Adeline had slashed her upper thighs. Going after her wrists had merely been act two. No, the main event had already happened before D.D. and Phil had burst through the door. Another move Adeline had stolen from her sister’s playbook.

“Adeline—”

“Shhh. All is as it should be.”

“You’re not your sister, dammit! You’re a good doctor. You help people. You helped me!”

Phil was on the radio now, requesting immediate medical assistance, but they wouldn’t be in time. Just like the SWAT team and backup. Everyone pouring in the building, charging up the stairs, storming into the unit.

All of them, each and every one of them, too late. Just as D.D. and Phil had been. Too late.

Phil was yanking down towels. D.D. ignored Adeline’s protest, ripping open the front of her robe to expose her gashed upper thighs. The femoral artery. Jesus. She couldn’t believe the woman had lasted this long.

Phil handed over more towels and she piled them on the wounds, pressing hard, her face so close to Adeline’s she could already feel the cool pallor of the woman’s bloodless skin.

“Hang on,” D.D. gasped. “Come on, Adeline. Fight for me, okay. You and me, taking on the Melvins of the world. It doesn’t have to be like this. It never had to be like this.”

Adeline’s hand moved against her. To help, to hinder? Instead, her cold fingers brushed against the back of D.D.’s hand.

“Hold . . . my hand?”

D.D. didn’t want to. She had to apply pressure. She had to fix this mess, heal these wounds. She had to save this woman because she was strong and intelligent and . . . and . . .

“Shit!”

She couldn’t do this. Adeline was dying. Really, already gone, and D.D. wanted so badly . . .

Phil nudged her aside. He took over pressing against the towels. They weren’t even that bloody because most had already drained out, onto the floor.

D.D. picked up Adeline’s hand. She cradled it on her lap.

Behind her, the SWAT team finally burst through the door in a stampede of pounding footsteps.

Adeline smiled, as if at a joke only she understood. Her eyelids fluttered down.

“It’s okay,” she whispered. “Where I’m going . . .”

She squeezed D.D.’s hand one last time.

And then she was gone.

Epilogue

Dear Detective Warren:

If you’re reading this, then the worst has come to pass.

The service was small, but that wasn’t really a surprise. Dr. Adeline Glen had lived a very private life. Upon her passing, there was only a handful of colleagues, a prison superintendent and a couple of Boston cops to bid her good-bye.