I showed up at the hospital to surprise my husband during his shift. But the second one of his coworkers saw me, all the color left his face. Then his eyes filled with tears. “He hasn’t said a word to you, has he?” Ben and I had been married eleven years, and for every one of those years, I had shared him with the hospital. He was a remarkably gifted surgeon.

“It was Dr.

Paul Miller who did it.”

My coffee cup slid out of my fingers, sending dark coffee across the granite counter.

Paul, of all people.

The man who had wept at the nurses’ station the afternoon before, telling me Brian was the best surgeon he’d ever worked beside.

The anesthesiologist who had been watching the vital signs in operating room three on the night Lucas Ortiz died.
PART 6

Paul and his wife, Karen, lived in a quiet suburban neighborhood with birch trees and neat driveways along every street.