Wasting no time, Antonia stuck the key into the ignition and started the engine. It was just after seven o’clock on Saturday evening. She’d been on duty a full twelve hours. She was a trauma physician in the busy emergency room of a downtown Boston hospital. None of her cases today had been easy ones. But that was her job, and she was good at it—she was accustomed to dealing with its demands. She wasn’t one to go off the deep end and imagine things that hadn’t happened, draw the most dramatic conclusion to innocent events.

At least she’d never been that sort. Maybe the demands of the rest of her life had finally gotten to her. Demands like Hank Callahan, she thought. He was her dinner date that night. She’d been half in love with him for months, but their relationship had complications. Her work, his work. Her family. His past. Her past. Hank…

No. She couldn’t blame him—she wouldn’t.

She wasn’t hearing things or making up things that hadn’t happened. That was the problem. They were real.

Someone had just whispered her name in the parking garage.

She edged out of her space, glancing in the rearview mirror and side mirror every few yards as she made her way to the exit. She almost asked the parking attendant if he’d heard anything, but she knew he wouldn’t have. Once out on the street, she forced herself to take several deep breaths.

Yesterday, it had been an anonymous instant message. The third in a row. Your patients trust you, Dr. Winter. What if you betrayed their trust?

All were on the same theme. A doctor’s trust. A doctor’s betrayal of that trust. Without going into detail, she’d asked a friend more familiar with computers than she was about instant messages, and he’d said that tracking down an instant messenger who wanted to remain anonymous was very difficult, if not impossible.

There was nothing overtly threatening in the messages. And certainly no mention of Hank Callahan, a candidate for an open U.S. Senate seat from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The election was the first Tuesday in November, less than two months away. If the messages had mentioned him, Antonia would have to report them, tell Hank. She didn’t want to cause an unnecessary stir—she wanted a sensible explanation for what was going on. If something was going on. She still didn’t want to believe someone was trying to get under her skin. Creep her out.

But who would want to?

Why?

Was someone stalking her?