“What is it?” I reached for the page but she wouldn’t let go until I tugged it gently out of her grasp. It was a consent form from a doctor’s office for a dilation and curettage, dated September second. The last time I’d set eyes on my sister had been September fourth, just two days later. Reason for procedure: incomplete spontaneous abortion it said. I blinked and read it over again.

I could hear Claudia’s voice in my head. You think I just gave in to temptation, don’t you, Lily? That was what she’d said to me that night, when I’d confronted her. I’d assumed that she had been lying to me for months about getting off heroin. What if she’d been telling me the truth? I’ve been abandoned and I’ve lost every fucking thing I care about. But you don’t care, do you, Lily? You’re just horrified and ashamed. You didn’t even ask me what happened. You don’t even care why I’m like this. Guilt and shame coursed through my own veins. I’d never given a thought to the possibility that Claudia had gotten herself clean and had suffered a sudden relapse. She’d had a miscarriage and I hadn’t been there to help her.

“Pregnant. She was pregnant,” Sarah said, and I wasn’t sure if she was talking to herself or to me. Her hands were shaking. Before I could say anything, I heard a key in the door. Someone turned the cylinder of the first lock, then the second. Sarah froze in place but I moved forward, knife in hand, pointed in front of me at arm’s length.

“Put your hands up where I can see them,” I said.

There was a pause. “Lil? Is that you? It’s me.” The door pushed open and I saw my friend, his brown hair sticking out at all angles as if he’d hurtled out of bed in the middle of a nightmare.

“Jesse! What’s going on? You didn’t answer your phone!” My words came out in a jumble.

“Damn, I left my cell behind when I rushed out,” he said. “You gave me the fright of my life when you screamed and the line went dead. I called you back and it just went to voicemail. I gave myself a fright thinkin’ the worst.” He shook his head. “That’s some knife you got there.”

I hugged him and realized he wasn’t alone. A lurking, hulking shadow in the hallway behind him stepped forward. The dim hallway lights made his chestnut skin a couple of shades darker, and his obsidian eyes more intense. He always reminded me a little of Cary Grant, but darker and more formidable even in a well-cut suit. “Tariq?”