I woke up beneath hospital lights with no memory of how I had reached the emergency room.

Synopsis

Mara arrived at the hospital forty-seven minutes later wearing a charcoal suit beneath a raincoat, her black hair pulled into a low knot. She brought a laptop, a portable scanner, two folders, and the expression of a woman who had been waiting for me to stop protecting people who had never protected me. Mara and I had met four years earlier when Adrian’s…