“Sorry for the delay,” Dr. Aster says. “It’s been a while. I thought we should do the whole detail.”

“Tests, tests, and more tests,” my father says. “Is that all you people know how to do?” The best measure of my dad’s health is how rude he is.

“Is everything okay?” I ask, turning away from Shariah.

Dr. Aster’s eyes flicker.

“We’ll know in a few days, when all the test results come back,” he says. “Meantime, he should take it easy. Rest. Using a heating pad and ibuprofen should be fine.”

My father shakes his head, rolls his eyes to the ceiling. “Five hundred dollars,” he mumbles, “and a prayer.”

Even as I help my father toward the door, Shariah Dobbs calls out to me, “Nice to see you, Abby. Take care of yourself.”

“You too,” I say. I can’t bring myself to meet her eyes, though. I can’t breathe through a burst of sudden fear at the thought of babies with soft skulls and brains that won’t grow. Weak spots.

Chapter Twenty-Five

A sleek Lincoln Town Car is parked at the curb by the time I get home—I’ve kept it waiting. A crow is pecking in the dirt. I can’t stop seeing little baby Grayson, his furry eyebrows and the scalp drawn too close.

One for sorrow.

Hannah is kneeling on the sidewalk in front of Condor’s place, shading a gigantic chalk flower, which blooms next to a clutter of smiley faces, all of them pink or green. She has only two nubs of chalk left. I wave. She sits back on her heels to stare, wrapping her arms around her legs.

“Is that your car?” she asks.

“Just for the night. Pretty sweet, huh?”

Her eyes go from me, to the driver, back to me. “Are you famous?”

That makes me laugh. “Not even close.”

“I’m going to be famous someday.” She returns to her drawing, pushing hard on the chalk to scrape color onto the sidewalk.

“Oh yeah? For what?”

She shrugs. “Maybe dancing,” she says. “Or drawing. Or maybe for discovering aliens.”

“Aliens, huh?” In the house, Condor is framed perfectly in the window. It looks like he’s singing along to something on the radio. He’s shirtless. His hair is finger-combed; I imagine it still wet from a shower. I remember the pull of his lips, the way his hands felt holding on to my waist. “So long as you keep them away from me.”

“Aliens don’t hurt people, silly!” she says. She looks up at me serenely. “Only people hurt people.”

That’s the thing with kids: they’re way smarter than you think.

—

People do and say lots of crazy things in cabs, and private car services are no exception. Something about the division between the front seat and the back makes passengers think they’re invisible. And for that reason, drivers are gold mines of information. Prestige Limo shows up again and again in Optimal’s tax records. It’s a shot in the dark, but if Lilian McMann is right—if Optimal is wining, dining, and bribing politicians for favors—there must be evidence somewhere, and chances are the drivers have witnessed it, whether they realize it or not.