“Yeah, the news that the First Amendment is DOA. We have to clear anything we print through them. Turds! And so’s my editor. Bitch just nodded and blinked, and said the rules have changed and we need to follow them if we’re going to bring people the news.”

His words brought my own police interrogation back to me. That was the question nagging at me, the woman from Emergency Management wanting to know what Sister Frances had told me about Harmony Newsome. I lay back against the mattress, feeling sick again. OEM already knew about Harmony Newsome when they talked to me.

In halting words, I explained why I’d been at the Freedom Center: the old murder, the search for Lamont. And the fact that OEM already knew about my interest in Harmony Newsome before their investigator talked to me.

“Is that because they were monitoring Sister Frankie’s calls?” I finished. “Or mine? Or both? Murray, if she died because I was there—”

“Hey, hey, Wonder Woman, don’t get all weepy now,” Murray protested.

I couldn’t help it. The doubts that had nagged me all summer about my personality, why I couldn’t keep a relationship alive. Did I bring destruction to everyone around me?

27 - IN THE FIRED HOUSE

27

IN THE FIRED HOUSE

LOTTY SAILED INTO MY ROOM JUST THEN, FOLLOWED BY two of the residents and a medical student. Lotty sent Murray out of the room with a comment that stung like the snap of a whip.

I fumbled for tissues on the cart next to me. Lotty found the box but warned me not to rub my eyes.

“How did Ryerson get in here at all?” she demanded. “What is going on in this hospital, that I give a specific order only to have it overridden? I have expressly forbidden any visitors in your room to make sure neither reporters nor police harass you. You didn’t invite Murray in, did you?”

She had two fingers on the pulse in my neck. “This is why you can’t have visitors. You’re vulnerable. You shouldn’t be crying like this. And they tell me you disappeared this afternoon while I was in surgery. Was that to organize this rendezvous?”

“I went down to the coffee shop for an espresso, and the trip did me in. I fell asleep in a chair and didn’t know people were paging me.”

I didn’t like lying to Lotty, but it was sort of the truth. I wondered if she was right, though. I wondered if I’d wanted to see Murray. I could have reported him to hospital security when I spotted him in the lobby, but I didn’t. Maybe my unconscious brain was hoping he’d track me down.