The fact is that nurses wear sneakers and clogs. I turn to Troy and say, “A nurse would never wear heels.”

“And such ugly ones,” he says. But neither of us laughs. We both know we might be on to something. We both know we might be looking at the baby-napper…or at least looking at the baby-napper’s possibly blond hair and probably black heels.

We watch the very brief scene a few times. We determine by mutual agreement that the shoes are red, possibly purple.

During the fifth viewing, my phone sounds with a text.

I click, and the screen says, Birthing rm 4. ASAP. G. Leonard.

I show the screen to Troy.

“Do we have a mama called G. Leonard?” Troy asks.

“Never heard of her,” I say. “But it sounds like she’s in birthing room 4, and she’s about to have a baby.”

Chapter 24

Chapter 24

TROY PUSHES THE PAUSE button on the surveillance video, ejects the disc from my laptop, and we both rush toward birthing room 4.

“Who sent the alert about this G. Leonard woman?” Troy asks as we walk-run down the hallway.

“It was unsigned,” I said. “No name. It’s probably from ER. We’ll find out soon enough.”

Outside birthing room 4 is an unusually large group, even for these crazy times: two NYPD officers and two GUH Security people, plus two people in plain clothes. The cheap gray suits give them away as private security, Secret Service types. One woman with two cameras around her neck stands talking quietly to a guy who has a microphone attached to a fairly bulky recording apparatus. Nobody stops us from entering the room.

Standing around a birthing cot I see Dr. Lia Alba, a senior pediatrician. With her is Dr. Steve Swanbeck, a research neurologist. There is a third person—Dr. Rudra Sarkar. My eyes widen a bit as I look at the woman in the bed. Son of a bitch, it’s none other than internationally insanely famous Greta Moss, apparently now using the alias G. Leonard.

I should have known.

“You tricked me, goddamnit,” I say to Sarkar. “Your call sheet said you were up in the Bronx clinic all day.”

He smiles at me—boyish, charming, handsome—but it doesn’t work at all this time. I am way beyond furious.

“Forget it, Dr. Sarkar. Just forget it,” I say.

“You’re not going to leave us out here to dry, are you?” he asks.

“You bet your ass that I’m going to leave you out here to dry,” I say.

“But Ms. Moss is about to deliver,” Sarkar says.