The loneliness was palpable, as real as an odor. When Sarah felt her stir she released her grip. Miriam sat back against the wall, took Sarah’s hand in hers, and kissed her fingers.

Now Sarah did think of the monitor. Embarrassed, she withdrew her hand. “Perhaps we’ll talk again after you’ve dressed,” she said as calmly as she could. “I’ll beep you when I’ve turned off the video.” She tried to smile. “You’re allowed to get dressed in private.”

Miriam seemed about to say something but Sarah did not wait to hear it. She was not at all sure why the creature seemed to compel such intimacy, but this was not the time to probe further. She retreated to the observation room, determined to be more careful in the future. Other patients were being awakened and the group around Miriam’s monitor was smaller. Phyllis Rockler and Charlie Humphries had arrived, however. They were talking heatedly with Geoff Williams, who waved his now-wrinkled sheet of blood component statistics as he spoke. When Sarah reappeared Geoff called out that Tom had gotten his core group together and a meeting was scheduled in the conference room.

Sarah followed standard procedure in killing Miriam Blaylock’s monitor during her dressing period. Mrs. Blaylock would have to be processed further by a resident. Sarah and Tom both had to attend the core conference. “Just don’t let her get out of here,” Sarah said to the eager kid who was assigned to the job. “She’s precious. Precious. I want the standard post-observation interview right off the form. Then stall her. Say we need her here for another twenty-four hours.” When she left for the conference the resident was scribbling on a clipboard. For an instant she allowed herself a privilege reserved for the successful, delighting in the fact that he was obviously a couple of years older than she. Life on a fast track had its compensations.

Sarah walked into a packed room. People looked disheveled, bleary-eyed. She wondered what Tom had said to pour so many senior men out of bed so early. Tom sat playing with an unlit cigar, which disappeared as she entered. She took the chair that Charlie and Phyllis had saved for her. Around the table were twelve people ranging in age from thirty to seventy. Hutch sat straight, his lips a thin line, his face frozen in a manufactured expression of curiosity. Underneath it Sarah sensed something else. Their eyes met and his sadness surprised her. So Tom’s assault was progressing. Hutch had not called this meeting, he was here by invitation only.