Every innocent explanation I reached for dissolved the instant I tested it against the facts, and what remained, once I had ruled out everything else, was a single unbearable conclusion: that someone who knew what would kill Jessi Vance had gone to considerable trouble to make it happen, and had disguised it as the one thing that would raise no questions at all — a tragic flare-up of a pre-existing allergy in a careful woman who simply, one night, was not careful enough.

It was nearly perfect.

If a different doctor had been on rotation, one who did not know her history, it would have been perfect.

She would have been buried as a medical misfortune, and no one would ever have asked a single question.

Chapter 5 — The Performance

Twenty minutes later, Luca arrived in the emergency department, his coat hanging open, his hair somehow both disheveled and perfect, wearing the face of a husband whose world was ending.

“Ivan!