Stride found Janine in her surgical office at St. Anne’s. The window behind her desk faced the expanse of Lake Superior. Wherever she went, she had a view. Her home, her condominium, and her office all looked out on the lake. He wondered whether she was even conscious of it being there day after day in all its changeable glory.

Janine waved him to a chair in front of her desk, but she wasn’t happy to see him. He could see an enlarged CT scan on the computer monitor in front of her, and she was reviewing a patient’s file. Her pretty face was intense, her normally lush blond hair tied back behind her head. This was what she did. She was a surgeon, and he was interrupting her.

‘It’s not a good time, Lieutenant,’ Janine snapped. ‘I can’t afford the distraction. I have a delicate operation this afternoon.’

‘I know.’

Her eyebrows flickered with annoyance. ‘Excuse me? You know?’

‘I checked your schedule.’

In the blink of an eye, her mind ran through calculations. He watched concern mingle with curiosity. ‘You should run anything you need by Archie. If you have questions, talk to him, not me. You know how it works.’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘So if you’ll excuse me, Lieutenant?’ she asked sharply.

Stride didn’t get up from the chair. He felt sadness that it had come to this. Dismantling anyone’s life was a task he hated, even when he had no choice. ‘This is a unique situation, Janine. I don’t have time to get a court order, so I’m relying on you to do the right thing.’

‘And what do you mean by that?’ she asked.

‘Cancel the surgery,’ Stride told her.

‘Cancel it? Jonathan, I’ve been patient with you because of Cindy, but maybe you don’t realize who I am or what I do here. I don’t perform elective surgery that can be squeezed in between vacations and golf games. A man’s life is at stake. Days count. Minutes count.’

‘Yes, I know. That’s why I’d like this to happen without confrontation. I don’t want to alarm a patient or a patient’s family by talking to them myself, but I will if necessary.’

‘And say what? What’s going on? Are you planning to arrest me?’

‘We don’t have a formal arrest warrant yet,’ he acknowledged, ‘but it’s in process. We’ll be working with Mr. Gale on a time for you to surrender yourself. However, this decision won’t wait. You need to cancel all of the surgeries on your calendar.’

‘Well, unless you plan to haul me out of the hospital in cuffs, I don’t see why—’

‘Please, Janine,’ he interrupted her. ‘Don’t make this harder on yourself or your patients. You know why.’