“Okay. I’ll bring you an éclair.”

“There’s a whole bakery here already. Where are you, by the way?”

“Nowhere important. I’ll get with you as soon as I can.”

Hodges ends the call and hurries down the hall to the elevator.

3

Dr. Stamos’s eight-forty-five patient finally reappears from the exam area at the back. Mr. Hodges’s appointment was for nine, and it’s now nine thirty. The poor guy is probably impatient to do his business here and get rolling with the rest of his day. She looks out in the hall and sees Hodges talking on his cell.

Marlee rises and peeks into Stamos’s office. He’s sitting behind his desk with a folder open in front of him. KERMIT WILLIAM HODGES is computer-printed on the tab. The doctor is studying something in the folder and rubbing his temple, as though he has a headache.

“Dr. Stamos? Shall I call Mr. Hodges in?”

He looks up at her, startled, then at his desk clock. “Oh God, yes. Mondays suck, huh?”

“Can’t trust that day,” she says, and turns to go.

“I love my job, but I hate this part of it,” Stamos says.

It’s Marlee’s turn to be startled. She turns to look at him.

“Never mind. Talking to myself. Send him in. Let’s get this over with.”

Marlee looks out into the hall just in time to see the elevator door closing at the far end.

4

Hodges calls Holly from the parking garage next to the medical center, and when he gets to the Turner Building on Lower Marlborough, where their office is located, she’s standing out front with her briefcase planted between her sensible shoes. Holly Gibney: late forties now, tallish and slim, brown hair usually scrooped back in a tight bun, this morning wearing a bulky North Face parka with the hood up and framing her small face. You’d call that face plain, Hodges thinks, until you saw the eyes, which are beautiful and full of intelligence. And you might not really see them for a long time, because as a rule, Holly Gibney doesn’t do eye contact.

Hodges slides his Prius to the curb and she jumps in, taking off her gloves and holding her hands up to the passenger-side heating vent. “It took you a very long time to get here.”

“Fifteen minutes. I was on the other side of town. I caught all the red lights.”

“It was eighteen minutes,” Holly informs him as Hodges pulls into traffic. “Because you were speeding, which is counterproductive. If you keep your speed to exactly twenty miles an hour, you can catch almost all the lights. They’re timed. I’ve told you that several times. Now tell me what the doctor said. Did you get an A on your tests?”

Hodges considers his options, which are only two: tell the truth or prevaricate. Holly nagged him into going to the doctor because he’s been having stomach issues. Just pressure at first, now some pain. Holly may have personality problems, but she’s a very efficient nagger. Like a dog with a bone, Hodges sometimes thinks.