I paused, keys in hand, and leaned my head briefly against the door to my place. I was tired, but curiously disinterested in sleep. I've always been a day person, thoroughly addicted to early rising and morning sunshine in a nine-to-five world. I might work late on occasion, but for the most part I'm home by early evening and sound asleep by eleven. Tonight, yet again, I was nudged by restlessness. Some long suppressed aspect of my personality was being activated, and I could feel myself respond. I wanted to talk to Serena Bonney, the nurse who'd discovered Lorna's body. Somewhere in the accumulating verbal portrait of Lorna Kepler was the key to her death. I went back through the gate and closed it quietly behind me.

The emergency room had an air of abandonment. The sliding glass doors opened with a hush, and I moved into the quiet of the blue-and-gray space. There were lights on in the reception area, but the patient registration windows had been closed for hours. To the left, behind a small partition with its wall-mounted pay telephones, the waiting room was empty, the TV a square of blank gray. I peered to the right, toward the examining rooms. Most were dark, with the surrounding curtains pulled back and secured on overhead tracks. I could smell freshly perked coffee wafting from a little kitchenette at the rear of the facility. A young black woman in a white lab coat came out of a doorway marked "Linens." She was small and pretty. She paused when she spotted me, flashing a smile. "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know anyone was here. Can I help you?"

"I'm looking for Serena Bonney. Is she working this shift?"

The woman glanced at her watch. "She should be back shortly. She's on her break. You want to have a seat? The TV's on the blink, but there's lots of reading material."

"Thanks."