Chapter 1
Part 2: “There are police and reporters everywhere.”
“Ah.”
“You’re not going to ask why?”
“I’m a Chicago ER nurse, Luca. I know when not to ask questions.”
He glanced at her.
“You’re surprisingly calm.”
“I spent tonight with a drunk guy who tried to bite a paramedic and a woman who threw a bedpan at me because I wouldn’t let her vape beside an oxygen tank. You’re not even top five.”
A laugh escaped him before he could stop it.
It startled both of them.
By the time Luca reached Nina’s building, the sky was beginning to turn gray.
She gathered her bag.
“Thanks for not murdering me.”
“High praise.”
“And thanks for the juice.”
She opened the door, then turned back.
“Keep some in the car.”
“Why?”
“You look like the kind of man who forgets other people are human until they’re inconveniently sitting beside you.”
Luca stared at her.
Nina pointed at the bottle.
“Someone else might need it.”
Then she got out.
“Nina.”
She looked back.
“How do you know my last name?”
He nodded toward the hospital badge clipped to her pocket.
She looked down.
“Kowalski. Right.”
“Get some sleep, Nurse Kowalski.”
She smiled faintly.
“It’s morning, Luca.”
Then she disappeared into the building.
Gus’s SUV stopped behind him.
He walked up to Luca’s window.
For several seconds, he simply stared at the empty passenger seat.
Finally, Gus said, “That was Sophie’s seat.”
“I know.”
“You haven’t let anyone sit there since—”
“I know.”
Gus looked toward the building.
“Who is she?”
Luca watched a light switch on three floors above the laundromat.
“I have no idea.”
Four days later, Nina learned exactly who he was.
She was covering the surgical floor when another nurse cornered her beside the medication room.
“Honey.”
Nina hated when Beth started sentences with honey.
“What?”
Beth pointed discreetly toward the hall.
A dozen men in dark jackets occupied the corridor outside room 712.
At the center stood Luca.
“That,” Beth whispered, “is Luca Moretti.”
Nina shrugged.
“I know.”
Beth nearly dropped her clipboard.
“You know?”
“He gave me orange juice.”
Beth stared at her.
“Nina.”
“What?”
“Half the city crosses the street when Luca Moretti walks toward them.”
Nina glanced at him.
Luca was talking quietly with an elderly man carrying a leather briefcase.
“At four in the morning, he couldn’t figure out how to open a juice bottle without shaking.”
Beth blinked.
“What?”
“In here he’s somebody’s uncle.”
Nina walked toward room 712.
Luca saw her approaching.
For one brief second, the expression Chicago feared disappeared.
“You ate?”
Nina stopped.
“That’s what you say after four days?”
“You didn’t answer.”
“Breakfast.”
“When?”
“This morning.”
“What?”
“A bagel.”
“Whole bagel?”