“The night of the accident, two young women were admitted to St. Jude Memorial,” Marcus said. “Both without photo ID. One was critical, with severe neurological trauma.

The other had facial trauma and severe memory loss, but was stable.”

Alexander felt the floor go out from under him. “Which one was Valerie?”

Marcus took a long beat. “For the first forty-eight hours, the stable patient had no name on her chart. Then she was registered as Maya Ross.”

“And the other girl?”

Marcus lowered his eyes. “The critical patient was registered — and pronounced dead — under the name Valerie Sterling.”