abdominal anatomy so well. I always said I knew it with my eyes closed, and here’s my chance to put my money where my mouth is. I’ve got to clamp off the blood supply to the spleen, and I’ve got to do it with a belly full of blood blocking my vision.

“Do you want me to suction again?” the scrub nurse asks me.

I shake my head. The pressure of the blood in her belly is probably the only thing keeping more blood from gushing out. If we suction, that pressure will be gone. I have no choice but to work blind.

I hold my breath as I feel around, recognizing the edges of the spleen, orienting myself with the anatomy. Everyone in the room is watching me, collectively holding their breath. Where are those two units of blood I ordered goddammit? This girl is going to need it.

Then I find the blood vessel I’m looking for. I put the clamp on it, mentally crossing my fingers. I raise my eyes to look up at the scrub nurse. “Suction,” I say.

The nurse suctions out her belly. I bite down on my lip hard enough to draw some of my own blood, but nobody can see it because I’ve got my mask on. I watch as the crimson drains out of Kayla Ramirez’s belly and…

I did it. I stopped the bleeding.

The room bursts into applause. I did it—I saved this young woman’s

life.

I finish up the splenectomy, which goes relatively smoothly after that. I close up Kayla’s belly, living behind a trail of staples that mar her formerly perfect skin. Everyone is patting me on the back after that one. Great work, Dr. Davis.

I wonder what they would say if they knew about those two dead girls.